佛祖統紀 46.25

46.25

In the fifth year, in the tenth month, an imperial edict stated: 'Those who rule the realm revere and serve Shangdi; how dare they be lacking in piety? Yet the Buddhist teachings place the Celestial Emperor among the ranks of ghosts and spirits. In profaning the spirits and exceeding bounds, nothing is worse than this. Let the authorities eradicate this. Furthermore, in the Water and Land bodhimaṇḍas, the installation of seats for the Three Purities and others was prohibited by an edict issued in the Yuanfeng era; it must be investigated and enforced. From of old, monks' residences have often installed images of the Three Teachings, which then became the tablets of cloisters and names of halls, with Śākyamuni in the center, Laozi on the left, and Sage Confucius on the right. This is not the way to honor the Heavenly Realized Ones and the intent of Confucianism. These images may be welcomed back to Daoist abbeys and Confucian academies to rectify their names.' The śramaṇa Yongdao of the capital Luoyang read the edict and wept, saying, 'Within our realm, Confucius and Laozi took Heaven as their model and established their teachings, hence they did not oppose Heaven. The Buddha's supramundane Dharma is that by which gods and humans are guided, hence it does not oppose the Buddha. Since ancient times, enlightened monarchs who honored the Buddha to serve Shangdi did so because they understood this principle. The Buddha Dharma is impartial; therefore, though its teachings gather together both sages and ordinary beings, the distinctions between lord and minister, high and low, are nonetheless distinct. Ever since the ancestral monarchs, the veneration of the Dharma has been settled. If it is abolished in a single day, I fear the calamity of the destruction of the Dharma will begin from this.' Those who heard him were saddened and unsettled.