集神州三寶感通錄 1.32

1.32

Sixteenth: The Miaole Temple stūpa in Huaizhou is seven li west of Wuzhi County, east of the prefecture. In Miaole Temple there is now a five-tiered white stūpa, about fifteen paces square, constructed entirely of edged stones laid in courses. The stones are five feet long and three inches wide, laid one upon another like fish scales below in an extremely close-knit manner. Clerics and laypeople who see it with their own eyes are all astonished, considering it the work of spirits. Beneath it, its bottom cannot be measured. Old traditions relate that the stūpa welled up from the earth, and beneath it there are great waters, though none truly know whether this is fact or fiction. A regional inspector suspected the monks of exaggerated ornamentation and had people dig beside it beneath; reaching the springhead, they still did not reach the limits of its foundation.