佛祖統紀 26.46

26.46

Fa'an initially relied upon Master Yuan as his disciple. He was wondrously skilled at lecturing and also practiced dhyāna, disciplining his person and upholding the precepts with particularly refined practice. During the Yixi era, in the settlement of Xinyang, there was a violent tiger living beneath a tree at a local shrine, which had harmed people numbered in the hundreds before and after. When An traveled to that village, the residents had all closed their doors early. He went beneath the tree and sat in dhyāna. In a moment, the tiger arrived carrying a person; seeing An, it was startled, then pleased, jumping and crouching down. An then expounded the Dharma and conferred the precepts upon it, and after a while it left. The next morning, when the residents saw An, they thought he was a spiritual man and together paid homage and respect to him. Consequently, they transformed the local shrine into a monastery and invited An to dwell there, donating all surrounding fields and gardens as monastery property. Once, wishing to paint images, he needed verdigris and worried that it could not be obtained. Suddenly he dreamed of a person kneeling before his bed, saying: "Beneath this place there are bronze bells." Upon awakening, he dug there and indeed found two bells. He took the green patina to make the images, and used the bronze to help Master Yuan cast a Buddha statue. Later, his whereabouts became unknown.