佛祖統紀 5.16

5.16

The Ninth Patriarch, the Venerable Monk Pārśva, was a man of Central India. Due to past karma, he remained in his mother's womb for sixty years. When he was born, his beard and hair were already white. He abhorred the five desires and took no pleasure in household life. His father took him to see Mitra and said, 'This child remained in the womb for sixty years, and is therefore named Nansheng ("Hard to Bear"). I once met a physiognomist who said he was a vessel of the Dharma. I wish for him to seek ordination.' On the day he received the precepts, an auspicious light illuminated the seat, and twenty-one relics were elicited; right upon his seat, he attained the arhat state. In his diligent ascetic practice, his ribs never touched the mat; hence he was called at the time 'Monk Pārśva' (Ribs). There was a non-Buddhist who saw light radiating from the Master's hand as he retrieved sūtras in the dark; he immediately abandoned the heterodox to return to the correct, and attained realization of the trace of the Way. When his karmic conditions for transforming beings were nearing their end, he manifested eighteen transformations and entered nirvāṇa. The assembly gathered his relics and built a stupa to make offerings to them (from the *Fu fazang jing*).