三寶感應要略錄 2.11

2.11

Kang Alushan of Wannian County in Yongzhou contracted an illness and died on the first day of the fifth month of the second year of the Tiaolu era [680]. On the fifth day he revived. He himself said that along that underworld path he had been summoned by mistake before King Yama. At that time, he saw Master Ayong, a medicine merchant of the East Market, passing by. In the first year of the Tiaolu era, Ayong had fallen ill and died; in life he had boiled chicken eggs, and together with seven hundred people had entered the Hell of the Boiling Cauldron. Having known Lushan previously, he entrusted him with a request, saying: 'My fourth son, Xingzheng, possesses some benevolence. Please tell him for me: now copy one set of the Avataṃsaka-sūtra; other deeds will not match it. If he would just copy this for me, seven hundred people will all gain liberation.' Lushan went to the A family of medicine merchants in the East Market and told Xingzheng everything Master Yong had said. Xingzheng was deeply moved with sorrow; thereupon at the Western Great Taiyuan Monastery he requested the sūtra and had people copy it. Earlier, from the time Master Yong died, the family had had no dreams of him. On the evening when the sūtra first began to be copied, the entire family shared the same dream: their father came, joyful without end. By the eighth month of the first year of the Yonglong era [680], the adornment was completed, and they invited the Great Virtue Fazang and scholarly śramaṇas to celebrate the sūtra and offer a vegetarian feast. On that day Lushan was also present in the assembly. He then saw Master Yong and the crowd of seven hundred ghosts all come to the feast place to pay homage to the Three Jewels, kneeling together before the monks to repent and receive the precepts. When the matter was concluded, they said: 'Relying on the power of the sūtra, we have altered our retribution to the heavenly halls.' Having spoken, they departed. Having been spared, Lushan had fully witnessed the underworld tribunal, and deeply believed in karmic transgressions.