神僧傳 2.18

2.18

Śramaṇa Fa'an, also named Ciqin, was of unknown origin. He was a disciple of Master Huiyuan. He was skilled in upholding the vinaya practices, lecturing on the various sūtras, and also practicing the work of dhyāna. He was well able to instruct the ignorant and deluded, plucking them from heterodoxy and returning them to the correct. During the Yixi era of the Jin dynasty, there was a plague of tigers in Xinyang County. The county had a large altar tree under which a spirit shrine was built. The residents around it numbered in the hundreds; every night one or two people were killed by tigers. Fa'an once traveled through that county and lodged in this village at dusk. The people, fearing the tigers, had closed their gates early. Fa'an went straight beneath the tree and sat in dhyāna throughout the night. Toward dawn, he heard a tiger carrying a person arrive and cast him to the north of the tree. Seeing Fa'an, it appeared both pleased and startled, leaping and crouching before Fa'an. Fa'an preached the Dharma and conferred the precepts upon it; the tiger crouched on the ground without moving, and after a while it left. At daybreak, the villagers tracking the tiger reached the base of the tree and were greatly astonished to see Fa'an, taking him to be a divine person. The news then spread throughout the county, and gentry and commoners alike revered him. The tiger plague ceased as a result. Consequently, they transformed the spirit shrine and invited Fa'an to remain and establish a monastery, relinquishing the surrounding fields and gardens to become communal property. Later, wishing to make painted images, he needed copper green (verdigris) but was distressed at being unable to obtain any. At night he dreamed of a person approaching his bed, who said, "Under here are bronze bells." Upon waking, he dug there and indeed found two of them; he thus used their verdigris to complete the images. Later, he used one bell to assist Master Huiyuan in casting a Buddha statue; the remaining one was borrowed by Xiong Wuhuan, the Grand Administrator of Wuchang, to view, who then kept it. Fa'an's ultimate end is unknown.