法苑珠林 13.36

13.36

Juqu Mengxun, King of Hexi under the Northern Liang, made a sixteen-foot stone image for his mother in a mountain temple, which he had always revered. In the sixth year of the Yuanjia reign of the Song, he sent the heir apparent, Xingguo, to attack Baohan, where he was heavily defeated, and Xingguo ultimately died at the hands of the Fofo clan (Helian Ding). Mengxun, resentful and bitter that serving the Buddha had brought no efficacy, issued an order to demolish pagodas and temples and to expel the monks. Later, when Mengxun was traveling to Mount Yangshu, several monks waited by the roadside; seeing them from afar, he flew into a rage and immediately beheaded several of them. At that time, his officers and soldiers entered the temple to bow before this image, and tears flowed profusely across its face; astonished, they returned to tell him. Hearing this, Mengxun went to see. Arriving at the temple gate, his whole body trembled with terror as if restrained by an offending spirit; he then called attendants to support him as he stepped forward. Seeing tears flowing from the image like a spring, he bowed his head in apology and profoundly reproached himself. He immediately convened a great assembly, showing redoubled devotion, and summoned the monks back to resume their original practices. Looking at Mengxun’s faith, his faith was neither deep nor clear: attacking and killing to seize territories—how could that not be forbidden by the Buddha? By nature inclined to capricious changes and indulging his evils at will, how could one know what depths he would not reach? At first, he esteemed Dharmakṣema to translate the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, wishing to share life and death with him; later, on account of a slight grievance, he sent an assassin to kill him. Now, suffering defeat in a military expedition, he again blamed the Buddhist monks, obliterating temples and slaying monks—how exceedingly cruel and reckless! Though he later restored them, it could not make amends for his transgressions. Today, on Mount Sanwei (the place to which the Four Perils were exiled), thirty li southeast of Shazhou, the cliff is two li high; there are two hundred and eighty Buddha statues, and light and radiant marks frequently manifest from the niches.