Ho Kwan of Kuang Nan was a kindhearted man and never killed any living thing. He had a jar containing one thousand pieces of silver which he kept in a casket. The white ants, of which there were so many in his district, invaded the casket and ate part of the silver. When his family found what had happened, they traced the ants to a hollow cave where millions of them were living. They thought if they put all of these ants in a crucible, perhaps they could recover a part of the lost silver. But Ho objected to the scheme, saying: “I cannot bear to see all these many creatures killed on account of a small sum of silver.”
So they let the matter drop. That night he dreamed that scores of soldiers in white armor came to him, asking him to enter a carriage which they had with them and to come to the palace of their king. Ho Kwan proceeded with the soldiers to a town where the people looked prosperous and the buildings were all magnificent. Numerous officers came to meet him and took him to a splendid palace.
The king, clad in royal fashion, descended from the throne, and, cordially saluting Ho Kwan, said: “By your benevolent acts we have been saved from our enemy. While not forgetting your kindness, the lack of strict discipline among my people caused you some trouble recently, but by your mercy, they have again been saved from calamity. How could I let your kindness go unrequited this time? There is a certain tree near your residence readily identified, under which in olden times a certain person buried in a jar full of silver. Just dig that out and keep it for yourself. You are the unicorn of mankind (the emblem of perfect goodness) that will never hurt any living soul. It is a pity that you are now too old to enjoy the fruits of your kindness yourself, but your descendants will reap what you have sown.”
After this Ho Kwan was escorted back to his own house as before, by armed soldiers. When he awoke he meditated on the dream and found it to be the work of the ants. So he dug up the place as told by their king and recovered a jar buried therein these many years. His son became an eminent scholar.
———————————————————————————————
2- In the county of Hsiang-Tan in Hu-Kuang there was an old and much-respected gentleman. He had three sons who did not care for culture and refinement but spent every day in sports and roaming through the mountains.
One day the three went out hunting with a large company of young people and they met unexpectedly an old man in white garments who knelt and thus addressed them: “To refrain from injuring all growing things and from killing whatever is awakening into life is the part of universal loving kindness as observed by saints and sages. It is now springtime when everything in nature is starting to live again. If you pay no attention to the tenderness of heart as practiced by holy men., and by unchecking the wild passions lurking in men’s hearts, if you set the woods afire and exterminate the animals and insects that inhabit them, you will surely incur heavenly displeasure and suffer the consequences thereof. I, poor old creature, have seven young children in my family, and there is not the time to remove them to a place of safety; but if you, gentlemen, have pity on us, we will never forget your mercy and will reward you later.”
The three leaders of the party did not exactly understand what the old man wanted but without further thought promised to do as he had requested.
When the old man was gone some of the party began to wonder who he could have been and whence he might have come into this wilderness, and they argued that his appeal to their sympathy did not sound human. Possibly he was the spirit of some old wild animal living around in the mountains.
Upon this suggestion, they pursued him, and seeing him enter a cave, spread a net before it and started a fire in the entrance. Suddenly a white stag darted forth from the hole, and breaking through the besiegers, climbed up to a near rock, and then assuming the form of an old man, turned back to the hunting party, exclaiming: “You have killed my seven young daughters. You shall have to pay a penalty for this heartless act. A calamity ten times greater than I have suffered will befall your family.”
The three young men tried to shoot him, but he caught up the arrows in his hands and breaking them to pieces disappeared.
Later, there came to their house a Taoist monk who predicted for them an imperial career and great prosperity for the future. Incited by this prophecy, they organized a rebellion in which many of their friends joined, for the purpose of overthrowing the reigning dynasty and establishing a new government under their own leadership. While the preparations were going on secretly, somebody betrayed their conspiracy to the authorities. Soldiers were immediately dispatched to their home, and, surrounding the house, but every one of the family under arrest. On examination, they were found guilty of treason. Seventy members of their families and associates were executed according to law, but nobody ever knew what became of the Taoist monk who had been the real leader of the scheme. He as well as the man who had betrayed them disappeared.
