宋高僧傳 11.44

11.44

系曰：蜃蛤中胡得菩薩像乎？通曰：「有所警發，時一現耳。近聞偽唐李氏國境荐饑，陂湖間多生蠯蚌，百姓競取而食。其年免殍仆者十有七八。明年豐，民猶采之。無何，有獲巨蚌可二尺餘，提歸，擘磔擊[卄/瀹]，曾無少損。其人呪垂放之，俄自開張，吐出佛像，長僅尺許，相好具全，若真珠色，號曰：『珠佛』焉。獻李氏，後遺與梵僧焉。此意所不及處現形者，蓋經中化肉山、魚米以資饑饉。歲既豐登，胡不屬厭，故現相止足之地。」

The appraisal states: How could an image of a bodhisattva appear within a clam? The explanation goes: "It appears only occasionally to provide a spiritual awakening. Recently, I heard that during successive famines within the borders of the Southern Tang under the Li family, many large mussels and clams grew in the lakes and pools, and the common people competed to gather and eat them. That year, seventy to eighty percent of those who would have starved to death were spared. The following year brought abundance, yet the people still gathered them. Before long, someone caught a giant clam over two feet long; taking it home, he chopped, struck, and boiled it, but it suffered not the slightest damage. The man chanted an incantation and was about to release it when it suddenly opened of its own accord and brought forth an image of the Buddha, nearly a foot long, complete with bodily marks, lustrous as the color of a pearl, and called the 'Pearl Buddha.' It was presented to the Li ruler and later bestowed upon an Indian monk. This manifestation in a place beyond conception is like the scriptures describing transformations into mountains of flesh or fish and rice to relieve famine. When the harvest was plentiful, why were they not satisfied? Hence, the form manifested to bring about contentment."