法苑珠林 14.28

14.28

A hundred li west of Yuzhou in the Tang dynasty, on the rocky mountain north of Xiangsi Temple, there are twelve footprints of the Buddha. All are about three feet long, one foot one inch wide, and nine inches deep, with fish patterns in their centers. They are seen more than ten paces north of the Buddha hall, where monks reside. In the tenth month of the twentieth year of the Zhenguan reign era, suddenly lotus flowers emerged from the spring beside the temple. Their form was red, complete with stamens and calyxes, and as large as three feet across. When lifted out face-down, they were like mucous, but upon entering the water they formed flowers. Travelers on boats coming and going were all amazed. They did not disappear for a whole month. Xiangsi Temple gained its name from this. Another account says there is also such a temple in Fuzhou. The temple was originally impoverished, but because of this sympathetic resonance that drew offerings, it has remained prosperous ever since. Formerly, during the Qi dynasty, the Son of Heaven's Well east of the city wall of Jingzhou produced brocade; at that time men and women took and used it, no different from human-woven brocade, and it only ceased after a month. Thus we know that such emergences are not truly strange (as recounted in Wu Jun’s Qi chunqiu and Xiao Cheng’s Jingnan zhi).