Folk tale: The daughter sacrifices herself to save her father and attains enlightenment, while her greedy father begs for the rest of his life
Long, long ago, there was a kingdom called Xinglin, with the reign title Miaozhuang. The emperor was named Pojia, and everyone called him King Miaozhuang.
King Miaozhuang had three daughters: the eldest princess Miaoshu, the second princess Miaoyin, and the third princess Miaoshan. The eldest and second princesses dressed in red and green every day, laughing and joking, eating and drinking and enjoying themselves from morning till night, but Miaoshan was different from her two sisters, caring only about reading books.
King Miaozhuang grew older and older, and since he had no son, who would inherit the throne in the future? So he summoned his ministers to discuss it, and in the end they decided to recruit sons-in-law. Then he called his three daughters to the hall.
The eldest princess said: "I want to marry a man of literary talent, full of learning, who will surely be able to assist Father King in governing the realm."
The second princess said: "I want to marry a man of martial talent, who can campaign in the south and fight in the north, bring peace to the nation and stability to the country, and be Father King's right arm."
When King Miaozhuang heard this he nodded, full of joy, feeling that these two daughters were especially filial and thoughtful. He then asked his third daughter Miaoshan: "And you? What kind of person do you want to marry?" Miaoshan shook her head and said: "Your daughter is willing to serve Father King all her life and never marry."
King Miaozhuang's expression immediately changed drastically, and he said decisively: "No! When a man grows up he should marry, and when a woman grows up she should marry; this is the natural order of things! Tell me, what kind of person do you actually want to marry?" Miaoshan said: "I want to find a healer who can heal heaven and earth, a famous physician who can bring happiness to all under heaven. If Father King can find such a person, your daughter is willing to marry!"
Oh dear! Wasn't this deliberately setting a difficult problem? How could there be such an all-powerful miracle doctor in the world?! The more King Miaozhuang thought about it, the angrier he became. In fact, among the three daughters, Miaoshan was the cleverest and most virtuous, and King Miaozhuang had intended to pass the throne to her, but now with her doing this, everything had been thrown into confusion! King Miaozhuang slammed the table and ordered Miaoshan locked in the back garden, stripped of her silk and brocade clothes and dressed in thin coarse cloth and hemp garments, to let her taste what it was like to suffer cold and hunger.
Who would have thought Miaoshan was just stubborn by nature. When she reached the back garden, she put on the coarse cloth clothes and ate cold rice and leftovers, sometimes with a meal and sometimes without, but she did not mind at all, as if nothing had happened, and still read her books every day. The queen, her two elder sisters, and the consorts and palace maids in the palace took turns trying to persuade her to change her mind, but she still held to her own position, and no one could persuade her.
One night, Miaoshan simply escaped from the back garden and went to Baique Temple in Longshu County, Ruzhou, to become a nun. When King Miaozhuang learned the news, he secretly issued a confidential decree to the abbot in charge of Baique Temple, insisting that Miaoshan be persuaded to change her mind. If it could not be done, troops would be sent to burn the temple and send all several hundred monks and nuns in the temple to the Western Paradise.
The abbot went several times to admonish Miaoshan, but each time returned without success. Later he had no choice but to let her do rough work in the kitchen, carrying water and chopping wood, to let her know that being a renunciate was not so easy either. In the end Miaoshan still had no complaints, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Who would have thought that the animals in the mountains all liked her: the hundred beasts carried firewood to her, and the thousand birds brought vegetables, and all the monks and nuns of Baique Temple were astonished and reported the matter to King Miaozhuang.
King Miaozhuang flew into a rage, sent men to gather troops and horses, surrounded Baique Temple, and set a great fire, intending to burn Miaoshan and several hundred monks and nuns to death. But just as the great fire was about to catch, a torrential rain fell, pouring down headlong and extinguishing the great fire. The soldiers and officers had no choice but to bind Miaoshan and escort her back to the capital for King Miaozhuang to deal with.
On a stretch of mountain road back to the capital, a tiger jumped out, and everyone abandoned Miaoshan and fled for their lives. Miaoshan escaped death, begged along the way, and finally settled on a desolate mountain. She built a thatched hut, kept company with birds and beasts, and still recited scriptures and cultivated herself every day. This mountain was called Xiangshan.
Because of the matter of his third daughter Miaoshan, King Miaozhuang was angry and furious all day long, and nothing went smoothly either. Over time, he actually contracted a strange illness: sores and boils grew all over his body, painful and itchy. He sought doctors everywhere, but no one could cure him. Eventually the sores and boils ulcerated and discharged pus, worms bred in his flesh, and the stench filled the air. At this time an old man came and wrote King Miaozhuang a prescription, saying that with this prescription he should go find a person of calm mind who would not get angry, show the prescription to that person, and that person would think of a way to save him. King Miaozhuang asked where he should go to find this person. The old man said: "Go to Xiangshan and take a look!"
Now there was no other good option, so King Miaozhuang had no choice but to send a minister with the prescription to Xiangshan. When he reached the mountain, he indeed found a woman. She wore white clothes and sat quietly reading, and her state of mind seemed very calm. The minister went forward, told her completely about King Miaozhuang's illness, and then handed her the prescription. After hearing it, the woman was already streaming with tears, and when she opened the prescription and looked, it turned out that her own eyes and hands were needed as medicine to cure the strange illness.
This woman was none other than the third princess Miaoshan, only she had been away for many years and her appearance had changed somewhat, so the minister could not recognize her for the moment. Miaoshan thought: "When Father is in trouble, as a daughter I ought to save him! If I can cure his illness, giving up my own eyes and hands is worth it." Thinking this, she said very calmly: "The things you need, take them now."
So the minister gouged out Miaoshan's eyes and cut off Miaoshan's hands, and returned and gave them to King Miaozhuang. King Miaozhuang used them as medicine, and after taking it, the strange illness indeed quickly healed.
Miaoshan's sacrifice of herself to save her father moved Heaven, and on her body countless hands grew, each palm with an eye. It is said that this is the legend of Thousand-Hand Guanyin.
As for King Miaozhuang, after he recovered he went in person to Xiangshan to visit and give thanks. When he arrived, he discovered that it was his own third daughter Miaoshan who had saved him. He was extremely ashamed and moved, and from then on he too began to cultivate. No one knew how many years passed, but King Miaozhuang finally attained the Way through cultivation, and the Buddha of the Western Paradise summoned him to assign him a place among the bodhisattvas. When King Miaozhuang came to the gate of the Western Paradise, a thought suddenly popped into his mind: "The door of the palace treasury has long been unrepaired; don't let anyone steal the treasures inside..." Although this thought flashed through his mind in an instant, the Buddha of the Western Paradise had already noticed it, and the Buddha said to him: "You have cultivated for so long and are still so greedy for wealth. Better go to Mount Putuo, find a place to settle by the roadside pavilion, and beg for alms from the pilgrims!"
From then on, in the Mount Putuo area there was a kind of small Buddhist shrine, in which was enshrined a "begging bodhisattva," said to be the King Miaozhuang of those years.