集神州三寶感通錄 2.38

2.38

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.