which had attacked him three years before. In order to be healed from
this disease he carved a figure of Yakushi Niurai, to which he used
to offer up his prayers. Five years later he went to China, taking
with him the figure as his guardian saint, and at a place called
Kairetsu it protected him from robbers and wild beasts and from other
calamities. There he passed his time in studying the sacred laws both
hidden and revealed, and after nine years set sail to return to Japan.
When he was on the high seas a storm arose, and a great fish attacked
and tried to swamp the ship, so that the rudder and mast were broken,
and the nearest shore being that of a land inhabited by devils, to
retreat or to advance was equally dangerous. Then the holy man prayed
to the patron saint whose image he carried, and as he prayed, behold
the true Yakushi Niurai appeared in the centre of the ship, and said
to him--

"Verily, thou hast travelled far that the sacred laws might be
revealed for the salvation of many men; now, therefore, take my image,
which thou carriest in thy bosom, and cast it into the sea, that the
wind may abate, and that thou mayest be delivered from this land of
devils."

The commands of the saints must be obeyed, so with tears in his eyes,
the priest threw into the sea the sacred image which he loved. Then
did the wind abate, and the waves were stilled, and the ship went on
her course as though she were being drawn by unseen hands until she
reached a safe haven. In the tenth month of the same year the priest
again set sail, trusting to the power of his patron saint, and reached
the harbour of Tsukushi without mishap. For three years he prayed that
the image which he had cast away might be restored to him, until at
last one night he was warned in a dream that on the sea-shore at