——————————————————————–
3- Hoangti was the emperor of China. He had a beautiful wife whose name was Si-ling. The emperor and his wife loved their people and always thought of their happiness.
In those days the Chinese people wore clothes made of skins. By and by animals grew scarce, and the people did not know what they should wear. The emperor and empress tried in vain to find some other way of clothing them.
One morning Hoangti and his wife were in the beautiful palace garden. They walked up and down, up and down, talking of their people.
Suddenly the emperor said, “Look at those worms on the mulberry trees, Si-ling. They seem to be spinning.”
Si-ling looked, and sure enough, the worms were spinning. A long thread was coming from the mouth of each, and each little worm was winding this thread around its body.
Si-ling and the emperor stood still and watched the worms. “How wonderful!” said Si-ling.
The next morning Hoangti and the empress walked under the trees again. They found some worms still winding thread. Others had already spun their cocoons and were fast asleep. In a few days, all of the worms had spun cocoons.
“This is indeed a wonderful, wonderful thing!” said Si-ling. “Why, each worm has a thread on its body long enough to make a house for itself!”
Si-ling thought of this day after day. One morning as she and the emperor walked under the trees, she said, “I believe I could find a way to weave those long threads into cloth.”
“But how could you unwind the threads?” asked the emperor.
“I’ll find a way,” Si-ling said. And she did; but she had to try many, many times.
She put the cocoons in a hot place, and the little sleepers soon died. Then the cocoons were thrown into boiling water to make the threads soft. After that, the long threads could be easily unwound.
Now Si-ling had to think of something else; she had to find a way to weave the threads into cloth. After many trials, she made a loom – the first that was ever made. She taught others to weave, and soon hundreds of people were making cloth from the threads of the silkworm.
The people ever afterward called Si-ling “The Goddess of the Silkworm.” And whenever the emperor walked with her in the garden, they liked to watch the silkworms spinning threads for the good of their people.
| ————————————————————————-very———– |
4- Ch’uan Ju-Yu of Pu-Hai was a poor man, but he was never tired of doing every good and charitable work in his power. He also employed himself indefatigably, although he was often in poor health, in copying many good books to be distributed among his neighbors. When he was asked why he exerted himself so much in spite of his physical weakness, he replied that he was not trying to seek any reward, but simply wanted to give relief to his mind, which could not be kept idle for one moment.
One day he went to sea, and encountering a strong gale, found himself stranded on a lonely island. The scenery was very beautiful and he was full of joy, when suddenly there appeared to him a Taoist scholar who said: “The world delights in hypocrisy, but the Lord on High praises sincerity. You have hitherto done good work in distributing sound moral tractates, and this not for the sake of courting a good opinion of yourself from others, but simply from pure unaffected good-will., So much the more praiseworthy are your deeds in the eyes of our Lord. Many scholars are clever enough, yet they do not employ their talents for the true cause; they abuse them in writing immoral, seditious books; but they are now suffering in the infernal regions the consequences brought on them by their own acts. I shall take you there and let you see by way of contrast how much better your fate is.”
Then they went through space to that strangest of lands. The Taoist explained everything they saw there. All kinds of torture were being applied to those immoral writers, who, while in the world, stirred up man’s beastly nature and allured many good people to an early downfall. The stranger also showed him a stately-looking man in the palace, who had been a good, upright officer when on earth, punishing every crime that tended to disturb social and political peace, and was now superintending this department in the world below.
When the visit was over, the Taoist scholar brought Ch’uan back to the same island, where he secured a sailboat and finally succeeded in reaching his home. Ever since, he is wont to tell his neighbors how horrible the scene was which he had seen on his visit to hell.
[The peculiar attraction of this story is in its parallelism to Dante’s Inferno. The Chinese characters over the entrance of hell are, Feng Tu Cheng, which means verbatim “The Inferno’s Fortified Castle.” The last two characters, taken as one word, form the common term for capital, and so we might translate it briefly by “The Capital of Hell.”