法苑珠林 40.30

40.30

In the sixth year of the Yuanjia era of the Song, Jia Daozi was walking in Jing[zhou] and clearly saw a lotus flower just blossoming. He took it idly to return home and heard a sound within the flower. Wondering at it, he searched and found a śarīra, white as a genuine pearl, its flames illuminating the beams and rafters. Revering it, he lifted it in a box upon a small table and suspended it on the wall of his room. His family members repeatedly saw a Buddhist monk coming from outside, untying the robes he wore and sitting on the table. Someone lodged there who did not know of this and treated it disrespectfully. He then dreamed of a man who told him, "Here is the true body of Śākya, and the multitude of sages come to venerate it; why do you commit such misdeeds? In death you will fall into hell, and when you emerge you will be a slave. How can you not be terrified?" The man was greatly afraid, and before long he died of a virulent disease. From the ground of the śarīra room grew eight stems of lotus, which withered after sixty days. After a year or more, it was lost, and none knew where it went.