經律異相 6.44

6.44

Long ago, there was a śramaṇa whose family was very wealthy. He constructed a stupa-shrine, using candana for the pillars and the seven jewels for the spire. Before it was completed, five hundred śramaṇas arrived from afar, and five hundred worthy men in that country each gave them kāṣāya robes and bedding. The people of the country said to the abbot: 'These people from afar must depart; I shall send them off first. The ācārya is a permanent resident and will naturally receive a share, O Abbot.' The śramaṇa thought: 'My merit is accumulated like Mount Sumeru, beyond reckoning, yet the people of the country do not assist me; I am only doing this for all, base and noble, near and far!' He then burned down the monastery and stupa with fire. Afterward, he entered the hells and animal realm, for ninety kalpas in each. Later, he became a great fish in the sea, forty myriad leagues long, with eyes like the sun and moon, teeth twenty thousand leagues long and pure white like the Snow Mountains, a tongue forty thousand leagues wide and pure red like a volcanic mountain, and a mouth fifty thousand leagues wide. At that time, there were five hundred people who entered the sea to gather jewels; these were the very ones who in their previous life had given robes to the five hundred śramaṇas. Due to karmic conditions and past retribution, the fish opened its mouth to swallow water. The boat was moving with the current extremely swiftly, and they were all terrified; together, they chanted: 'Namo Buddhāya!' The fish heard this sound, closed its mouth, and listened. The water stood still and did not flow. Hearing the sound of chanting sūtras upon the boat, the fish shed tears and thought to itself: 'It has been very long since I heard this sound!' Consequently, it did not eat anymore, and after seven days, it died in the sea. Its floating corpse reached the shore, and its consciousness was reborn into a family of the Dharma. Falling to the ground, it could speak and immediately remembered its past lives. At the age of full eight years, it attained the arhat path. Returning to the seashore, it saw its former body: the accumulated bones were like a mountain; looking inside the skull for seven days, it could not see it all. Because of burning the stupa and monastery, it had spent one hundred and eighty kalpas in the evil destinies. (From the fourth fascicle of the Avadāna Sūtra)