集神州三寶感通錄 2.16

2.16

Twelfth, concerning the Prince in Contemplation image at Wu Temple in Xuzhou of the Eastern Jin: formerly, the Jin monk Faxian, striving with rigorous resolve in the Western Heavens, traveled through the sacred sites. He went to lodge at a temple, where both seniors and juniors came out to receive him. Faxian happened to fall ill at the time, and the host sthavira personally looked after him. He ordered a novice to fetch native vegetarian food for the guest monk. In an instant he went and returned, but had an ulcerous wound and blood on his foot, saying, "I went to the house of Wu Cangying in Pengcheng to beg for food, and was bitten by a dog." Faxian wondered how, in the time of a single turn, he could travel tens of thousands of li away; only then did he realize that the monks of the temple were no ordinary men. Later, he returned to his home country by ship and purposely went to Pengcheng to seek out and find Wu Cangying, inquiring of him in detail about the incident. Cangying replied that such a thing had indeed happened, and pointed to the spot where residual blood had smeared the gate. Faxian said, "This is the blood of an arhat, a holy man! At the time, it was merely to fetch food for me; how could he have suffered injury?" Hearing this, Cangying was ashamed and terrified; he immediately renounced his residence to make it a temple, and personally went to the capital Yangzhou to seek scriptures and images. Just as he was crossing the river, his boat tilted dangerously. Suddenly there was a pair of bones, each one rod long, rising and surging with the waves, instantly entering the boat. Immediately, they sailed smoothly and ascended the shore. When the matter was memorialized to the throne, they turned out to be dragon teeth. Cangying had not yet obtained an image, and as he sailed up the river westward, he briefly rested among the trees. He met an Indian monk carrying this image as he walked, who said he wished to go to Xuzhou to give it to Wu Cangying for veneration. Cangying said, "If it is truly as the Tathāgata says, this disciple is he!" The monk then handed over the image. Bringing it back, when he reached the capital, an imperial edict ordered a thousand copies to be cast, all with inscriptions inscribed under their feet, so that no one could distinguish the new from the old, leaving it to Cangying to pick at will. The image then manifested in a dream and showed him its original features, and he rightly retrieved the original image. Returning eastward to Xuzhou, it regularly emitted extraordinary light. Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei invited it into the Northern Terrace. In the time of the Later Ruler of the Northern Qi, the envoy Chang Biaozi was sent to welcome it back to Ye. When the Qi was extinguished and the Zhou suppressed Buddhism, a monk hid it. When the great Sui propagated the teaching, it shone forth with renewed glory. It is now in Daci Temple in Xiangzhou.