七、禽鳥助葬

七、禽鳥助葬
孫良嗣是一位心地仁厚的鄉民,雖然家境不好,但是若有看見禽鳥被人捕獲,關在籠子裡,便設法湊錢買來放生。
7. The Birds Buried The Corpse
Soon Liang-si was a kind-hearted villager. He was not rich but whenever he saw birds which were kept in cages,

每當打開籠子,看見禽鳥吱吱飛翔空中,重獲自由,心中就感到萬分的舒暢與快樂。如此久而久之,他也不知道已放了多少的禽鳥,而他的生活仍然貧苦。
在七十多歲,命終之後,由於孫良嗣無親無友,而且家貧無法籌辦埋葬,因此他的屍體就因此他的屍體就被放在郊外山上,景況非常淒涼。
但是在他死後不久,忽然飛來數千萬只禽鳥,口銜泥土,堆積在孫良嗣身上,不到一天,就堆積一堆黃土,把孫良嗣安葬好。鄰里鄉人見此情景,都很驚奇感嘆,認為這是因為孫良嗣經常買鳥放生,感動禽鳥報答所致。

he would always try his best to accumulate enough money in order to buy them and set them free. Whenever he saw the birds chirping away merrily after flying out from the cages into the sky, he would be extremely happy. Throughout his life, he continued to liberate birds and the number of birds which were liberated by him was countless even though he himself remained a poor man.
He died at the age of about seventy. He was too poor and did not leave behind any money for his burial. Moreover, he did not have any friends or relatives. So, his body was left on top of a hill. It was indeed a pitiful sight.
Not long after that, there suddenly appeared in the sky thousands of millions of birds, each one of them carrying some soil with its beak. They dropped the soil on Mr. Soon’s body and in less than a day, the corpse was covered completely by a hill-like loess. Thus Mr. Soon finally had a decent burial. The neighbors who witnessed the incident were very surprised. They said that this was the efficacious reward of Soon Liang-si who had often liberated birds. The grateful birds had come back to repay the kindness which he had shown them.