佛祖統紀 21.8

21.8

Dharma Master Zifang was a native of Wuxing, who was bestowed the title Puzhao. In his early years he relied upon Jingjue. When Song Mingjiao [Qisong], relying on the Meditation Sūtra (Chan jing), compiled the Chart Determining the Patriarchs (Dingzu tu) and denounced the Account of the Transmission of the Dharmapiṭaka (Fu fazang zhuan) as fit to be burned, the Master wrote the Exposition on the Patriarchs (Zu shuo) to rescue it. Three years later, when Song realized that the Meditation Sūtra had inconsistencies, he arbitrarily claimed that there had been copying errors in its transmission. The Master then wrote the Halting Errors (Zhi'e) to refute him. It stated in brief: "Qisong established twenty-eight patriarchs by arbitrarily relying on the Meditation Sūtra, misleading all under heaven and denouncing the Account of the Transmission of the Dharmapiṭaka as a false book. This originated from the Tang dynasty's Zhiju, who wrote the Baolin Record (Baolin zhuan). Because the Meditation Sūtra lists nine individuals, of whom the eighth is named Damoduoluo [Dharmatrāta] and the ninth Banruomiduoluo [Prajñātāra], Zhiju, seeing that the sounds of the two characters 'Damo' were phonetically similar, altered it to 'Damo' [Bodhidharma], added the two characters 'Puti' [Bodhi-], and transposed him to follow Prajñātāra. Furthermore, he took two names from elsewhere—Basiasiduo [Basiasita / Vasuasita] and Buruomiduo [Puṇyamitra]—to continue the twenty-four individuals, tallying twenty-eight in all. Ju falsely laid this out before, and Song erroneously concurred with it afterward, defiling and throwing into disorder the correct teachings and bringing blemish to the Chan school. I once refuted him to his face, yet Song felt no shame. Furthermore, relying on Sengyou's Records of the Tripiṭaka (Sanzang ji), which transmits fifty-three Vinaya patriarchs, the last of whom is named Dharmatrāta, Zhiju took him to be Bodhidharma of the Liang dynasty. He completely failed to understand that Sengyou's record in fact records those who propagated the Vinaya in the Śrāvakayāna. Since Ju and Song revere Chan as the Mahāyāna, how could they conversely take a Śrāvakayāna Vinaya figure to be their patriarch? Moreover, the Meditation Sūtra does not even have the designation of twenty-eight patriarchs; together with the Records of the Tripiṭaka, it merely clarifies the meditation of the Śrāvaka Little Vehicle. Since Ju and Song lacked the eye of the teachings, no sooner did they see the character 'Chan' than they took it to be their own school. This was conversely to peddle Bodhidharma of the Liang dynasty as transmitting only the meditation methods of the Little Vehicle—grossly slandering the ancient sages, an error of no small measure."