律相感通傳 1.21

1.21

答云：「亡秦李斯隷書，此乃近代遠承。隷書之興，興於古佛之世。見今南洲四面千有餘洲，莊嚴閻浮一方百有餘國，文字言音同今唐國。但以海路遼遠，動數十萬里，譯者莫傳，故使此方封懷守株，不足怪也。師不聞乎！梁顧野王，大學之大博士也，周訪字源，出沒不定。故《玉篇》序云：『有開春申君墓，得其銘文，皆是隷字。』撿春申是周代六國時也，隷字則非吞併之日也。此國篆隷諸書猶有茫昧，寧知迦葉佛時之事乎？非其耳目之所聞見也。」

He replied, "The clerical script of Li Si of the fallen Qin was merely an inheritance from an antiquity far earlier. The emergence of the clerical script arose in the era of ancient Buddhas. At present, in the more than one thousand surrounding lands on all four sides of this southern continent, and among the more than one hundred countries adorning this corner of Jambudvīpa, their scripts and spoken sounds are identical to those of the Tang today. It is only because the sea routes are so distant, traversing several hundreds of thousands of li, that translators have not transmitted them; consequently, this land remains insular and stuck in its narrow ways—this is hardly surprising. Have you not heard, Master? Gu Yewang of the Liang, the Great Erudite of the National University, made wide inquiries into the origins of characters and found that their appearance and disappearance were unfixed. Thus the preface to the Yupian states: 'When the tomb of Lord Chunshen was opened, the inscriptions found therein were all in clerical script.' Checking this, Lord Chunshen lived during the era of the Six States under the Zhou dynasty; thus the clerical script did not originate on the day the Qin annexed the realm. If even the various seal and clerical scripts of this land remain murky, how could they know of the events from the time of Kāśyapa Buddha? It simply lies beyond what their ears and eyes have heard and seen."