四分律比丘含注戒本 1.4

1.4

However, as eras passed without succession, feelings changed and drifted away; the sūtras set forth the omen of dreaming of fine cloth, and the Vinaya unfolded the metaphor of dividing the staff. This caused the teachings to become tied to the literal text, and principles to shift according to sentiment. The divergence into two and five schools drifted like flying clouds; the differences of the eighteen and five hundred sects spread like mountains. If one takes what was originally covered, it was nowhere other than adapting to dispositions; if one probes their essential, reuniting intent, they all equally lead to right activity. When it came to the end of the Cao-Wei, the Prātimokṣa was first transmitted; down to the beginning of the Sui dynasty, those who pruned and revised it were many. Some relied on Sanskrit texts, some transcribed clerical script; some sought it through doctrinal meaning, and some based it on contextual origins. When collating the various explanations, what was accomplished was obscure and confusing, misleading the former masters and obscuring later students. With the Sanskrit texts, the meaning and wording were contradictory, and dialectal differences were not harmonized; when modeled on the Vinaya, they succeeded in capturing the fundamental principle but failed in distinguishing the precise forms. Although searching by doctrinal meaning attained profound insights, it did not settle the points of debate; basing it on contextual origins seemed fully comprehensive, but it preserved only divergent views.