冥報記 3.16

3.16

During the Daye era of the Sui, there was a man of Luoyang surnamed Wang who upheld the five precepts. He would occasionally speak of things before they occurred, and the village respected and trusted him. One morning he suddenly said to people, 'Today someone will give me a donkey.' When noon arrived, someone indeed led a donkey to present to him, weeping as he explained: He had lost his father early, and his widowed mother had raised a son and a daughter; after the daughter married, the mother died, which was some ten years ago. On the Cold Food Festival, the younger sister came home for a visit; the family had owned a donkey for several years. By the custom of Luoyang, on the Cold Food Festival people would carry wine and food to make offerings at the graves. The man rode the donkey there. The grave was east of the Yi River; when he wished to cross the Yi River, the donkey refused to cross, so he whipped its head and face until it was injured and bleeding. Once he arrived at the grave site, he released the donkey and made the offerings, but soon lost the donkey, which had returned to its original place. On that day, the sister was alone at her brother's house, when she suddenly saw her mother come in, blood streaming down her head and face, her appearance haggard and withered. Weeping bitterly, she told her daughter, 'In life, without your brother's knowledge, I gave you five sheng of rice; for this transgression, I suffered retribution, receiving the body of a donkey, and have been repaying your brother for five years. Today we were to cross the Yi River; the water was deep and I feared it, but your brother beat me with a whip, smashing my head and face all over, and he even promised that upon returning home he would beat me even more severely. I have run here to tell you. I have nearly finished repaying the debt; how could he torment me so unreasonably?' Having finished speaking, she ran out, and upon searching for her, she was nowhere to be seen. The daughter remembered where the wounds were. Soon after, the brother returned, and the daughter first inspected the donkey's head and face for the wounds; embracing it, she wept bitterly. The brother marvelled and asked her about it, and the daughter told him what had happened. The brother also said that it had initially refused to cross, and that its disappearing and returning matched her account. Thereupon the brother and sister embraced the donkey and wailed with grief; tears streamed down the donkey's face as well, and it refused to eat water or grass. The brother and sister knelt and implored it, 'If you are our mother, please eat grass.' The donkey then ate grass for their sake, but soon stopped again. The brother and sister did not know what to do, so they prepared grain and beans and sent it to the place of the keeper of the five precepts, whereupon it ate and drank again. Later, when the donkey died, the sister collected its remains and buried it.