道宣律師感通錄 1.12

1.12

I asked: "South of the present Yuhua Palace at Mount Tālatā, there is a brick stupa, thirty paces on each side. The lower story is exceedingly grand, with stone niches on all four sides and broken bricks nearby. There are also over thirty brick kilns; the elders do not know from what era they date. Yet a bell is often heard ringing." He replied: "This is King Mu's temple; it was called Lingshan. In the time of King Aśoka, an edict commanded the mountain deity to build a stupa here. During the chaos at the end of the Western Jin, when the Five Hu seized power, Liu Yao made Chang'an his capital and repeatedly dreamed that a Buddha on this mountain appeared in a brick stupa, sat, and spoke to Yao, saying: 'Drink less wine, do not indulge in sensual desires, dismiss the crooked and flattering, and promote the loyal and good.' Yao could not comply. Later in Luoyang, he fell from his horse while drunk and was captured by Shi Le. Earlier, when Yao was awakened by the dream, he sent people to search the mountain, and they subsequently found this image sitting in a small brick stupa, matching the dream. Thereupon, he destroyed the small stupa and built a larger one, nineteen stories high, along with temple buildings that were exceedingly grand and beautiful. The temple was named Fadeng, and three hundred monks were ordained to reside there. When Yao went to Zhao, thirty-two men in the temple cultivated and attained the third fruit. Behind the present stupa, the mountain deity built another temple to make offerings to monks of the second fruit. The deity went to Mount Taibai to gather lingzhi herbs and make offerings to the holy monks, all of whom obtained prolonged lives. The temple still exists today, but ordinary people cannot see it; the sound of the bell that is heard is the bell of that temple. As for the stupa's original foundation, though it arose through Liu Yao, it remains the site where King Mu founded a temple and is also an ancient temple of Kāśyapa Tathāgata. During the Zhenguan era, deer were frequently seen gathering in the mountains of Ciwuchuan north of Yuhua; when chased away, they returned. Someone found this strange and dug ten feet deep where the deer gathered, obtaining a stone image about ten feet tall."