六祖大師法寶壇經 1.183

1.183

師入塔後，至開元十年壬戌八月三日，夜半忽聞塔中如拽鐵索聲。眾僧驚起，見一孝子從塔中走出，尋見師頸有傷，具以賊事聞于州縣。縣令楊侃、刺史柳無忝，得牒切加擒捉。五日於石角村捕得賊人，送韶州鞠問。云：「姓張名淨滿，汝州梁縣人。於洪州開元寺，受新羅僧金大悲錢二十千，令取六祖大師首，歸海東供養。」柳守聞狀，未即加刑，乃躬至曹溪，問師上足令韜曰：「如何處斷？」韜曰：「若以國法論，理須誅夷。但以佛教慈悲冤親平等，況彼求欲供養，罪可恕矣。」柳守加歎曰：「始知佛門廣大。」遂赦之。

After the Master was entombed in the stupa, in the tenth year of Kaiyuan, the renxu year [722 CE], on the third day of the eighth month, in the middle of the night there was suddenly heard from within the stupa a sound like pulling an iron chain. The monks were startled awake and saw a filial son [mourner] rushing out from the stupa. Immediately looking [closely], they found that the Master's neck had been injured. They fully reported the affair of the thief to the prefecture and county. The county magistrate Yang Kan and the prefect Liu Wutian, upon receiving the report, made an urgent effort to capture him. On the fifth day, they captured the thief at Shijiao Village and sent him to Shaozhou for interrogation. He said: "My surname is Zhang and my personal name is Jingman, a man of Liang County in Ruzhou. At Kaiyuan Monastery in Hongzhou, I accepted twenty thousand cash from the Silla monk Jin Dabei, who ordered me to take the head of the Great Master the Sixth Patriarch and return to the East of the Sea to make offerings to it." Prefect Liu heard this statement and did not immediately impose punishment. Instead, he personally went to Caoxi and asked the Master's senior disciple Lingtao: "How should this be judged?" Lingtao said: "If considered according to the law of the state, in principle he should be executed. But according to the compassion of the Buddhist teaching, which treats enemies and kin as equal—especially since he sought it with the desire to make offerings—his offense may be pardoned." Prefect Liu sighed in admiration and said: "Only now do I know the vastness of the Buddhist gate!" Thereupon he pardoned him.