續高僧傳 25.53

25.53

Śramaṇa Huitian was a native of Shangdang. He observed the Vinaya in purity and truth, firm and unshakeable. He resided at Yuankaifu Temple within the commandery, solitary and quiet in a single room, taking meditation and repentance as his practice. It happened that in the sixth year of Jiande of the Zhou, the state eradicated the Triratna. Huitian carried scriptures and images, hiding in deep mountains. He met with bandits who wished to rob him, but at first was unaware of it. Suddenly he saw a man over ten feet tall, with a handsome beard and face, wearing a gauze hat, a blue-green robe, a nine-ringed gold belt, and chimo leather boots, riding a white horse with a vermilion mane. Coming straight from the mountain peak to the front of Huitian, he dismounted and said: 'Tonight bandits will arrive; Master, you should urgently flee.' Huitian, living beneath a hanging cliff, had no other way out. Suspecting this was a mountain spirit, he said: 'Now that the Buddhadharma has been destroyed, this poor monk has no place to lodge his body, so I have come to take refuge with you, dānapati. Now that bandits are coming, I might as well meet death here; where else should I flee?' The spirit said: 'Since the Master has come from afar to take refuge with this disciple, this disciple can also protect the Master. Just stay here.' Then he vanished. That night, heavy snow suddenly fell to a depth of about a zhang, and he thus avoided the bandit calamity. Later, when the bands of bandits went there again, the spirit informed various villages below the mountain, saying: 'Bandits wish to rob Master Tian; go together quickly to rescue him.' Thereupon, each bearing weapons, they entered the mountain. Encountering them on the path, they fought and dispersed the bandits in fright. From this time onward, Huitian relied on him daily to pursue his practice in peace on the mountain heights. His end is unknown.