法苑珠林 13.33

13.33

東晉廬山文殊師利菩薩像者。昔有晉名臣陶侃字士行。建旟南海。有漁人每夕見海濱光。因以白侃遣尋。俄見金像。陵波而趣船側。撿其銘勒乃阿育王所造文殊師利菩薩像也。昔傳云。育王既統此洲。學鬼王制獄怨酷尤甚。文殊現處鑊中。火熾水清生青蓮華。王心感悟即日毀獄。造八萬四千塔。建立形像其數亦爾。此其一也。初侃未能深信因果。既嘉此瑞遂大尊重。乃送武昌寒溪寺。後遷荊州。故遣迎上。像初在輿數人可舉。今加以壯夫數十確不移處。後更足以事力輲車牽曳僅得上船。船復即沒。使具聞侃聽還本寺。兩三人便起。沙門慧遠敬伏威儀迎入廬岫。而了無艱阻。斯即聖靈感降惟其人乎。故諺曰。陶惟劍雄。像以神標。雲翔泥宿邈何遙遙是也。隋末賊發眾僧四散。有一老僧失名。來辭瑞像。像曰。爾年老但住何得相捨。遂依言住。于時董道沖賊寇擾江州。其徒入山覓財物。執僧索金。僧曰。無可得。乃以火炙。僧曰徒受炙死穢屍伽藍。何如寺外。賊將出欲殺。僧曰。行年七十不負佛教。待正念已申頸時可下刀。賊然之。已見申頸受刀。即便下斫。刀反刺心刃出於背。群賊奔怕。東走至遠師墓。于時天氣清朗。忽有雲如蓋屯黑下布。雷電四繞遂震霹靂。賊死六人。江州士女及以衣物多依山藏匿。由是賊徒不敢入山。江州郭下焚蕩略盡。今在山東林寺重閣上。武德中石門谷風吹閣北傾。將欲射正施功無地。僧乃祈請山神賜吹令正。不久復有大風從北而吹。閣還得正如舊。

The image of Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva on Mount Lu in the Eastern Jin: Formerly, there was the famous Jin official Tao Kan, styled Shixing, who planted his banners in the Southern Sea. A fisherman repeatedly saw a radiance by the seashore at night, and because of this reported it to Kan, who dispatched men to seek it. Soon they saw a gold image skimming across the waves and approaching the side of the boat. Examining its inscription, it was indeed an image of Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva made by King Aśoka. An ancient tradition says that when King Aśoka ruled this continent, he imitated the Ghost King in instituting a prison whose tortures were exceedingly cruel. Mañjuśrī manifested within a cauldron; though the fire blazed, the water remained clear, and blue lotus blossoms sprouted. The king was moved to awakening and immediately demolished the prison that very day. He erected eighty-four thousand stupas, and set up an equal number of images; this was one of them. At first, Kan had been unable to deeply believe in cause and effect; but having admired this auspicious sign, he held it in great reverence and sent it to Hanxi Temple in Wuchang. Later, when he was transferred to Jingzhou, he sent men to welcome it upriver. Initially, when the image was in a sedan chair, a few men could lift it; now, even with several tens of robust men added, it remained firmly unmoved from its place. Later, when they further supplemented it with laborers and hauled it with a cart, it barely made it onto the boat; but the boat immediately began to sink. The emissary reported all this to Kan, who gave permission to return it to its original temple; thereupon two or three men could easily lift it. The śramaṇa Huiyuan, reverently submitting to its majestic deportment, welcomed it into the crags of Mount Lu, and there was no obstruction whatsoever. Is it not true that the sacred spirit’s responsive descent depends solely on the right person? Thus the proverb says: 'Tao is merely a hero of the sword; the image is marked by the spirit. One soars among the clouds, the other lodges in the mud—how vastly far apart they are!' At the end of the Sui, bandits broke out and the assembly of monks scattered in all directions. There was an old monk whose name is lost, who came to bid farewell to the auspicious image. The image said, 'You are old in years; just stay. How could you abandon me?' Thereupon he stayed according to its words. At that time, the bandit Dong Daochong invaded and disturbed Jiangzhou; his followers entered the mountain to look for wealth and goods, seized the monk, and demanded gold. The monk said, 'There is none to be had.' They then scorched him with fire. The monk said, 'To be scorched to death in vain would defile the saṃghārāma with my corpse; how would that be as good as [going] outside the temple?' The bandits brought him out, wishing to kill him. The monk said, 'I have lived seventy years without betraying the Buddha’s teachings. Wait until I have gathered proper mindfulness and stretched out my neck; only then may you bring down the sword.' The bandits agreed. When they saw him stretch out his neck to receive the blade, they struck down immediately; but the blade turned back, pierced the striker's heart, and its edge came out through his back! The gang of bandits fled in terror, running eastward to Master Huiyuan’s tomb. At that time the weather was clear and bright, but suddenly a cloud like a canopy gathered darkly and spread downward; thunder and lightning circled on all four sides, and a thunderbolt struck, killing six bandits. The gentlemen and women of Jiangzhou, along with their clothes and goods, had mostly hidden themselves in reliance on the mountain; because of this, the bandit gang dared not enter the mountain, whereas the outskirts of Jiangzhou were burned and devastated almost entirely. The image is now on the upper storey of the pavilion at Donglin Temple on the mountain. During the Wude reign, the wind from Shimengu blew the pavilion so that it tilted to the north; when people wished to pull it straight, there was no place to apply their efforts. The monks then prayed to the mountain deity, asking him to grant a wind to set it upright. Before long, another great wind blew from the north, and the pavilion returned to being straight as before.