釋迦方志 2.105

2.105

東晉孝武寧康三年二月八日。沙門釋道安盛德昭彰擅名宇內。於襄陽郭西。鑄丈六無量壽像。明年季冬嚴飾成就。像乃西行上於萬山。于時鄉邑驚嗟迎歸本寺。仍以其夕出住寺門。刺史郗恢乃改名金像寺。梁武普通三年。帝於建興苑鑄大金銅華趺高六尺廣一丈許。勅劉孝儀為文立碑贊德。及周武之滅法也。建德三年。有太原公王康為荊州刺史。副將長孫哲不信佛法。先欲壞之遣百餘人。以繩繫項挽全不動。哲謂不用力。杖之令牽如故不動。又加三百乃至五百。牽之乃倒聲振地動。即令毀之揚聲自快。乃馳馬欲報刺史。裁可百步堛然落地失音直視。尋爾而卒。道俗唱快。當毀像時於腋下倒垂衣內著。銘云。晉太元十九年歲次甲午。比丘道安於襄陽西郭。造丈八金像一軀。此像更三周甲午百八十年當滅。計勘年月悉符同焉。信知印手聖人誠不虛矣。然以事推。安以太元三年戊寅之歲。則符堅建元十五年也。與朱序習郁被俘秦土。太元十年在關便化。化後十年歲方甲午。一往橫望年紀參差。預覩未然三經甲午。取其大運之極數。又顯印手之通聖云。

On the eighth day of the second month in the third year of Ningkang under Emperor Xiaowu of the Eastern Jin, the śramaṇa Shi Dao'an, whose illustrious virtue was brilliantly renowned throughout the realm, cast a sixteen-foot image of Amitāyus west of the outer wall of Xiangyang. At the end of winter the following year, when its adornment was completed, the image walked westward up Mount Wan. At that time the local villagers marveled and sighed, escorting it back to its original temple; that same evening, it emerged again to stand at the temple gate. The Inspector Xi Hui then renamed it Golden Image Temple. In the third year of Putong under Emperor Wu of the Liang, the emperor cast a great gilded bronze lotus pedestal, six feet high and about ten feet wide, in the Jianxing Garden, ordering Liu Xiaoyi to compose an inscription and erect a stele praising its virtue. When Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou eradicated the Dharma, in the third year of Jiande, Wang Kang, Duke of Taiyuan, served as Inspector of Jingzhou. His subordinate commander, Zhangsun Zhe, did not believe in the Buddha-Dharma and first wished to destroy it, dispatching more than a hundred men to tie ropes around its neck and pull it, but it did not move at all. Zhe thought they were not applying strength and beat them with a cane, ordering them to pull, but it remained motionless as before. He added three hundred and then five hundred more; only then did it topple with a roar that shook the earth. He immediately ordered it smashed, crying out loudly in self-satisfaction. He then galloped on horseback intending to report to the inspector, but after barely a hundred paces, he crashed to the ground, lost his speech, stared blankly ahead, and died shortly thereafter. Monastics and laity cheered in satisfaction. When destroying the statue, an inscription attached within the drapery hanging inverted under its armpit was found, which read: "In the nineteenth year of the Taiyuan era of the Jin, the year being *jiawu*, the bhikṣu Dao'an made one eighteen-foot golden image west of the outer wall of Xiangyang. After three more *jiawu* cycles, one hundred eighty years, this image shall be destroyed." Calculating and comparing the years and months, they all matched completely. Truly we know that the "Hand-Marked Sage" was certainly not empty in his words! Yet inferring from facts: Dao'an was in the third year of Taiyuan, the year *wuyin*—which is the fifteenth year of Fu Jian's Jianyuan era—when he was captured to the land of Qin along with Zhu Xu and Xi Yu. In the tenth year of Taiyuan, he passed away in Guanzhong. Ten years after his passing was the year *jiawu*. Looking simply across the years, the numbers appear discrepant; but foreseeing what had not yet occurred across three cycles of *jiawu*, he took the ultimate number of the great cycle, further revealing the all-pervading holiness of the "Hand-Marked [Sage]."