舜子变【英】

Story of Emperor Shun

定义

敦煌变文。此故事相传已久，见于《孟子》、《史记》等书，变文又增添细节，更见神异，如舜淘井时得银钱五百文，帝释化黄龙引向东家井穴，群猪耕地、百鸟播种及瞽叟复明等。

A bianwen text recorded in the Dunhuang manuscripts. The story has a long history and is also found in books such as Mencius and Records of the Grand Historian, but in this text it becomes even more mythical and elaborate. For instance, according to the text, when Shun is sent to clean up the sludge at the bottom of a well, as demanded by his stepmother whose real intention is to kill him, the deity Indra secretly places 500 silver coins at the bottom of the well so that his stepmother cannot bury Shun in the well; after Shun is trapped in the well, Indra’s avatar, a yellow dragon, leads Shun to escape. Moreover, when Shun becomes a farmer after the escape, herds of pigs appear and plough the land for him and hundreds of birds sow seeds for him; at the end of the story when Shun is reunited with his family, he even manages to restore the eyesight of his formerly blind father.