Relenting a little the king sent an older sister to urge Kuan Yin to accept the
husband he had found for her. When she refused, he sent her to a monastery and
charged the abbess to treat her harshly, so that she might be forced to return
home. Expecting to win the king’s favor, the abbess put the most unpleasant
tasks on the girl. But again the gods assisted her and made her work light, so
that her tasks were always well done and the young woman was cheerful.
One day the report came to the king that his daughter was associating with a
young monk discussing heterodox doctrines and that she had given birth to a
child. This news so enraged the king that he burned the monastery, killing many
monks. The princess was captured and brought before him. Inasmuch as she was
obdurate, the king ordered her to be executed. The executioner’s sword,
however, broke into a thousand pieces without doing her any injury. The king
then ordered her to be strangled. A golden image sixteen feet high appeared on
the spot. The princess laughed and cried: “Where there was no image, an image
appeared. I see the real form. When body flesh is strangled, then appear the
lights of ten thousand roads.” She went to purgatory and purgatory at once
changed into paradise. Yama, in order to save his purgatory, sent her back to
the world. She appeared at Puto, an island off the coast of Chekiang near
Ningpo. Here she rescued sailors and performed many miracles for people in
distress.
In the meantime the father, who had committed many sins, became sick. His
allotted time of life had been shortened by twenty years. Moreover, an ulcer
grew on his body for every one of the five hundred monks he had killed when he
burned the monastery. A miserable, loathsome old man, he came to an old monk,
who was really the princess in disguise, and asked for help. The monk told him
that an eye and an arm of a blood relative made into medicine was the only cure
for his trouble. The two living daughters were willing to make such an
offering, but their husbands would not permit them to do so. The old monk urged
the monarch to take up a life of abstinence, to rebuild the monastery he had
burned, and to provide money for services to take the five hundred monks whom
he had killed through purgatory. He also said that a nun in the convent would
offer an arm and an eye. When the monarch entered the monastery, he found
hanging before the incense burner an arm and an eye. These were boiled, mixed
with medicine and rubbed on the king’s body. He soon became well. Further
inquiry revealed that these members belonged to his daughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account