Petition offered at the Indra feast to turn away the Khitan troops, as above同前攘丹兵天帝釋齋踈
釋王統六天於上界。禍淫福善之無差。我國是四洲之仁方。敬佛歸僧之有漸。如或訴急危之變。忍不垂憐憫之心。憬彼契丹之餘民。臣于女眞者有載。翻如吠主之犬。叛國橫行。終類失林之麞。擧羣狂顧。突來他境。反作我仇。寄人之土而殘人也多。奪人之食而害人是快。雖老嫗弱兒也。殺之無赦。雖孕駒乳犢也。屠之無遺。或燒殘佛寺而皆委於燼灰。或破壞梵書而至投於溷廁。斯謂獸之心也。夫豈人之情歟。以如此之凶殘。似不保於頃刻。何苟延於歲律。而屢抗於官軍。然災不妄生。人所自召。無奈群臣之積釁。致玆大寇之肆淫。宜各省愆。以圖弭禍。過勿憚改。苟勤悔責之心。孽猶可違。儻有杳冥之助。是用收文虎之月俸。備晨夕之齋廚。仰扣線臺。特嚴雲供。伏願仗神威之助。增士氣之揚。王師所臨。如疾雷之震地。虜種自熄。猶爝火之投河。
Indra, King of Heaven, leads the six heavens in the world above, and in giving misfortune to the licentious and blessing to the good he never goes amiss. Our country is the land of benevolence among the four continents, and long has it revered the Buddha and taken refuge in the Sangha. If we plead an urgent and perilous calamity, could you bear not to let down a pitying heart?
Far off, those remnant people of the Khitan (契丹) have for many years played the vassal to the Jurchen (女眞). Instead, like a dog that barks at its own master, they have betrayed their country and gone about as they please, and at last, like roe deer that have lost their wood, they band together and look wildly about. Suddenly entering another's borders, they have become our enemies instead.
Living as parasites on another's land, they have harmed many people, and they take another's food and find pleasure in harming people. Even old women and little children they kill without pardon; even foals in the womb and suckling calves they take and leave none. Now they burn monasteries and cast them all into ashes; now they even break up the scriptures and throw them into the privy. This is to be called the heart of a beast; how could it be human feeling?
With deeds so foul and cruel it would seem they could not hold out even a moment; how is it that for more than a year they drag out their lives in shame and stand against the royal army again and again? Yet calamity does not arise at random; it is men who call it upon themselves. What is to be done about the faults heaped up by us, your many servants, which have called forth the insolence of these great robbers?
Each of us ought to look into his own fault and plan for the calamity's ceasing. One must not shrink from mending a fault; truly, if the mind of repentance and self-reproach is kept diligent, the calamity may yet be escaped, and there may be help from what is hidden and far.
And so we have gathered the monthly stipends of the civil and military officers to furnish a kitchen for the morning and evening feast, and looking up we knock at the altar dressed with threads, setting out with strict care an offering abundant as cloud.
Prostrate, we pray that, lending the helping strength of your majesty, you make the spirit of our soldiers rise the higher; that wherever the king's army comes it be as swift thunder shaking the earth; and that the barbarian host go out of itself, as a pine torch flung into a river.
Interlinear notes 1
仁方 — read as "the land of benevolence." Taking it as coming from the five phases, in which the east belongs to benevolence (仁), there is also a way of reading it as "the eastern land." — Translator