釋門自鏡錄 1.22

1.22

尼智通。少出家。住京師簡靜寺。信道不篤。元嘉九年師死。罷道嫁為魏郡梁犀甫。為妻生男。六七歲家甚貧窮。無以為衣。通為尼時有數卷素無量壽法華等經。悉練擣之以衣其兒。居一年而得病。恍惚驚悸竟體剝爛狀若火瘡。有細白蟲。日出升餘。慘痛煩毒晝夜號叫。聞空中語云。壞經為衣。得此劇報。旬餘而死。

The nun Zhitong renounced household life in her youth and lived at the Jianjing Monastery in the capital. Her faith in the Way was not firm. In the ninth year of Yuanjia, her teacher died; she abandoned the Way and married Liang Xifu of Wei Commandery as his wife, giving birth to a boy. When he was six or seven years old, the family was extremely poor, with nothing to clothe him. While Tong was a nun, she had several rolls of silk sūtras such as the Sukhāvatīvyūha and the Lotus Sūtra; she boiled and pounded them all to clothe her child. After living thus for a year, she fell ill, trance-like and alarmed, her entire body peeling and rotting like burn sores. Fine white maggots emerged at a rate of more than a pint a day; in agonizing pain and virulent distress, she wailed day and night. A voice was heard in the air saying, "For destroying sūtras to make clothing, she receives this severe retribution." She died after more than ten days.