[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [佛祖歷代通載](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036) › 17.13 # 佛祖歷代通載 17.13 佛祖歷代通載 17.13 - **Language:** Classical Chinese ### [17.13](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17.13) 新史贊曰。人之惑怪神也甚哉。若佛者特西域一槁人耳。裸頂露足。以乞食自資。癯辱其身。屏營山樊。行一概之苦。本無求於人。徒屬稍稍從之。然其言荒茫漫靡夷幻變現。善推不驗無實之事。以鬼神死生貫為一條。據之不疑。掊嗜欲棄親屬。大抵與黃老相出入。至漢十四葉書入中國。蹟夫生人之情。以耳目不際為奇。以不可知為神。以物理之外為畏。以變化無方為聖。以生而死。死而復生。回復償報歆艶其間為或。然以賤近貴遠為喜。鞮譯差舛不可研詰。華人之譎誕者。又攘莊周列禦寇之說佐其高。層累架騰直出其表。以無上不可加為勝。妄相夸協而唱其風。於是自天子逮庶人。皆震動而奉祀之。初宰相王縉以緣業事佐代宗。始作內道場。晝夜梵唄冀禳寇戎。大作盂蘭肖祖宗像分供寺塔。為賤臣嘻笑。至憲宗遂迎佛骨於鳳翔。內之宮中。韓愈指言其弊。帝怒竄愈。瀕死。憲亦弗克天年幸福而禍。無乃左乎。懿宗不君精爽奪迷。復蹈前車而覆之。興哀無知之場。匃庇百解之胾。以死自誓無有顧籍。流涕拜伏。雖事宗廟上帝無以進焉。屈萬乘之貴。自等於古胡。數千載而遠以身為殉。嗚呼運痑祚殫。天告之矣。懿不三月而殂。唐德之不競。厥有來哉。 > The commentary in the \*New History \[of the Tang\]\* says: "How deeply people are deluded by strange spirits! As for the Buddha, he was merely an emaciated man of the Western Regions. With a bare head and bare feet, he sustained himself by begging for food, emaciating and humiliating his body, roaming aimlessly in mountain forests, practicing unremitting austerity, having originally sought nothing from men. Disciples gradually followed him. Yet his words were vast, vague, diffuse, extravagant, fantastical, and illusory, excelling at deducing unverifiable and insubstantial matters, stringing spirits, death, and life together into a single thread, relying upon them without doubt, discarding desires and abandoning family. On the whole, they were similar to the teachings of Huang-Lao. When his books entered China in the fourteenth generation of the Han, tracing the sentiments of living beings, they regarded what neither ears nor eyes could reach as marvelous, what was unknowable as divine, what lay beyond the natural order as terrifying, and boundless transformations as holy. They were lured and bewitched by the cycle of living and dying, dying and being reborn again, and cyclical retribution; moreover, they delighted in despising what was near and prizing what was distant. The translations were full of errors that could not be investigated closely. Deceitful and eccentric Chinese people further appropriated the sayings of Zhuangzi and Liezi to elevate his doctrines, piling them layer upon layer and leaping directly beyond the ordinary, taking the supreme and unsurpassable as supreme, falsely flattering each other and trumpeting this trend. Thereupon, from the Son of Heaven down to the commoners, all were shaken into worshipping and sacrificing to him. At first, Prime Minister Wang Jin assisted Emperor Daizong through karmic matters, initiating the Inner Bodhimaṇḍa, where day and night Buddhist chanting was performed in hopes of warding off invading armies; he made grand Ullambana festivals, fashioning likenesses of the ancestral imperial line to distribute offerings to temples and pagodas, being ridiculed by petty officials. By the time of Emperor Xianzong, the Buddha's bone was welcomed from Fengxiang into the palace. Han Yu pointed out its harms; the emperor was enraged and banished Yu, who nearly died. Xianzong also failed to live out his natural lifespan, and seeking blessings, brought about disaster—was this not contrary to his hopes? Emperor Yizong was unworthy of rulership, his spirit blinded and confused; he again followed in the overturned cart ahead of him, raising laments in a place devoid of knowledge, begging protection from pieces of severed flesh and bone, pledging himself unto death without any reservation, weeping and prostrating. Even when serving the Ancestral Temple or the Supreme Lord, he could not have exceeded this. He degraded the dignity of his position of ten thousand chariots to place himself on par with an ancient barbarian, sacrificing himself for someone thousands of years remote. Alas! The dynastic fortune was exhausted and withered away; Heaven had warned him. Yizong died within three months. The failure of the Tang's virtue to flourish indeed had its causes!" > — English (machine translation) (machine translation) - [Previous: 17.12](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17.12) - [Next: 17.14](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17.14) - [Up: 17](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17) ## Translations (1) - [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036~en-mt.17.13) — English, machine translation --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17.13](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2036.17.13) · Pramāṇa