華嚴經傳記 4.14

4.14

文明元年京師人。姓王。失其名。既無戒行。曾不修善。因患致死。被二人引。至地獄門前。見有一僧云。是地藏菩薩。乃教王氏。誦一行偈。其文曰。若人欲求知三世一切佛。應當如是觀。心造諸如來。菩薩既授經文。謂之曰。誦得此偈。能排地獄。王氏盡誦。遂入見閻羅王。王問此人。有何功德。答云。唯受持一四句偈。具如上說。王遂放免。當誦此偈時。聲所及處。受苦人皆得解脫。王氏三日始蘇。憶持此偈。向諸沙門說之。參驗偈文。方知是華嚴經第十二卷夜摩天宮無量諸菩薩雲集說法品。王氏自向空觀寺僧定法師說云。然也。

In the first year of the Wenming reign era, there was a man of the capital whose surname was Wang, but his personal name is lost. Having neither moral discipline nor having ever cultivated good, he fell ill and died. Led away by two men to the gates of hell, he saw a monk who said he was Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva. He then taught Wang to recite a one-line gāthā, the text of which ran:
'If one wishes to know
All the Buddhas of the three times,
One should contemplate thus:
The mind creates all Tathāgatas.'
After the Bodhisattva imparted the scriptural text, he told him, 'If you can recite this gāthā, it will overturn hell.' Wang memorized and recited it completely. He then entered to see King Yama. The king asked what merits this person had, and he replied, 'I have only upheld a single four-phrase gāthā, just as stated above.' The king thereupon released and pardoned him. When he recited this gāthā, wherever the sound reached, all who were suffering obtained deliverance. Wang revived only after three days. Remembering this gāthā, he spoke of it to various monks; upon verifying the text of the gāthā, they realized it was from the twelfth fascicle of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the chapter 'The Clouds of Innumerable Bodhisattvas Assembling in the Palace of the Yāma Heaven to Expound the Dharma'. Wang himself related this to Dharma Master Ding of the Kongguansi, saying that it was indeed so.