法苑珠林 63.99

63.99

Upon examining old traditions, it is said: In ancient times, an adult man went on a distant campaign. There was no one else in his household, only one son, one daughter, and one stallion. The daughter personally tended to it. Living in poverty and seclusion, she longed for her father. She playfully said to the horse: 'If you can bring my father back for me, I will marry you.' Having received these words, the horse snapped its tether and galloped away, going straight to the father's post. Seeing the horse, the father was surprised and pleased, so he took it and mounted it. Looking back in the direction from which it had come, the horse neighed mournfully without stopping. The father said: 'For this horse to act like this without reason—could something have happened at my home?' He thereupon hurriedly rode it back. Because the beast had shown such extraordinary devotion, he fed it abundantly with grass, but the horse refused to eat. Whenever it saw the daughter coming or going, it would rear up in excitement and fury. This happened more than once. The father found it strange and secretly questioned the daughter. The daughter told her father everything: 'It must be for this reason.' The father said: 'Speak no more of it, lest you bring disgrace upon the household. For now, do not go in or out.' Thereupon he hid with a crossbow, shot and killed it, and laid its hide out in the courtyard to dry. When the father was away, the daughter and a neighbouring girl played where the hide was. Kicking it with her foot, she said: 'You were a beast, yet you wanted to take a human as your wife? To bring upon yourself this butchering and flaying—why torment yourself so?' Before her words were finished, the horse hide sprang up violently, rolled the girl inside, and sped away. The neighbouring girl was terrified and did not dare rescue her, but ran to tell her father. The father returned to search, but she had already gone missing. After several days, the girl and the horse hide were found among the branches of a large tree, entirely transformed into silkworms, spinning silk upon the tree. Their cocoons and filaments were thick and large, different from ordinary silkworms. The neighbouring women took and reared them, and their numbers multiplied manifold. They therefore named the tree the mulberry (sang), for sang means 'bereavement' (sang). Because of this, the common people vied to plant it; it is what is reared in the world today. What are called mulberry silkworms are the remnants of these ancient silkworms. Upon investigation, in the celestial mansions the constellation Chen is the Horse Star. The Silkworm Classic states that when the sun and moon are in the constellation Great Fire, the eggs should be bathed; thus silkworms and horses share the same vital breath (qi). The Rites of Zhou states that the Master of Horses is in charge of prohibiting second-crop silkworms, on which the commentary says: 'Nothing can be great in two ways at once; second-crop silkworms are prohibited because they harm horses.' In the Han rites, when the empress personally picked mulberry leaves to sacrifice to the Silkworm Deity, she addressed her as 'Princess Lady Yuanshi of Yuanru'. 'Princess' is an honorific title for a woman; 'Lady of Yuanru' is the first silkworm-keeper. Thus, that people nowadays sometimes call silkworms 'daughters' is a remnant of antiquity. (The above ten verifications are from the Soushen ji.)