神僧傳 9.6

9.6

Śramaṇa Zhiguang, whose secular surname was Cui, was of unknown origin. His vase of virtue was originally intact, and his roots in the Way were exceptionally firm. His transforming influence spread in Hongya, where he displayed especially wondrous traces. Whenever persons suffering from any of the hundred illnesses came to him, he would take a piece of bamboo as a staff and point it at the source of their pain, or strike it once, and none failed to be cured on the spot. Those who were bedridden arose, and those who were lame ran. Thereafter, his divine efficacy became all the more pronounced. Sometimes, when encountering sick people, with a single slap and a single shout, they all stood up. Or he would have paper spirit money burned and food and drink distributed. Or when encountering those in extreme pain and distress, he would twist paper, dip it in water, and stick it [upon them], and they were also cured. He once walked along the Jiangdu Pool, recited mantras over food, and fed it to the fish. Overnight, those fish that were two spans or more in length—tens of thousands of them—all floated to the water's surface and died. This was merely following the example of Jalavāhana saving the ten thousand fish so that they were reborn in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven. From the beginning of the Xiantong era, he reached Mount Jiuzuo. Suddenly, he encountered an enormous python that came wishing to swallow the master. The master's ring-staff flew up of itself and propped open its jaws. The master entered its mouth, sat cross-legged, and entered samādhi. A spirit came to confess its fault, but the master did not look back at it. When he emerged from samādhi, the python had turned to stone. Following this, great thunder and rain arose, sand welled up to form land, and the mountain spirit moved the mountain, the eight directions shading and reflecting one another. In the third year of the Qianfu era, he manifested his passing into quiescence.