法苑珠林 14.24

14.24

隋邢州沙河縣寺四面佛者。隋祖時有人入山見僧守護此佛。銅身高三尺餘。便請遂許。失僧所在。諸處聞之。競來引挽都不得起。唯沙河寺僧引之隨手至寺。後人寺側獲金一塊。上二烏形。銘云。擬度四面佛。因度之像身上都是烏形後忽失之。於寺側瀅中數有光現。尋乃漉出。隋後王聞遣工冶鑄擬之。卒不成。經二百餘日乃成。終有缺少遂罷。

As for the Four-faced Buddha of the Shahe County Temple in Xingzhou during the Sui: In the time of the founder of the Sui, someone entered the mountains and saw a monk guarding this Buddha, whose bronze body was over three feet high. He requested it, and the monk agreed; thereupon the monk's whereabouts were lost. When people from various places heard of it, they vied with one another to pull and haul it, but none could lift it. Only the monks of the Shahe Temple pulled it, and it followed their hands all the way to the temple. Later, someone found a piece of gold beside the temple with two crow forms on it and an inscription saying: “Intended to measure the Four-faced Buddha.” When they measured it accordingly, the body of the image was entirely covered in crow forms, and then it was suddenly lost. Light repeatedly appeared in a pond beside the temple, and upon searching, it was scooped out. Later rulers of the Sui, hearing of this, dispatched artisans to cast an imitation, but they could not succeed. After more than two hundred days it was finally cast, but in the end there was a flaw, so they abandoned the attempt.