集神州三寶感通錄 2.43

2.43

39. The four-faced Buddha of the temple in Shahe County, Xingzhou, under the Sui. During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui, someone went into the mountains and saw a monk guarding this Buddha, which had a bronze body over three feet high. He then requested it, and [the monk] consented. Then the monk's whereabouts were lost. People from various places heard of this and vied with one another to come and haul it, but none could lift it. Only the monks of Shahe Temple hauled it, and it followed their hands all the way to the temple. Later, someone found a lump of gold beside the temple with an inscription on it in the shape of a crow, saying: 'Intended for gilding the four-faced Buddha.' Thereupon they gilded it; on the body of the image there were entirely crow shapes. Later, it was suddenly lost. Light frequently appeared in a pond beside the temple. Soon they dredged it out. When the Latter Ruler of the Sui heard of this, he dispatched artisans to cast an imitation of it, but in the end they could not accomplish it. After more than two hundred days it was finally completed, but in the end it had defects, and so they stopped.