神僧傳 3.40

3.40

Shi Huitian's clan was not known. He resided at Yuanmen Temple in Shangdang, keeping the precepts with absolute sincerity and taking dhyāna and repentance as his occupation. Later, when the state destroyed the Three Jewels, Huitian embraced the sūtras and images and hid in the deep mountains. Bandits came wishing to rob him, but at first he was unaware. Suddenly he saw a person over a zhang tall, with a handsome face and beard, wearing fine clothes, riding a white horse with a red mane, who came straight from the mountain peak to Huitian. Dismounting, he said to him, "Tonight bandits will arrive; Master, you should flee quickly." Huitian lived beneath a sheer cliff where there was no other path. Suspecting he was a mountain spirit, he said, "Now that the Buddha's Dharma is destroyed, this poor monk has no place to shelter his body, so I came to rely on you, patron. Now that bandits are coming, I might as well meet death right here; where else should I flee?" The spirit said, "Since the Master has come from afar to take refuge with your disciple, your disciple can also protect the Master." Thereupon he vanished. That night, heavy snow suddenly fell, more than a zhang deep. Because the snow was deep and the path blocked, he escaped the calamity of the bandits. Later, when the sky cleared and the road opened, the bandits returned. The spirit then warned the villages below the mountain, saying, "Bandits want to rob Master Huitian; you must go quickly to rescue him together!" They each took up weapons, entered the mountain, and fought off the bandits, who were startled and dispersed. Every day he constantly relied on divine power to pursue his practice peacefully in the mountains, and his end was unknown.