法苑珠林 73.41

73.41

唐京師有人。姓潘名果。年未弱冠。以武德時任都水小吏。下歸家與少年數人出田游戲。過於塚間見一羊。為牧人所遺。獨立食草。果因與少年捉之。將以歸家。其羊中路鳴喚。果懼主聞乃拔却羊舌。於是夜殺食之。後經一年果舌漸消縮盡。陳牒解吏。富平縣令鄭餘慶。疑其虛詐令開口驗之。乃見全無舌。根本纔如豆許不盡。官人問之因由。果取紙書以答之元狀。官人一時彈指教令為羊追福寫法華經等。果發心信敬齋戒不絕。為羊修福。後經一年舌漸得生。平復如故。又詣官陳牒。縣官用為里正。餘慶至貞觀十八年為監察御史。自向臨說耳（右三驗出冥報記）。

In the Tang dynasty, in the capital, there was a man named Pan Guo. Before reaching the age of twenty, during the Wude era, he served as a petty clerk in the Directorate of Waterways. Relieved of duty and returning home, he went out into the fields with several youths to amuse themselves. Passing among the burial mounds, he saw a sheep that had been left behind by a shepherd, standing alone and grazing. Guo and the youths caught it, intending to take it home. On the way, the sheep kept bleating; fearing its owner would hear, Guo ripped out the sheep's tongue. That night, they slaughtered and ate it. A year later, Guo's tongue gradually withered away completely. He submitted a petition to be relieved of his clerkship. Zheng Yuqing, Magistrate of Fuping County, suspected it was a pretense and ordered him to open his mouth to examine it; he saw that he had no tongue at all, with only a root the size of a small bean remaining. The official asked him about the cause; Guo took paper and wrote down an account of what had happened. The officials all snapped their fingers in astonishment and instructed him to dedicate merit for the sheep, copy the Lotus Sūtra, and so forth. Guo brought forth a mind of faithful reverence, maintained the fasts and precepts without interruption, and cultivated merit for the sheep. After a year had passed, his tongue gradually regrew and was restored as before. He again went to the authorities to submit a petition, and the county official appointed him as a village head. By the eighteenth year of the Zhenguan era, Yuqing was an Investigating Censor, and he recounted this personally to [Tang] Lin. (These three records of resonance are from the Records of Miraculous Retribution [Mingbao ji].)