三寶感應要略錄 3.51

3.51

During the eight hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, an epidemic broke out in the realm of Kosala, and half the population fell ill and died. For three years they could not escape the calamity. The king and ministers conferred together and made a vow, praying to those of great compassion above and below the heavens throughout the worlds of the ten directions to surely come to save and protect them. Then the king saw in a dream a sacred image endowed with eleven faces, its body golden in color and radiating brilliant light. Reaching out a hand, it stroked the king's crown and said: “With my eleven faces, I shall guard and protect the royal realm.” Waking from the dream, he informed his ministers. In a single day, the king, ministers, and people made an image of Eleven-Headed Avalokiteśvara, and all at once were spared the calamity. For one hundred years thereafter, they never encountered such a disaster.