佛祖統紀 48.5

48.5

In the second year of Jiatai, Shen Zhiyuan, a 'Daoist commoner' of the Baiyun Hermitage on the Southern Mountain of Yuhang, petitioned for the grant of an imperial plaque. Officials of the ministry memorialised: 'These "Daoist commoners" are idle vagrants and unruly elements who eat vegetables and serve demons—they are what is called treacherous folk. They form factions among themselves in groups of tens and hundreds, using heretical teachings to deafen and blind the foolish rabble. Sometimes under the pretext of repairing roads and building bridges, or emulating the recitation of scriptures and burning of incense to assemble gatherings, they gather by night and disperse at dawn without separation of men and women. Wherever they go, they each have ringleaders to command them. When legal disputes arise, they pool their plots and combine their strength, lavishly bribing yamen clerks, intent on prevailing. Under false pretences of construction they enrich their own pockets, establishing private hermitages as dens for absconders and outlaws. Zhiyuan is a ringleader among these false people, misleading the multitude with deviant ways; judged by the laws of the realm, his guilt exceeds execution. When Zhang Jun was military commander of the capital, he adjudicated repeatedly upon their mutual lawsuits with neighbouring monasteries, deciding that the private hermitages of these Daoists should be dismantled in accordance with previous decrees. Now Zhiyuan dares again to recklessly knock at the heavenly gate, making sport of and insulting the court, which is an outrage beyond measure. In ancient times, those who propagated the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice initially feigned allegiance to Huang-Lao, dispatching disciples to travel in all directions and deceive one another; later, hundreds of thousands of them rose simultaneously on the same day, whereupon the House of Han declined. If such people are not restrained now, what limits will there be to what they might do? We propose that an order be sent down to Lin'an Prefecture to sentence Zhiyuan and the others to severe penal exile, and to confiscate their property and estates as a warning to those who transmit and practice demonic teachings and disregard the established statutes. If powerful families harbour them, claim their properties as their own, and provide cover to occupy them, let the censors name them in memorials.' An imperial decree granted approval.