廣弘明集 2.20

2.20

The Emperor treated the śramaṇa Tanyao with the etiquette due a master. Tanyao requested the Emperor to open five cave sanctuaries in the cliff-face of the Western Mountains of Wuzhou, west of the capital, carving one Buddhist statue in each, the tallest being seventy *chi* and the next sixty *chi*. The carving and ornamentation were extraordinarily majestic, surpassing myriad generations. Those who see it nowadays transmit reports saying: 'The valley is thirty *li* deep; on the east is a monastery called Lingyan, and on the west end is a nunnery. In each, niches are carved from the rock, some accommodating a thousand persons, with those of lesser size arranged in dense succession like the teeth of a comb. The middle section of the stone cliff, spanning seven *li*, is extremely tall and precipitous, with Buddhist niches contiguous to one another; elsewhere they are intermittent at times. Who could calculate the number of Buddhist images?' There was an eighty-year-old Daoist [Buddhist] practitioner whose practice was to bow to the statues; making one bow before each image, he reached the middle niche and died. His corpse lay prostrate on the ground, and it was sealed with stones, remaining visible to this day. Its era cannot be determined. It lies three hundred *li* east of Shuozhou and more than twenty *li* west of Heng'an Town. Travelers coming and going often describe it. It is truly an inconceivable work of merit!