集神州三寶感通錄 2.38

2.38

三十四周武建德三年。猜忌佛法勇意殄滅。天下闇冥。有宜州姜明者。督事夜行。經州北百餘里。山中行往常見山上光明怪之。因巡行光處。見有臥石。狀如像形。便斵掘尋之。乃是鐵礦不可鏨鑿。故其形䃙𮀼高三丈許。欲加摩瑩卒不可觸。又向下尋。乃有石趺孔穴具足。乃共村人以拗舉之。其像欻然流下逕趣趺孔卓然特立。眾以為奇瑞也。以狀奏聞。時天元嗣曆佛日將融。乃改為大像元年。仍以其處為大像寺。隋祖開運重斯故迹。又改為顯際寺。討尋其本處非人住。又無大石及以鐵礦。豈非育王之神力所降感乎。大唐因之不改。貞觀末寺西置宮。名曰玉華。像仍舊所在宮東三十里苑內。太宗甞往禮事嫌非華飾。乃捨物莊嚴。永徽年中改宮立寺。還名玉華。今屬坊州。陰暗之夕每發光瑞。道俗常見。故不甚驚歎云云。

34. In the third year of the Jiande era of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou, he was suspicious and resentful of the Buddhadharma, striving resolutely to exterminate it, and the world was cast into darkness. There was a man named Jiang Ming of Yizhou who was traveling by night on official supervision. When passing more than a hundred li north of the prefecture, while traveling through the mountains, he frequently saw a bright light on the mountain and wondered at it. Tracing the source of the light, he found a reclining stone shaped like an image. He dug and excavated to examine it, but it turned out to be iron ore that could not be chiseled or carved; thus its shape was rugged and uneven, some thirty feet tall. Wishing to polish it, it could not be touched. Searching further downward, he found a stone pedestal with all the holes complete. He then worked with the villagers to pry it up with levers. The image suddenly slid down, heading straight into the hole of the pedestal, and stood upright and towering. The assembly regarded it as an extraordinary auspicious sign and reported the matter to the throne. At that time, when Emperor Tianyuan succeeded to the calendar, the sun of the Buddha was about to shine forth again; he thereupon changed the reign era to Daxiang ("Great Image"), the first year, and made that place the Daxiang Temple. When the founder of the Sui inaugurated the dynastic destiny, he esteemed this ancient trace and renamed it Xianji Temple. Investigating its original site, it was not an inhabited area, nor were there large stones or iron ore. Could it not be an instance of King Aśoka's spiritual power responding to sympathetic resonance? The Great Tang followed this and did not change it. At the end of the Zhenguan era, a palace was established west of the temple, named Yuhua. The image remained in its old location, thirty li east of the palace within the park. Emperor Taizong once visited to worship it, but disliking that it lacked ornate decoration, he donated goods to adorn it. During the Yonghui era, the palace was converted into a temple, which was again named Yuhua; it now belongs to Fangzhou. On dark and overcast evenings, it frequently emits luminous auspicious signs; monastics and laity see them often, so they are no longer greatly astonished, and so forth.