經律異相 47.59

47.59

There was a person from a distant region who brought a large ox, fat, robust, and strong, to sell to a person of the city of Śrāvastī. The city dweller bought it intending to slaughter it. Inside the city gate, he encountered the Buddha. Seeing the Buddha from afar, the ox felt grief and joy in its heart; snapping its chains, it galloped forward so that people could not restrain it. It ran straight toward the Tathāgata, bent its two front legs, and cried out sorrowfully with tears streaming, speaking with its own mouth: 'The Great Sage is hard to encounter, appearing once in a hundred million ages. I only pray that you extend your vast compassion and rescue me upon seeing me.' The Buddha said, 'Very well.' In a time long ago, there was a wheel-turning king who ruled the four continents, possessed a thousand sons and the seven jewels, governed with the true Dharma, and kept the people peaceful. Furthermore, he possessed four virtues: he regarded the people like children, and the people served him like a father; śramaṇas, brahmacārins, elders, and the common people were never ill; and the proclamations of his virtues throughout the four regions penetrated the ten directions. The king went out to travel the four quarters, and as he was about to return toward his palace, he met an old acquaintance who was detained by a creditor, who said he owed fifty ounces of gold, bound and tied to a tree. The king's retinue of the seven jewels halted and did not advance, wondering at the cause. [The king] replied, 'Release him and let him go; I shall double it and give you one hundred ounces.' He was immediately released and returned home. That man went repeatedly to the gate of the king's palace seeking the gold but could not obtain it, and the creditor had already departed to an unknown place. Consequently, he revolved in birth and death, wandering back and forth for countless kalpas, failing to repay what was owed down to this present life, falling into the state of this ox, sold by the creditor for several thousand ounces of gold. The wheel-turning king of that time was none other than myself; that creditor was this ox. As a sage king, the Buddha had guaranteed to repay it for him, but in the end did not give it to him, and therefore it came seeking rescue. The Buddha said to the ox's owner, 'The Buddha will beg alms on your behalf to repay double the value of the ox.' The ox's owner was unwilling and still wanted to have the ox. The Buddha spoke again, 'I will weigh the weight of the ox's body in catties and ounces and give you that much gold.' Still he was unwilling to give it up. At that time, Śakra and Brahmā all descended together and said to the Buddha, 'We shall provide tens of billions of ounces.' They brought the ox into the Jetavana, and after seven days its life ended, and it was suddenly reborn in heaven. It immediately remembered and was mindful of the Buddha's merit, returned to the human world, and scattered flowers in offering to repay the Buddha's kindness. The Buddha expounded the sūtras for it, and it immediately attained the stage of non-retrogression and the tolerance of the non-arising of dharmas, whereupon it returned to heaven. (Extracted from the Chusheng jing, fascicle 4.)