Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Lady of Yanzhou 延州妇人

The Taiping Anthologies is a collection of about 7000 stories compiled under the editorship of Li Fang of Song Dynasty, first published in 978. The stories were selected from over three hundred books and novels from the Han Dynasty to the early Song Dynasty, many of which have long been lost. Some stories are historical or naturalistic anecdotes, each is replete with historical elements, and qualifies as fiction, but the topics are mostly supernatural, about Buddhist and Daoist priests, immortals, ghosts, and various deities.
One of the most unexpected stories is about a lady of Yanzhou who is willing to have sex with any man she came across. She turned out to be an incarnation of Bodhisattva.

Once there was a lady in Yanzhou in eastern Shaanxi who was of fair complexion and quite beautiful, about 24 or 25 years of age. She wandered through the city alone, and the young lads would follow her around. She had sexual relations with them all, rejecting none of them.
Several years later she died, and the people of Yanzhou were all grieved at this and felt sorry for her. They collected a sum of money and paid her funeral expenses. Because she had no home, they buried her beside a road.
In the middle of the reign of Tang Daicong Dali (766-779 AD), a Central Asian monk came from the northwest. He saw the lady's grave, and immediately set up a prayer mat there, prostrating himself and burning incense while praising the virtue of the deceased for several days.
People saw this and said to him, "This was an immoral woman who treated every man like her husband, and we buried her here because she had no family. Why do you as a monk show such respect to her?"
The monk replied, "My benefactors, there is something you do not know. This lady was a holy being indeed, compassionate and generous in submitting to the desires of all worldly men. She is the Chained-bone Bodhisattva, and she has fulfilled her destiny and achieved enlightenment. If you do not believe me, you can open up the grave and see."
The people exhumed the grave, and sure enough all the bones were linked as in a chain. They were astonished and held a Buddhist feast for her, and also built a pagoda to honour her.
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宋代李昉编的《太平广记》大约收集了7000个故事,第一次出版于978年。故事选自汉朝至宋初超过300本书与小说,其中有不少已经失传了。这些故事有历史或自然奇闻逸话,充满了历史元素,创造素质,内容则都是一些有关超自然、佛教、道士、长生不老、鬼怪及各种神仙的事物。
其中一个令人意想不到的故事是有关一个延州妇女对所有男人来者不拒,而她原来是菩萨的化身。

昔,延州有妇人,白皙,颇有姿貌,年可二十四五,孤行城市,年少之子,悉与之游,押呢荐 枕,一无所却。
数年而殁,州人莫不悲惜,共醵丧具,为之葬焉。以其无家,瘗于道左。
(唐代宗)大历中(776-779),忽有胡僧自西域来,见墓,遂趺坐,具礼焚香,围绕赞叹数日。
人见,谓之日:此一淫纵女子,人尽夫也。以其无属,故瘗于此,和尚何敬耶?
僧曰:非檀越所知,斯乃大圣,慈悲喜舍,世所之 欲,无不徇焉。此即销骨菩萨,顺缘已尽。圣者云耳不信,即启以验之。
众人即开墓,视遍身之骨,钩结皆如锁状。果如僧言。州人异之,为设大斋起塔焉。

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