佛祖統紀 42.26

42.26

In the sixth year, a man in Chang'an was walking at night past the tomb of King Mu of Zhou. He saw someone descending from the sky in red robes, holding a court tablet, and crying out, "Where is the tomb magistrate?" Two officers emerged from the tomb and said, "Here." The red-robed figure said, "When will the envoy recording the Soul of the Lord of the Western Sea arrive?" The officers said, "Estimating the journey, in about eighteen days." The red-robed figure said, "Why is he delayed like this?" The officers said, "Because Li Yan destroyed the Buddhist teachings, his lifespan has been curtailed and he is stripped of his throne; his soul is to be recorded together with that of the Lord of the Western Sea." As the bells of merchants arriving from the east sounded, the red-robed figure and the two officers suddenly vanished. A few days later, the Emperor indeed fell ill and died (Taiping guangji). Lu Zhen, Mentor to the Crown Prince, had a son who had once been a monk and was appointed Adjutant in the Prince of Guang's retinue due to the purge. One night he dreamed that his former master came to his home. Lu said to him, "This petty and trivial office is not my wish; I constantly think of donning the black robes again, but know not on what day." The master said, "The restoration is imminent; you should keep your resolve firm." Presently, he saw banners and ten thousand horsemen shouting as they approached, saying, "We welcome the Prince of Guang to become the Son of Heaven" (Comprehensive Record). In the fifth month, an imperial decree appointed Yang Qinyi as Commissioner of Merit and Virtue for the Left and Right Streets, ordering that eight temples be added to each of the two streets, and that the monks and nuns ordained be issued certificates by the Bureau of Sacrifices as before. It was decreed that on the death anniversaries of successive sage emperors, [officials] were to visit Buddhist temples to offer incense just as in the old regulations. Because the Daoists had deluded and disrupted the previous reign and destroyed the Buddhist teachings, an imperial decree directed Commissioner of Merit and Virtue Yang Qinyi to arrest Zhao Guizhen, Liu Yuanqing, Deng Yuanchao, and others—twelve men in all—and execute them together at the imperial court, displaying their severed heads and corpses.