三寶感應要略錄 1.15

1.15

漢明帝夢見神人。形垂二丈。身黃金色。項佩日光。以問群臣。或對曰。西方有神。其號曰佛。形如階下所夢。於是發使天竺。寫致經像。表之中夏。自天子王侯。咸敬事之。聞人死精神不滅。莫不懼然自失。初使者蔡堷。將西域沙門迦葉摩騰。齎優填王畫釋迦佛像。帝主之如夢所見。乃遣畫工。圖之數本。於南宮清涼臺。及高陽門顯節壽陵上供養。又於白馬寺壁畫。千乘萬騎。遶塔三匝。遶像亦爾也。如法傳備載矣。

Emperor Ming of the Han dreamed of a divine man whose height approached two zhang, whose body was of golden hue, and who wore the sunlight at the back of his neck. He questioned his assembled ministers about it, and someone replied, saying, "In the Western Regions there is a divinity whose name is the Buddha; his form resembles what you dreamed beneath your steps." Thereupon, he dispatched envoys to India to copy and bring back scriptures and images, displaying them in the Central Xia. From the Son of Heaven down to the princes and marquises, all revered and served him. Hearing that when a person dies their spirit is not extinguished, there was none who was not awestruck and lost in thought. Initially, the envoy Cai Yin returned with the Western Regions śramaṇa Kāśyapa Mātaṅga, carrying a painted image of Śākyamuni Buddha made by King Udayana. The emperor verified it to be just like what he had seen in his dream, and thereupon dispatched painters to make several copies of it, making offerings to them at the Qingliang Terrace of the Southern Palace and above the Xianshoul Tomb at the Gaoyang Gate. Furthermore, on the walls of Baima Temple they painted thousands of chariots and tens of thousands of cavalrymen circumambulating the pagoda three times, and doing the same for the image. This is fully recorded in the records of the Dharma.