神僧傳 9.4

9.4

Śramaṇa Huaixin lived in Guangling, and there were no other miraculous traces of him. In the third year of the Huichang era, the guihai year, Emperor Wuzong was influenced by Zhao Guizhen to disparage and destroy the Buddhist order, intending to annihilate the teachings. Liu Yinzhi, a man of letters from Huainan, was traveling casually in Siming. On a night when his boat was anchored on his journey, he dreamt as if floating on the sea. Looking back, he saw a pagoda crossing to the east; it was the pagoda of Xiling Monastery in Huainan. The height and majesty of this pagoda was only slightly less than Empress Dowager Hu's Yongning Pagoda. On the third level of the pagoda, he saw Xin leaning against the balustrade, conversing with Yinzhi, and saying, "I am temporarily escorting the pagoda across the Eastern Sea, and will return in ten days." A few days later, Yinzhi returned to Yangzhou and immediately went to visit Xin. Xin said, "Do you remember when we met upon the sea?" Yinzhi was clearly awakened to it. A few days later, heavenly fire burned the pagoda down completely, while white rain poured down heavily; an adjacent thatched hall suffered no damage at all. Viewed from this, that people of the Eastern Sea saw the Yongning Pagoda was not mistaken.