佛祖統紀 35.22

35.22

On the eleventh day of the first month of the fourteenth year, six hundred and ninety Daoists of the Five Peaks and Eight Mountains, including Chu Shanxin, submitted a memorial requesting a contest of superiority with the Buddhist way of the Western Regions. An imperial edict ordered the Director of the Department of State Affairs, Song Xiang, to hold a grand assembly at the Baima Temple on the fifteenth day. The Emperor established a temporary palace at the south gate of the temple and erected three altars. The Daoists placed their classics, philosophical treatises, talismans, and registers on the eastern altar. Mātanga placed an altar on the west of the path, arranging sūtras, images, and relics. On the central altar were offered foods and libations to sacrifice to the hundred deities. The Daoists circled their altar weeping and saying: "The Sovereign believes in heresy, and the mysterious wind has lost its continuity. We dare to present the sacred scriptures upon the altar to test them by fire!" Thereupon they set fire to burn the scriptures, and all were reduced to ashes. The Daoists looked at one another in shame and embarrassment; the incantations and techniques they attempted—entering fire and walking on water—none could be performed. When it came to burning the Buddhist sūtras, a five-coloured radiance penetrated upward to the realm of the heavens. When the blazing fire subsided, the scriptures and images remained completely intact. Mātanga leapt into the air and manifested various miraculous transformations. Dharmaratna uttered a great Brahmā-sound, proclaiming and clarifying the Buddha's Dharma. The heavens rained down precious flowers, and the great assembly was filled with joy. The Grand Tutor Zhang Yan addressed the Daoists, saying: "You have had no verification; you ought to follow the Buddhist teachings." The Daoist Fei Shucai died of self-reproach. The Minister of Works Liu Jun and two hundred and sixty others, the capital's gentry and commoners Zhang Zishang and three hundred and ninety others, Lady Yin of the inner palace, the Handsome Lady Wang, and other palace women numbering one hundred and ninety, and the Daoists of the Five Peaks, Lü Huitong and six hundred and twenty others, all sought to leave household life. The Emperor granted it. He decreed the founding of ten temples in Luoyang: seven temples outside the city to lodge monks, and three temples inside the city to lodge nuns, all supplied with offerings. Once the Emperor visited Baima Temple. Mātanga stepped forward and asked: "What building is that to the east of the temple?" The Emperor said: "Formerly there was a mound; when leveled it rose again, and there were strange lights. The people call it the Holy Tomb." Mātanga said: "Formerly King Aśoka enshrined the Buddha's relics in eighty-four thousand pagodas; there are nineteen sites in the territory of Cīnasthāna, and this is one of them" (Cīnasthāna: also Zhendan, also Zhina; here translated as 'the land of the Han', the eastern country of culture and letters). The Emperor was greatly astonished and immediately went with him to pay homage. He saw a circular halo surging above the mound, within which were three Buddhas. The attendants cheered, all shouting "Ten thousand years!" The Emperor was greatly delighted, saying: "Were it not for these two Great Beings, how could we have known of the Great Sage's bequeathed blessings?" Thereupon he ordered a pagoda built above it, nine storeys and two hundred feet high. In the following year, a light appeared on the pagoda, and a golden hand emerged from its top, with heavenly fragrance pervading. The Emperor traveled there in his carriage to gaze and pay homage, and the light followed his footsteps (Faben neichuan: thūpa [stūpa]; here translated as 'high and prominent place', or 'square tumulus').