冥報記 1.11

1.11

北齊時。有冀州人。從軍伐梁。戰敗。見擒為奴。其父母在鄉不知音問。謂以死。為追福。造塼浮圖。塼浮圖成。設齋會。道俗數百人。方坐食。聞叩門聲。主人父出視。見一僧。形容甚雅。謂主人曰。乞齋食𥞫糜。可以布手巾裹之。並乞鞋一量。主人請留住食。僧不肯曰。欲早去。不暇坐食也。主人如其言。以新布裹糜。并鞋一量奉之。僧受而去。是日齋時。主人子在江南澤中。為其主牧牛。忽見一僧手持糜一裹。及新鞋一量。至奴所。問曰。亦思歸見父母乎。奴泣曰。無敢望也。僧以與糜令坐食。食畢。又與鞋令著之。而敷袈裟於地。令坐袈裟上。僧取袈裟四角。總把擎舉而揮之。可移二丈許著地。奴開視。不見僧及袈裟。而身已在其宅門外。入門見。大眾方食。父母驚喜。就問。具說由緣。視其巾內。餘糜及鞋。乃向奉僧者也。鄉邑驚駭。競為篤信。是日。月六日也。因名所造浮圖。為六日浮圖。浮圖今尚。邑里猶傳之矣。

During the Northern Qi, a man of Jizhou joined the army to campaign against the Liang; he was defeated in battle and captured as a slave. His parents back in his home village received no news of him; believing him dead, to cultivate posthumous merit for him they built a brick stūpa. When the brick stūpa was completed, they held a vegetarian feast, and several hundred clergy and laity were just sitting down to eat when a knocking was heard at the door. The host's father went out to look and saw a monk whose appearance was remarkably refined. He said to the host, 'I beg for some panicled millet porridge from the vegetarian meal; you may wrap it in a cloth towel; and I also beg for a pair of shoes.' The host invited him to stay and eat, but the monk refused, saying, 'I wish to leave early; I have no time to sit and eat.' The host did as he said, wrapping the porridge in a fresh cloth and offering it to him along with a pair of shoes. The monk accepted them and left. On that day at the time of the meal, the host's son was south of the Yangtze River in a marsh, herding cattle for his master. Suddenly he saw a monk holding a bundle of porridge and a pair of new shoes, who came to where the slave was and asked, 'Do you long to return and see your parents?' The slave wept and said, 'I would not dare hope for it.' The monk gave him the porridge and told him to sit and eat. When he finished eating, he also gave him the shoes and told him to put them on; then he spread his kāṣāya on the ground and told him to sit on it. The monk took the four corners of the kāṣāya, gathered and lifted them up, and waved them. After moving perhaps twenty feet through the air, it touched the ground. The slave opened his eyes to look; he saw neither the monk nor the kāṣāya, but found his body already outside the gate of his family's residence. Entering the gate, he saw the great assembly just eating. His parents were startled and overjoyed; they approached to ask him, and he recounted the circumstances in full. When they examined the leftover porridge and shoes inside the cloth towel, they were indeed what had just been offered to the monk. The local district was astonished and vied with one another to become devout believers. That day was the sixth day of the month; therefore they named the stūpa they had built the 'Sixth Day Stūpa.' The stūpa still stands today, and the story is still transmitted in that village.