Be that as it may, in China there once lived a calligrapher named Wu-lung. In his art he was without peer in the entire country, just as was Tofu or Kozei5 in Japan. He hated Buddhism and vowed that he would never transcribe any Buddhist scriptures. As he approached his end, he fell seriously ill. On his deathbed he expressed his last wishes to his son, saying, “You are my son. Not only have you inherited my skill, but you write with an even better hand than I. No matter what evil influence may work upon you, you must never copy the Lotus Sutra.” Thereupon blood spurted like fountains from his five sense organs. His tongue split into eight pieces, and his body fell apart in ten directions. Yet his relatives, ignorant of the three evil paths, did not realize that this was an omen that he would fall into hell.
The son’s name was I-lung. He, too, proved to be the best calligrapher in China. Obedient to his father’s will, he pledged that he would never transcribe the Lotus Sutra. The ruler of the time was named Ssu-ma.6 He believed in Buddhism and held the Lotus Sutra in especially high regard. He desired to have this sutra transcribed by an excellent calligrapher— none but the most skilled in all the country— so that he could have a copy of his own. So he summoned I-lung. I-lung explained that his father’s will forbade him from doing so and beseeched the ruler to excuse him from the task. Hearing this, the ruler called another calligrapher and had him transcribe the entire sutra. The result, however, was far from satisfying.
The ruler sent again for I-lung and said to him, “Since you say your father’s will forbids you, I will not compel you to copy the sutra. I do insist, however, that you at least obey my command to write the titles of its eight volumes.” I-lung begged repeatedly to be excused. The ruler, now furious,
said, “Your father was as much my subject as you are. If you refuse to write the titles for fear of being unfilial to him, I will charge you with disobedience of a royal decree.” The ruler repeated his strict order several times. I-lung, though unwilling to be unfilial, realized that he could no longer disobey the royal command, so he wrote the titles [of the eight volumes]7 of the Lotus Sutra and presented his work to the ruler.
Returning home, I-lung faced his father’s grave and, shedding tears of blood, reported, “The ruler commanded me so strictly that, against your will, I wrote the titles of the Lotus Sutra.” In his grief at having been unable to escape the offense of being unfilial, he remained by the graveside for three days on end, fasting until he was on the verge of death. At the hour of the tiger (3:00–5:00 A.M.) on the third day, he was almost dead and felt as if he were dreaming. He looked up at the sky and saw a heavenly being, who was like a painting of the god Shakra and whose multitude of followers filled both heaven and earth. I-lung asked him who he was. The heavenly being replied: “Do you not recognize me? I am your father, Wu-lung. While I was in the human world, I adhered to non-Buddhist scriptures and harbored enmity toward Buddhism, particularly toward the Lotus Sutra. For this reason, I fell into the hell of incessant suffering.
“Every day I had my tongue wrenched out several hundred times. Now I was dead, now I was alive again. I kept crying out in agony, alternately looking up to heaven and flinging myself to the ground, but there was no one to heed my screams. I wanted to tell the human world of my anguish, but there was no means of communication. Whenever you insisted upon adhering to my will, your words would either turn into flames and torment me, or be transformed into swords that
