高僧傳 12.7

12.7

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.