佛祖統紀 43.55

43.55

In the second year, the construction of the precious pagoda at Kaibao Temple was completed. It had eight sides and eleven stories, standing three hundred and sixty feet high. Above were placed a thousand buddhas and ten thousand bodhisattvas, and beneath the pagoda a heavenly palace was built to enshrine the King Aśoka Buddha Relic Pagoda. All of this was constructed by the pagoda master Yu Hao of Hangzhou, taking eight years in all to finish. It was bestowed the name Pagoda Cloister of Auspicious Victory. On the day the relics were enshrined, the Emperor went incognito in a sedan chair and personally enshrined them with his own hands. A white light arose from one corner of the small pagoda, and the great pagoda emitted light that illuminated heaven and earth. Scholars and commoners offering incense and presentations filled the roadways. Several tens of palace attendants requested to renounce householder life to sweep the pagoda. The Emperor said to his close ministers: "In a past life I was once personally close to the Buddha's seat; I merely have not yet awakened to the knowledge of past lives." An imperial decree directed Zhu Ang of the Hanlin Academy to compose an inscription for the pagoda, saying to him: "Confucians often look down upon Buddhism. Earlier, when the Central Indian monk Fayu requested an inscription to be erected for the Diamond Seat of the Buddha in his home country (that is, the diamond earthen terrace beneath the bodhi tree), Academician Su Yijian composed it and referred to the Buddha as a barbarian. I disliked his lack of deference and thus ordered someone else to compose it. You should keep this intention in mind."