The third chapter deals with Shen Yue and his Treatise on Auspicious Omens as Tokens. After outlining Shen Yue's biography, a summary of the first chapter of the Treatise follows. The ninety-four omens catalogued and described by the historian are reported in an alphabetically arranged list which provides the number of their occurrences from the Han to the Liu Song. The list is followed by a translation of the entries describing the omens. The first three chapters, then, deal with the subject from the perspective of official historiography.
Miracles are also signs of the faith of man.
The most common miracles recorded in Buddhist sources are the finding of relics or pictures of the Buddha, the sudden growth of lotus flowers, the appearance of the white elephant and the incorruptibility of the monks' corpses. Although Buddhist miracles differ from the traditional auspicious omens, there are analogies between them, as pointed out by the monk Fotudeng, who explained a Buddhist miracle, i.e., the sudden growth of lotus flowers, by an analogy with the dragon, the unicorn, the phoenix, and the tortoise, traditional imperial symbols of good luck. Undoubtedly, the interpretation of the miracles of the Buddha by the Chinese was similar to that of their traditional auspicious omens. Therefore, Buddhist miracles were given political meaning too and, like traditional omens, were adopted for legitimation purposes by the ruling house of the time. Evidence can be found both in Buddhist literature and in the dynastic histories.