諸經要集 1.43

1.43

Wang Xuance's Xiguo xingchuan says: "In the second year of the Xianqing era of the Great Tang, the imperial envoy Wang Xuance and others went to the Western Countries to convey the Buddha's kāṣāya. Arriving southwest of Nepāla at Bhāradvāja village, beneath a cavity to the east of the village there was a water-fire pool. If one brought household fire to illuminate it, flames immediately arose on top of its water, emerging from within the water. If one wished to extinguish it by pouring water on it, its flames blazed even more fiercely. The Han envoys once set a cauldron over it and cooked rice to doneness. The envoy asked the king of that country, and the king replied to the envoy: 'Someone once probed it with a staff and touched a golden casket. When people were ordered to pull it out, the more they pulled, the deeper it sank. Tradition says that this is the gold of the heavenly crown for Maitreya Buddha's future attainment of the Way, guarded by a fire dragon. The fire of this pool is indeed dragon fire.'"