高僧傳 12.7

12.7

宋初彭城駕山下虎災，村人遇害，日有一兩。稱乃謂村人曰：「虎若食我，災必當消。」村人苦諫不從，即於是夜，獨坐草中，呪願曰：「以我此身，充汝飢渴，令汝從今息怨害意，未來當得無上法食。」村人知其意正，各泣拜而還。至四更中，聞虎取稱，村人逐至南山，噉身都盡，唯有頭在，因葬而起塔，爾後虎災遂息。

At the beginning of the Song dynasty, there was a plague of tigers below Mount Jia in Pengcheng; villagers were killed, one or two each day. Tancheng then said to the villagers, 'If the tigers eat me, the disaster will surely subside.' The villagers bitterly remonstrated, but he would not listen; that very night he sat alone among the grass and made this vow: 'May I use this body of mine to satisfy your hunger and thirst, causing you from now on to extinguish malicious thoughts of harm, and in the future to attain the unsurpassed food of the Dharma!' Knowing the purity of his resolve, the villagers each wept, bowed, and returned. Around the fourth watch, they heard a tiger take Tancheng. The villagers pursued it to the southern mountain; the tiger had devoured his entire body, leaving only his head. Thereupon they buried it and erected a stūpa, and thereafter the tiger disaster finally ceased.