Chinese literature : $b Comprising the Analects of Confucius, the Sayings of Mencius, the Shi-King, the Travels of Fâ-Hien, and the Sorrows of HanFaxian
Philosophy
Chinese literature : $b Comprising the Analects of Confucius, the Sayings of Mencius, the Shi-King, the Travels of Fâ-Hien, and the Sorrows of Han
Faxian
China -- Literary collections; Chinese literature; Chinese literature -- Translations into English
Soon after this a bhikshu, pursuing his regular course of begging his
food, entered the gate of the place. When the lictors of the naraka saw
him, they were about to subject him to their tortures; but he,
frightened, begged them to allow him a moment in which to eat his
mid-day meal. Immediately after, there came in another man, whom they
thrust into a mortar and pounded till a red froth overflowed. As the
bhikshu looked on, there came to him the thought of the impermanence,
the painful suffering and inanity of this body, and how it is but as a
bubble and as foam; and instantly he attained to Arhatship. Immediately
after, the lictors seized him, and threw him into a caldron of boiling
water. There was a look of joyful satisfaction, however, in the
bhikshu's countenance. The fire was extinguished, and the water became
cold. In the middle of the caldron there rose up a lotus flower, with
the bhikshu seated on it. The lictors at once went and reported to the
king that there was a marvellous occurrence in the naraka, and wished
him to go and see it; but the king said, "I formerly made such an
agreement that now I dare not go to the place." The lictors said, "This
is not a small matter. Your Majesty ought to go quickly. Let your former
agreement be altered." The king thereupon followed them, and entered the
naraka, when the bhikshu preached the Law to him, and he believed, and
was made free. Forthwith he demolished the naraka, and repented of all
the evil which he had formerly done. From this time he believed in and
honored the Three Precious Ones, and constantly went to a patra tree,
repenting under it, with self-reproach, of his errors, and accepting the
eight rules of abstinence.
The queen asked where the king was constantly going to, and the
ministers replied that he was constantly to be seen under such and such
a patra tree. She watched for a time when the king was not there, and
then sent men to cut the tree down. When the king came, and saw what had
been done, he swooned away with sorrow, and fell to the ground. His
ministers sprinkled water on his face, and after a considerable time he
revived. He then built all round the stump with bricks, and poured a
hundred pitchers of cows' milk on the roots; and as he lay with his four
limbs spread out on the ground, he took this oath, "If the tree do not
live, I will never rise from this." When he had uttered this oath, the
tree immediately began to grow from the roots, and it has continued to
grow till now, when it is nearly one hundred cubits in height.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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