冥報記 2.4

2.4

Xiao Jing, Libationer of the Directorate of Education, was a man of Lanling, the grandson of Emperor Wu of the Liang, and the fifth son of King Kui of Liang. After Liang was destroyed, he entered the Sui; his elder sister became the empress of Emperor Yang. Born and raised in nobility and affluence, his family revered the Buddha-Dharma. During the Daye era, because he recited the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra, he built a Prabhūtaratna Stūpa according to the sūtra text, making it of sandalwood. The stūpa was about three chi high, and its upper part was square and equal in dimensions, housing a wooden image of Prabhūtaratna. After several years, his elder brother’s son Quan was at the residence. Rising in the morning, he suddenly saw a sandalwood stūpa canopy in the grass of the front courtyard, beneath which was a brass Buddha image. Its craftsmanship was different from that of the Central Plains: its face resembled a foreigner's, and its eyes were made of silver, with dark pupils shining bright and clear as if natural. Quan ran to tell Jing. Jing looked at it with surprise and joy, took the canopy back, and tried placing it atop the stūpa; it fit snugly, as if originally made for it. Although the wood color differed slightly, the stūpa's form became even more wonderful. When he placed the Buddha image inside the stūpa, it likewise fit as if originally crafted for it. Jing was overjoyed, considering himself to have moved [the unseen] through sincere devotion. Within the case of that Buddha image were more than a hundred relics. Jing's daughter, a young nun, secretly had doubts: foreign monks always said that relics could not be broken by a hammer. So she tried taking thirty relics and striking them with an axe on a stone; the relics were not harmed at all. The girl picked them up from the ground to search, but only found three or four, while the rest were lost, their whereabouts unknown. Afterward, she became frightened and told Jing. Jing went to look inside the stūpa, and all the relics were there as before. From then on, Jing recited the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra once a day until the end of his life. In the eleventh year of the Zhenguan era, he fell ill. Empress Xiao, along with his younger brothers and nephews, visited him. Jing met with them, bade each light incense, and thereupon took leave of them. He retained only his younger brother Yu, Duke of Zong, and his daughter who was a nun, having them light incense and recite the sūtra. Shortly after, he said to the nun, “I am about to depart; Samantabhadra Bodhisattva has come to welcome me. I am in the eastern courtyard; you may go welcome him, Master.” The nun went to welcome him as told, but before she returned, Jing said, “This courtyard is impure, so he is unwilling to come; I shall go to him. May you all abide well.” Thereupon he bid farewell to Yu and the others, rose, knelt upright with palms joined, facing directly west. Shortly after, he lay down and expired. His testamentary instruction ordered: “Carry me alone on a single cart; enshroud me in the clothes upon my body; women must not accompany the funeral procession; do not sacrifice with meat; dig the pit just deep enough to cover the coffin.” The court and the public admired his thorough awakening. His family revered and carried out his wishes. (Zhonggui’s younger brother Xiaoxie, Record Keeper of the Court of Judicial Review, told this to Tang Lin; I also heard that the people of the prefecture said the same.)