釋鑑稽古略續集 1.227

1.227

高皇帝　先句容人。祖渡淮考遷太平生四子。上季子也。先是陳太后。夢一神人朱衣象笏餽丸藥。光照室吞之。既覺異香襲體遂娠焉。乃誕異香紅光凝結不散。時大曆元年戊辰九月十八日也。仁祖取水洗兒忽有紅羅。來自上流取為兒褓。自是室中常有異光。生數日不食。求醫遇一僧詢故告之。僧曰。夜子時食矣。忽不見。夜半果食。兒時多病。仁祖欲度為僧。太后不欲。年十七父母三兄相繼歿。上孤孑乃遵先志。托身皇覺寺後出游。道病有兩紫衣人。與俱助其寢食病愈而去。甞夜陷麻湖。群兒呼迎聖駕。叱之丕見。崎嶇多載。仍歸寺中。年二十五值兵亂。問筊於伽藍。祝曰。避難吉陽。守舊吉陰。筊乃一陰一陽更祝。出居不可起義乎。筊從之。再祝筊躍立香爐上　帝入濠見郭子興。興見狀貌奇之與語大悅。取為親兵日益敬信。以馬后妻之。命掌征伐之事。一統之業基於此矣。

Emperor Gao was originally a man of Jurong. His grandfather crossed the Huai, and his deceased father moved to Taiping, fathering four sons, of whom His Majesty was the youngest. Before this, Empress Dowager Chen dreamed of a divine being in crimson robes holding an ivory tablet, who offered her a pill of medicine that illuminated the room with light; she swallowed it. After waking, an extraordinary fragrance enveloped her body, and she became pregnant. When he was born, an extraordinary fragrance and red light congealed and did not disperse; the time was the eighteenth day of the ninth month in the wuchen year, the first year of the Dali reign era. Emperor Renzu fetched water to wash the child, when suddenly a length of red silk floated down from upstream; he took it to swaddle the baby. From that time on, an extraordinary light often filled the room. For several days after birth he would not eat; seeking a physician, they met a monk who inquired about the reason, and they told him. The monk said: "He will eat at the midnight hour (zi)." Suddenly the monk was gone. At midnight, the infant indeed ate. In childhood he was sickly; Emperor Renzu wished to ordain him as a monk, but the Empress Dowager was unwilling. When he was seventeen, his parents and three elder brothers passed away one after another. Left solitary and helpless, His Majesty complied with the former intention and entrusted himself to Huangjue Monastery. Later, when traveling, he fell ill on the road; two men in purple garments accompanied him, helping him with his sleeping and eating, and departed once his illness was cured. Once, he fell into Lake Ma at night; a crowd of children cried out, welcoming the sacred carriage, but when he rebuked them, they were gone. After many years of rugged wandering, he returned to the monastery. At age twenty-five, encountering the chaos of war, he consulted the divination blocks before the Sangharāma guardian deity. He prayed, saying: "To flee disaster is auspicious: show yang. To stay where I am is auspicious: show yin." The blocks showed one yin and one yang. He prayed again: "If I cannot stay, should I join the uprising?" The blocks assented to this. Praying yet again, the blocks leaped up and stood erect upon the incense burner. The Emperor went to Haozhou and met Guo Zixing. Xing was amazed by his extraordinary appearance and was greatly pleased in speaking with him. He took him into his personal guard, respecting and trusting him more each day, gave the future Empress Ma to him as his wife, and ordered him to take charge of military campaigns. The enterprise of unification had its foundation here.