佛制比丘六物圖 1.39

1.39

Next, explaining the method of layering. The appearance of doubling, however, is presented differently in various texts. If according to the Sarvāstivāda-vinayavibhāṣā: "Sewing the three robes in layers, if there is a cause, one separates them and carries them on the move." According to this, it is merely sewing whole robes together, and what the ancestral masters wore did not differ from this. It was only when a deva appeared in the Gantong zhuan to demonstrate a different construction that people had many doubts about it; I will now quote it fully: "He said, 'The teacher has recently been practicing making the great robe double-layered. However, under the leaves there are three layers—how could that be right?' He then asked about how it was made, and took my robe to show him: 'These leaf markings represent the dykes and boundaries of rice fields. By cutting the cloth segments and stitching them on the inside, a barley-grain's distance from the leaf, the strips represent the fields and the leaves represent the canals. How could it be otherwise? Nowadays, cloth is used continuously all over: firstly, it is not cut into segments; secondly, it is multiple layers. Since this is not the original regulation, it is not without the fault of improper wear.'" (The above is the text from the Gantong zhuan. However, that the Sarvāstivāda-vinayavibhāṣā differs from this is merely due to differences in what was heard and seen. Yet the methods shown by devas are all said to have been personally received in the Buddha's time. Matters not settled in the texts of this land—such as various sūtras and vinayas stating that the mat should be placed on the shoulder, whereas only this Gantong zhuan directs that it be placed on the left arm; or as cited later in the 'Method of Adding to the Mat,' which are now all applied as standards—why should one doubt this alone? Moreover, the two difficulties of not being cut and having multiple layers are self-evident in principle.)