佛祖統紀 35.44

35.44

A commentary says: Crises for Confucian learning have occurred from time to time. They began with Li Si of the Qin. Si buried seven hundred scholars who served as court gentlemen. The Han eunuchs imprisoned and proscribed two hundred men, including Li Shi and Fan Pang, slaying the worthy Confucians of the realm. Court chancellors and aides, including Chen Fan, Dou Wu, Li Ying, and their faction members, perished to the number of over a hundred, while seven hundred were degraded, exiled, or barred from office. When, through a forged edict, the great minister He Jin was beheaded, Yuan Shao took advantage of the grievance to slay two thousand eunuchs. Although this was momentarily gratifying, noble men and petty men died alike; jade and stone were both consumed in the blaze. How could this be counted good fortune for the Confucian school? In general, Heaven has decreed destinies, and fortune has its prosperity and decline; when a crisis meets its time, it cannot be avoided. Under the Tang, Zhu Wen slaughtered thirty worthy ministers of the court and cast their corpses into the river; this was also such a crisis. How lamentable! The crises of the Buddhist order under the three emperors with the temple name Wu all belong to this same kind.