Prequel to the Ancient Buddha of Ran Deng

"The Prequel to the Ancient Buddha" is an epic novel about gods and demons that revolves around reincarnation and enlightenment in Buddhism. The story begins with the nirvana of the ancient Buddha Lantern and the sign of the end of the world when the Buddha's lamp is about to go out. The core is the "Mingzhao Venerable" transformed from the stainless glass wick. In order to cope with the Buddha's calamity, he made a great vow to abandon his pure body, take the initiative to go through nine reincarnations, and commit himself to the extreme suffering of all living beings. In these nine lives, he has experienced the most painful things in the world: he was an ascetic who cut meat to feed tigers in the snowy mountains but suffered backlash; he was a miracle doctor who was born deaf and mute, and had his eyes gouged out to prove his innocence, and was transformed into a red lotus to save the world; he was a Buddhist scripture keeper who held a pestle to slay demons in front of the Dunhuang Buddhist caves and transformed his cultivation into murals; he was refined with disfigured blood and rouge. The singing prostitute who made the "Beauty Lamp" and illuminated her delusion at the Thousand Lamps Dharma Assembly; the general who understood Shura Zen in the sea of blood on the mountain of corpses at the border; the blacksmith who threw himself into the furnace to forge the sword of wisdom to fight against the conspiracy of the "Buddha-killing Sword"; the prince who sacrificed himself to transform into light and ignited the "human lamp array" in the imperial city to protect the Dharma. Finally, in the Dharma-ending era, he became Ananda, a blind lamp seller in Changle Square. When Mara transformed into the "Black Lotus" and swept the world with his conspiracy, trying to refine the "Devil Flame of Ignorance" to burn out the Buddha nature, Ananda awakened in a desperate situation. He gathered eight generations of practice and enlightenment, and under the witness of the Buddhas in the ten directions, he integrated precepts, concentration, and wisdom, manifested the "three bodies", illuminated the ignorance of all time and space with unsullied light, transformed his own demonic thoughts into the Dharma Protector Vajra, and finally achieved the supreme enlightenment of the "Lamp King Samadhi" and rekindled the lamp of the ancient Buddha. The story ends with Ananda picking up an old clay lamp filled with glimmering light and walking into the depths of the wind and snow, implying that light will never die and enlightenment will last forever.