神僧傳 9.55

9.55

釋悟新。姓王氏。韶州曲江人也。魁岸黑面如梵僧狀。依佛陀院落髮。以氣節蓋眾好面折人。初住雲嵒。已而遷翠嵒。舊有淫祠。鄉人禳禬酒胾汪穢無虛日。新誡知事毀之。知事辭以不敢掇禍。新怒曰。使能作禍吾自當之。乃躬自毀折。俄有巨蟒蟠臥內。引首作吞噬之狀。新叱之而遁。安寢無他。未幾再領雲嵒。建經藏。太史黃公庭堅為作記。有以其親墓誌鑱於碑陰者。新恚怒曰。陵侮不避禍若是。語未卒靈光翻屋雷擊自戶入析其碑陰中分之。視之已成灰燼。而藏記安然無損。晚還住黃龍。學者雲委。屬疾退居晦堂。政和五年十二月十五日泊然而逝。訃聞諸方衲子為之嗚咽流涕。茶毘得舍利五色。閱世七十二。坐四十五夏。塔于晦堂之後。

Śramaṇa Wuxin was surnamed Wang and was a native of Qujiang in Shaozhou. He was imposing and dark-faced, resembling an Indian monk. Relying on Fotuo Cloister, he shaved his head. With moral courage surpassing the crowd, he liked to rebuke people to their faces. He first resided at Yunyan, and soon moved to Cuiyan. Formerly, there had been an improper shrine there; the local villagers held sacrificial purifications with wine and meat, spreading filth without a day's pause. Xin instructed the administrator to destroy it, but the administrator declined, not daring to invite disaster. Xin said angrily, "If it can cause disaster, I shall bear it myself!" He then personally destroyed it. Soon, a giant python coiled within his bedchamber, lifting its head as if to swallow him. Xin shouted at it, and it fled. He slept peacefully without incident. Before long, he again oversaw Yunyan and built a sūtra repository. Grand Scribe Lord Huang Tingjian composed an inscription for it. Someone carved an epitaph for his own parent on the back of the stele. Xin said in furious anger, "To commit such an insult without fearing disaster, like this!" Before he had finished speaking, a divine light overturned the roof, and a thunderbolt entered through the door, splitting the back of the stele right down the middle; looking at it, it had already turned to ashes, while the repository inscription remained safe and undamaged. In his late years, he returned to reside at Huanglong, and students gathered like clouds. Falling ill, he retired to live at Huitang. On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month in the fifth year of the Zhenghe reign era, he peacefully passed away. When the obituary was heard, the patched-robe monks of the various directions wept and shed tears. Cremating him yielded five-colored relics. He lived for seventy-two years and saw forty-five rains retreats. A stūpa was built for him behind Huitang.