法苑珠林 57.29

57.29

譬喻經云。昔外國有人死。魂還自鞭其屍。傍人問曰。是人已死。何以復鞭。報曰。此是我故身。為我作惡。見經戒不讀。偷盜欺詐犯人婦女。不孝父母兄弟。惜財不肯布施。今死令我墮惡道中。勤苦毒痛不可復言。是故來鞭之耳。依無量壽經云。憍梵波提。過去世曾作比丘。於他粟田邊摘一莖粟。觀其生熟數粒墮地。五百世作牛償之。

The Avadāna-sūtra says: 'Formerly, in a foreign land, a man died, and his soul returned to whip his own corpse. A bystander asked: "This man is already dead; why do you whip him?" He answered: "This was my former body, which did evil for me: seeing the sūtras and precepts, it did not read them; it stole, cheated, violated others' women, was unfilial to parents, and unkind to brothers, and it begrudged its wealth and refused to practice dāna. Now in death, it has caused me to fall into the evil destinies, with unutterable hardship and bitter pain. For this reason I have come to whip it." Based on the Amitāyus-sūtra: Gavāmpati was a bhikṣu in a past life. Beside another's millet field, he picked a stalk of millet to see whether it was ripe, and several grains fell to the ground. For five hundred lives, he was reborn as an ox to repay it.'