諸經要集 9.27

9.27

Furthermore, the Xianyu jing states: In the past, when the Buddha was in the world, there was the bhikṣuṇī Subtle (Sūkṣmā), who had attained the fruit of an arhat. Together with the assembly of bhikṣuṇīs, she herself recounted the karmic retributions of the good and bad deeds she had performed in past lives, telling the bhikṣuṇīs: "Long ago in the past, there was an elder whose household was exceedingly wealthy, but he had no sons. He took a second wife, and her husband loved and cared for her dearly. Later, she gave birth to a boy; the husband and wife held him in high esteem and never tired of looking upon him. The principal wife felt jealous, thinking secretly to herself: 'When this boy grows up, he will take control of the family estate. What was the point of all my bitter toil and accumulation? It would be better to kill him.' Thereupon she took an iron needle and pierced the infant's fontanelle, and he subsequently died. The second wife suspected that the principal wife had killed him and immediately said, 'You killed my child!' At that time, the principal wife, believing that there were no calamities of retribution for good and bad deeds, swore an oath to her: 'If I killed your child, may it be that in life after life my husband is bitten by a snake; may the sons I bear be swept away by water and devoured by wolves; may I myself eat my own child's flesh; may I be buried alive in this very body; and may my parents' household burn in a fire and die!' Having made this oath, she died at a later time. Because of having killed the child, she fell into hell and suffered immeasurable torment. When her punishment in hell was exhausted, she was born among humans as the daughter of a brāhmaṇa. As she grew older, she married into her husband's family and gave birth to a son. Later, she became pregnant again, and when her months were full and she was about to give birth, husband and wife set out together toward her parents' house. Mid-journey, her abdomen began to ache, and she gave birth. They stayed the night beneath a tree, and her husband slept separately at the time. All that she had previously sworn as a curse she now suffered: at that time, a poisonous snake bit and killed her husband. Seeing her husband dead, the woman fainted away, only to revive later. At daybreak, she took the older boy and put him on her shoulders; holding the younger one in her arms, she went along the road weeping. On the road there was a river, deep and wide. She left the older boy on this bank and first carried the younger one across to the opposite bank. Returning to fetch the older boy, the boy saw his mother coming, entered the water, and went toward her. The water immediately swept him away and he drowned. The mother chased after him, but had not the strength to save him; in an instant, he suddenly sank and died. Turning back to the younger boy, a wolf had come and finished devouring him; she saw only blood scattered in disorder on the ground. At that moment the mother fainted in a stupor, reviving only after a long while. She then proceeded along the road and encountered a brāhmaṇa who was a friend of her father. She immediately related her bitter hardships in full to the brāhmaṇa. Pitiful, the brāhmaṇa wept with her. She then asked whether all was well in her family's house. The brāhmaṇa replied, 'A few days ago, your parents and relatives, old and young, were all killed at once when a fire broke out.' Hearing this, in agony and grief, she died and revived again. The brāhmaṇa took her back and provided for her like a daughter. Later, she married again. She became pregnant and was about to give birth. Her husband had been out drinking wine, returning only at nightfall. In the dark, the woman had shut the door and was sitting alone inside. In a moment, the woman gave birth. The husband called from outside the door, but the birth was not yet finished, and no one went to open it. The husband broke down the door, came in, seized the woman, and beat her severely. The woman explained that she was giving birth, but because the husband was furious, he immediately took the child, killed it, boiled it in clarified butter, and forced the woman to eat it. After the woman ate her child, her heart was filled with bitter pain and distress. Considering to herself that she must have meager merit to encounter such a man, she abandoned him, fled, and reached Vārāṇasī. She arrived at an orchard and sat down under a tree to rest. There was an elder's son whose wife had recently died; every day he went to her grave, weeping in longing. Seeing this woman sitting alone under the tree, he immediately questioned her, and they subsequently became husband and wife. After several days, the husband suddenly reached the end of his lifespan. At that time, according to the law of that kingdom, if husband and wife loved each other during life, when the husband died, the wife was to be buried alive with him. At that time, a gang of bandits came to unearth the grave. The bandit chieftain saw that the woman's face was lovely and fair, so he took her as his wife. After several decades of days, the husband raided another family's home and was killed by the master. His bandit companions brought the corpse, handed it over to his wife, and buried her alive with it as well. After three days, foxes and wolves dug up the grave, and thereby she managed to escape. She reproached herself, saying: 'What crime did I commit in a past life that within ten days I should meet with such disasters and misfortunes, dying and reviving again? Where can I go now to preserve the remainder of my life?' Hearing that Śākyamuni Buddha was residing in Jetavana, she went to where the Buddha was and begged for mercy to leave the household life. Because of the power of the vow she had made in the past when offering food to a pratyekabuddha, she was now able to meet the Buddha, leave the household life, cultivate the Way, and attain the state of an arhat. She came to know fully her past karma of killing, and that the oath and curse she had made caused her to fall into hell, and that in the present she suffered this evil retribution of bitter distress, with no one able to bear it in her place. Subtle herself said, 'The principal wife of old is my very self today. Although I have attained the state of an arhat, constantly a hot iron needle enters through the top of my head and exits from beneath my feet. Day and night I suffer from this, unable to endure it any longer. Such are calamities and misfortunes: in the end they never decay or perish.' Furthermore, in the Introduction to the Mahāyāna (Mahāyānāvatāra), Bodhisattva Sthiramati speaks in verse, saying: