Pilu Temple and the Daming Palace (Ming Palace) face each other across the Xuanjin Bridge. Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, often came here for private visits in private. The living room of Pilu Temple became a teahouse for Zhu Yuanzhang to understand the sentiments of the people, seek Buddhism and discuss Taoism. of the Dharma Hall.
One day, Zhu Yuanzhang paid a private visit to Pilu Temple incognito. It was at the time when the abbot, Zen Master Zhengding, was making a freehand sketch of the purple mountain temple. In the picture, there are many peaks and temples, and the sound of morning bells and evening drums seems to come from the temples. Zhu Yuanzhang mentioned to the master that when he was a child, he was a young monk at Huangjue Temple in Fengyang, his hometown. He stayed outside the temple to cool down and returned late. He was locked out of the temple and could not enter the temple. He lay on the ground, looked up to the sky and pointed at the stars. Suddenly he was inspired and wrote a poem: < /p>
The sky is a tent and the ground is a rug,
The sun, moon and stars accompany me to sleep,
I dare not stretch my legs at night,
I’m afraid Break through the sea and the sky.
The abbot of Pilu Zen Temple, Zen Master Zhengding, was so moved that he immediately carefully wrote the poem on the scroll. For a time, literati and poets in Nanjing came to see this holy work one after another, and Pilu Temple became extremely popular.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was delighted with his heart, issued an imperial edict: exempting monks from food and miscellaneous taxes. As a result, something went wrong. In order to get tax exemptions, laymen shaved their heads and pretended to be monks. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang once again issued an order: monks must burn scars on their heads. How could ordinary lay people endure the pain of burning incense, so they returned to secular life one after another, and the shortage of food in the treasury was quickly solved.
In 1982, the Buddhist Association of China decided to abolish the practice of burning finger incense for the sake of the health of monks.