In the reign of Empress Abe who governed Ōyashima at Nara Palace, there was a monk, Dhyāna Master Eigō in the village of Kumano in Muro district, Kii province. He taught and guided the people by the sea. His contemporaries revered him as a bodhisattva, respecting his self-discipline. As he lived in a place south of the imperial capital, he was called the Bodhisattva of the South.

Once a dhyāna master came to the bodhisattva. He had with him a copy of the Hoke-kyō (written with very small characters in one scroll), a pewter pitcher, and a stool made of rope. He used to recite the Hoke-kyō constantly. After one year or so, he thought of leaving Dhyāna Master Eigō, and with a bow presented his stool as an offering, saying, “I am leaving you and going into the mountains to cross over to Ise province. Hearing this, the master gave him one bushel of ground dry glutinous rice and had two lay brothers accompany him to see him on his way. After having been escorted for a day, he gave them his Hoke-kyō, bowl, and ground dry rice, and sent them back, while he continued with only twenty yards of hemp rope and a pewter pitcher.

After two years had passed, the villagers of Kumano went up to a mountain by the upper stream of the Kumano to cut down trees to build a boat. They heard a voice reciting the Hoke-kyō, and it did not stop for days and months. Listening to the voice reciting the scripture, the boat builders felt faith and reverence arising, and, with their rationed food as an offering, they looked everywhere for the reciter. Although they could find no trace of him, the voice reciting the scripture went on as before.

After half a year, they returned to the mountain to draw out the boat. Again, they heard the voice continuously reciting the scripture. They reported this to Dhyāna Master Eigō, and, as he also wondered about it, he went to the mountain and heard it for himself. After a search he discovered a corpse hanging over a cliff, its feet tied with a hemp rope, that of a man who had jumped to his death. Beside the corpse there was a pewter pitcher. It was evident that the corpse was that of the monk who had left him. At the sight Eigō wailed in sorrow and went back.

After three more years, villagers came to him, saying, “The voice has never ceased to recite the scripture.” Eigō went back to collect the bones, and, when he looked at the skull, he found that the tongue was still alive and had not even begun to decay in the course of three years.

Indeed, we know that this event occurred because of the mysterious power of the Mahayana scripture, and the merits of the late monk who had recited it.

The note says: What a noble thing it was for the dhyāna master to reveal a miraculous sign of the Mahayana scripture in his flesh-and blood body by reciting the Hoke-kyō constantly! Though he flung himself from a cliff and was exposed to the elements, his tongue alone did not decay. Needless to say, he is sacred and not ordinary.

Also, on Kane-no-take in Yoshino there was a dhyāna master who went from peak to peak reciting the scripture. Once he heard a voice reciting the Hoke-kyō and Kongō hannya-kyō ahead of him. He stopped to listen to it, and, in searching in the bushes, he found a skull. Though it had been exposed to the elements for a long time, its tongue had not decayed but retained its life. The dhyāna master enshrined it in a purified place, saying to the skull, “By the law of causation I met you,” and made a shelter above it with grass, living beside it to recite the scripture and hold services six times a day. As he recited the Hoke-kyō the skull joined him, and its tongue vibrated. This is also a miraculous event. (Page 223-224)

In the Tenpyō era there once lived a layman in Sagaraka district, Yamashiro province, whose name is unknown. At Koma-dera in the same district there was a monk named Eijō used to recite the Hoke-kyō all the time. It happened that the monk and the layman had been playing go for some time. Whenever the monk put down a stone, he said, “This is the Venerable Eijō’s hand of go.” The layman mocked and mimicked him, deliberately twisting his mouth and saying, “This is the Venerable Eijō’s hand of go.” He went on and on this way. Then, all of a sudden, the layman’s mouth was distorted. In fear, he left the temple holding his chin with his hands. He had hardly gone any distance before he fell on his back and died immediately. Witnesses said, “Though he did not persecute a monk, mocking and mimicking got him a twisted mouth and sudden death. What, then, must the penalty be if one vengefully persecutes a monk?” The Hoke-kyō* gives a passage to this effect: “A wise monk and a foolish monk cannot be discussed in the same breath. Similarly, a long-haired monk and a wise, unshaved layman cannot be treated alike and served with the same dishes. If one dares to do so, he will swallow an iron ball which is heated on red-hot copper and charcoal, and fall into hell.” (Page 185)

*These verses are not found in the Lotus Sūtra.