佛制比丘六物圖 1.35

1.35

The lower robe has five strips: one long and one short. The middle robe has seven strips: two long and one short. The great robe has three grades: The lower grade has three kinds—nine strips, eleven strips, and thirteen strips, all with two long and one short. The middle grade has three kinds—fifteen, seventeen, and nineteen strips, all with three long and one short. The upper grade has three kinds—twenty-one, twenty-three, and twenty-five strips, all with four long and one short. The Shichao says: "Follow this as the general standard, and make it according to one's ability." (Among the nine grades, depending on the quantity of cloth material, one may take and maintain any one.) The Jiemoshu says: "The reason it reaches a maximum of twenty-five is that it is intended to serve as a field of merit for the twenty-five realms of existence. The reason they are only odd and not even is that a śramaṇa's benevolent nurturing corresponds to the worldly yang transformation, hence they are not even numbers. The reason there are long and short strips is like the difference between high and low where rice paddies follow water in the world. Furthermore, to benefit all realms of existence, it represents the increase of the noble and the decrease of the ordinary, symbolizing that the long are many and the short are few." Nowadays, those in the Chan school mostly wear nine strips, or make them with three long or four long at their own whim; this is uncanonical. The commentary says: "Discrepancies in the long and short violate the compassionate Sanskrit [rules], and with every step deportment is transgressed, with an offense incurred for each." How much more so when ribbons hang down long, fine floral embroidery is arranged, and patchwork robes depict mountains and waters, spoiling one's karma and wasting one's effort! If one truly and sincerely studies the Way, not letting an inch of time slip by, unless one has nothing at all to apply the mind to, how could one have the leisure to dedicate effort to this?