高僧傳 5.35

5.35

Yi often lamented that although the temple had been established and the monks were sufficient, the sacred images were still few. The forms and appearances made by King Aśoka possessed many divine omens and were distributed throughout the various quarters; how was it that he had no spiritual response and could not summon one? Thereupon, with concentrated diligence and earnest sorrow, he prayed for a sincere response. On the eighth day of the second month in the nineteenth year of the Taiyuan era of the Jin dynasty (a jiawu year), an image suddenly appeared north of the city, its light and radiance shooting into the sky. At that time, the monks of Baima Temple went first to receive it, but could not make it move. Yi then went, paid reverent homage, and said to the assembly: "This must be an image of King Aśoka, descending to our Changsha Temple." He then ordered three disciples to hold and receive it, and it rose effortlessly into the air. They welcomed it back to their own temple, while monastics and laypeople rushed to the scene, their carriages and horses creating a thunderous din. Later, when the Kashmiri dhyāna master Saṃghananda came down from Shu and entered the temple to pay homage, he saw Brāhmī characters on the image's halo and said: "This is an image of King Aśoka; when did it come here?" Those of the time who heard this only then knew that Yi had not been mistaken. He died at the age of eighty-two. On the day of his death, the image's round halo suddenly underwent a miraculous transformation and vanished, no one knowing where it went. Monastics and laypeople all considered this to be a spiritual resonance with Yi.