大唐內典錄 10.62

10.62

In Hedong there was a nun of refined practice who constantly read and recited the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, seeking someone skilled in calligraphy to copy it. The payment she offered was several times the ordinary rate, and her purity and diligent devotion surpassed that of others. For every single rising, she bathed once, burning incense to perfume her robes, and exhaled her breath through a tube leading outside the wall. The work on the seven fascicles took eight years to complete. The monk Faduan of Longmen Si gathered an assembly to lecture on the sūtra, and wanted to borrow this nun's sūtra as a standard text. The nun firmly refused to give it. Duan reproached her, and with no alternative, she personally delivered and gave it to Duan. When Duan opened and read it, he saw only yellow paper with no characters whatsoever; the other fascicles were also like this. Ashamed and remorseful, Duan returned it to the nun. Weeping with sorrow, the nun received it, poured fragrant water over the casket, bore it upon her head, and circumambulated the Buddha for seven days without rest. When she opened and looked at it, the characters were as before. In the second year of Zhenguan, Duan himself recounted this.