佛祖統紀 28.31

28.31

Jiang Gongwang was a native of Diaotai. He served as Policy Monitor. Having passed the examinations in his youth, he ate vegetarian food and cultivated purity, composing the Puti wen (Text on Bodhi) and Nianfo fangbian wen (Expedient Means of Recollecting the Buddha) to exhort both clergy and laity. He had a son who died young, who appeared to his maternal uncle in a dream, saying: 'I wish to petition my father to please visit Tianning Temple and read the Ratnakūṭa Sūtra, so that I may be born in a good destination. My father's cultivation and merit are already accomplished; in the underworld there is a gold-lettered plaque that reads: "Jiang Gongwang of Yanzhou: in person he holds an eminent post of remonstrance, yet in aspiration he longs for suffering and emptiness; he personally attends to fragrant cultivation, and his mind is free of attachment and defilement; whether active or still, he never forgets the Buddha's Dharma; in speech and discussion, he never departs from the ancestral traditions; his name is already released in advance from the dark barriers; his body will surely return to the Pure Land."' At the end of the Xuanhe era, he was appointed Governor of the Guande Military Prefecture. One morning, without illness, he sat upright facing west and passed away.