鐔津文集 8.9

8.9

When I was nineteen years old, I went to Ningfeng Township in my home county and arrived at the dwelling of Daoist Nun Yao. The Daoist nun was an extraordinary woman. Her dwelling was situated on the mountain ridge, and I stayed there for several days. Then I heard a sound from the flank of the mountain by her dwelling, emanating from between the ponds, pounding like the striking of a great bell. There were several such sounds, and at first I found it strange; looking about, there was no bell that could produce sound. Soon after, I asked the Daoist nun about it. The Daoist nun solemnly rose and said: “How marvelous! This is a dragon's roar. Hearing this is a great auspicious sign; you will surely fare well in the future.” When the Daoist nun was a maiden, she once fetched water from a stream and her body was affected by dragon saliva. On the night she was to be betrothed to a man, a dragon light issued from her room; the maiden vanished immediately. Having vanished and returned, she no longer took joy in family life. The villagers considered her divine, and so built a retreat for her to dwell in the mountains. Yet from her youth Maiden Yao kept to pure asceticism and fasting alone. At first, she foretold the good and bad fortunes of the human world, and her predictions were always verified. When I saw her, she was already old, over sixty years of age; her air and appearance were serene, and she no longer spoke of men's fortunes. Wearing a paper cap and cloth clothes, she perched in a high chamber, exclusively reciting Buddhist scriptures; though they were tens of thousands of words, day and night she would finish several fascicles (of the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Dharma). In encountering creatures, she was kind and compassionate, so that the people of her village were transformed in harmony. I once asked her from where she had received the scriptures. She said: “When this old woman was young, divine monks frequently came riding upon the void to teach me, that is all.” I thus considered what she called the dragon's roar not to be false. In my reading of books, I have seen many among the ancients who were like this. For instance, when Fang Guan and Xue Lingzhi were of low status dwelling in the mountains, both were said to have heard a dragon's roar; thereafter, Fang indeed became Prime Minister, and Xue reached the post of Prince's Reader-in-Waiting. This was the verification of what they heard. Alas! Although I cannot compare to those two lords, yet in complying with the Way to conduct myself, how could I have betrayed the sages and worthies? Yet in the end, because of propagating the Dharma, I was falsely accused by mediocre men and made an object of disgrace before all under Heaven. Why is it that what was heard was no different, yet what was verified was not the same? What Yao said may be questioned. In my view, the dragon is the emblem of the ruler; could it not be that today all under Heaven is at peace, with glorious renown and cultural refinement flourishing, and encountering such times, I was able to sing of it? This is its verification. If not so, does even a divine dragon ever roar in vain? (One edition reads: "does a dragon ever roar in vain?")