弘贊法華傳 10.5

10.5

Xiao Ziliang was a native of Nanlanling, enfeoffed as the King of Jingling. In the seventh year of the Yongming era of the Qi, Master Zhi went to the King of Jingling with four thousand cash to hold an eightfold precept retreat. He said to the king, 'You may invite Yunfu, for he is a true monastic.' The king then invited Fu as a spiritual friend to produce a thousand copies of the Lotus Sūtra together with the king. The king dreamt that a person asked him, 'Do you desire to attain merit?' The king said, 'I desire it.' [The person] then pointed to merit within the water. The king stepped into the water and obtained a scroll of the Lotus Sūtra. Upon waking, he felt profound joy. He thereupon cleansed himself inwardly and outwardly, and hand-copied one set of the Lotus Sūtra and one set of the Guanshiyin [Sūtra]. The Heir Apparent, the Prince of Baling, also hand-copied one set of the Lotus Sūtra. Fu again dreamt that a person riding a white horse came through the sky from the east and conferred an auspicious banner upon Fu. Furthermore, at the end of the fourth month in the eleventh year of the Yongming era, he dreamt that a person delivered a scroll of a sūtra, saying: 'There is an error in the text.' The next day, he happened to obtain a set of the Lotus Sūtra. Trying a brief glance through it, he then saw in the Lifespan Chapter of the fifth scroll that there was an anomalous sentence reading: 'One dust, one kalpa.' At that time, he gathered several tens of sets of the sūtra, none of which had this sentence. Examining the doctrine by the words, it was indeed the ultimate reach of the Lotus Sūtra. For this reason, as soon as he compiled the sūtra text, a white sparrow came soaring down in response as an auspicious omen. Where Fu ended his days is not known.