集神州三寶感通錄 2.37

2.37

33. At the end of the Northern Qi, the śramaṇa Senghu of Lingshi Temple in Jinzhou maintained the Way with a straightforward mind, not seeking an intellectual career. He vowed to make an eighteen-foot stone image, but the assembly of monks all found his great words strange. Later, in the valley north of the temple, he found a reclining stone approximately eighteen feet long. He thereupon hired craftsmen to go and make a Buddha from it. After about a year, the face and belly were roughly completed, but the back was still on the ground. Using six levers, they attempted to hoist it up, but it would not budge. Overnight it turned over by itself; seeing this in the morning, they were delighted. They immediately went to work on it and moved it into the Buddha hall. On the day Jinzhou fell, the image sweated profusely onto the ground. When the Zhou soldiers entered the territory, they first burned the temple and stūpa. Although this image was burned, its color did not change at all, and only two fingers were damaged. Later they wished to topple it; sixty men and oxen pulled and hauled it, but to no avail. Suddenly, an extraordinary monk whom no one recognized appeared; he used tiles, timber, earth, and trenches in mixed layers to surround it, and in a moment it was finished, whereupon the monk's whereabouts were lost. The image later appeared in a dream to a man of faith, saying: "My fingers ache." The man realized [what it meant] and repaired them. When the Sui dynasty inaugurated its destiny, [matters] opened up as before. Again, in the fifteenth year of the Kaihuang era, someone stole its banners and canopies; he immediately dreamt of an eighteen-foot person entering his room to reprimand him. The thief, ashamed and terrified, returned them. It is said that the image still exists today.