佛祖歷代通載 22.4

22.4

辨曰。夫星流貫昴。實標文命之祥。電繞樞星。是顯軒皇之慶。虹流華渚少昊於是膺期。星冠月輪。顓頊以之應瑞。赤龍[目*(電-雨+大)]瞹言旌帝堯。雲屯鬱蒸實徵漢祖。此則聖人神異譜牒具詳。未聞老子初生三日共出九步周行。月妃散花日童揚彩之事。且星隕如雨。日有蝕之。春秋書之。以為異事李耳若有徵瑞。孔子何以不記乎。且魯陽揮戈而返日。淮南子有。景公善言。而退熒（劉向新文）貳師拔劍而泉流（前漢書中）耿恭拜井而水出（後漢書中）於有奇相書為美談。老既無文。事必虛唱。倚他大聖取為神奇。夫聖人現相雖有多途。託化誕生事無兩體。世尊百億化身大千世界一時頓顯。化緣事訖便入涅槃老子隨代降生。以何大謬乎。本是李耳妄。改其諱李伯陽而云光明。隱其本名而加美號。史記真文一詞不錄。道書偽說百種粧填。前之兩化。說在太易之前。後之十重。紀在伏羲之後。尋虛摭偽誑惑後人。前說五歲凝真二十入道。後則八十一歲生而皓首。自語矛循。何待他攻。亳州瀨鄉實而不認。北玄玉國虛而妄傳。聃耳蓬頭。謬說心十二相。野合懷胎。諂云周行九步。採他釋瑞而為老奇。將此薰蕕亂彼蘭芷。北玄玉國。山海之所不紀。天岡李谷。池里之所匪詳。王儉百家（太尉王儉有百家譜）弗聞玉女之名。何姓氏苑。罕說玄妙之族。案道士賈善翔高道傳序云。伯陽起迹於姬周。既云起迹於姬周。則是老子不在商也。明知陽甲之時。本無李耳。衰周之際。始見老聃（胡曾云。七雄戈戟亂如麻。四海無人得坐家。老氏却思天竺住。便將徐甲過流沙。斯則周末時人明矣）避亂入秦。死葬槐里。秦佚弔之三號而出斯良證也。何更疑哉。史記本傳。莫知所終。化胡浪語云。過流沙。將如來降誕之禎。合老子過關之氣。汝雖巧會偽說孰憑。案燉煌實錄云。周桓王二十九年。幸閑豫庭。與群臣對論古今。王曰。老聃父何如人也。天水太守索綏對曰。老聃父姓韓名虔字元卑。癃跛下賤胎則無耳。一目不明孤單乞貸。年六十二無妻。與隣人益壽氏宅上牧猪老婢子曰精敷。野合懷胎。八十一年而生。老子生時皓首。故曰老君。此本實跡蔽而不傳。偷竊他能欲張老聖。家有弊帚享之千金。斯言信與。

Refutation: A falling star pierced the Pleiades—this indeed was the portent for Yu the Great. Lightning encircled the Pivotal Star—this manifested the auspicious joy of the Yellow Emperor. A rainbow swept the Flowery Isle, and Shaohao thereupon met his destined era. A star crowned the lunar orb, and Zhuanxu thereby responded to the omen. A red dragon illuminated [the sky] to herald Emperor Yao. Thick, swirling clouds were the true sign for the founding ancestor of the Han. These are the divine wonders of sages, fully recorded in genealogical documents. Yet never has it been heard that at Laozi's birth three suns rose together, that he paced nine steps all around, that lunar consorts scattered flowers, and that solar youths radiated splendor. Moreover, when stars fell like rain and the sun suffered an eclipse, the Chunqiu recorded them as strange events; if Li Er had possessed such portents, why would Confucius not have recorded them? Furthermore, Luyang waved his spear and turned back the sun (found in the Huainanzi); Duke Jing spoke good words and drove back the Planet Mars (in Liu Xiang's Xinshu); General Ershi drew his sword and a spring gushed forth (in the Hanshu); and Geng Gong bowed to a well and water welled up (in the Hou Hanshu). When there are extraordinary signs, books take them as fine accounts. Since Lao[zi] has no such texts, these matters are surely fabricated talk; they relied on another Great Sage and appropriated them as his wonders. Now, though sages display appearances through manifold paths, their birth through transformation is never divided into two bodies. The Bhagavān's hundred kotis of transformation bodies were manifested simultaneously across the trichiliocosm; once his transformative ties were concluded, he immediately entered nirvāṇa. Why would Laozi descend and be born generation after generation with such gross absurdity? He was originally Li Er, yet they falsely altered his posthumous name Li Boyang and called him Guangming, concealing his original name and adding fine titles. The genuine text of the Shiji does not record a single word of this, whereas Daoist books fabricate false accounts with a hundred kinds of embellishments. The first two transformations are described as being before the Great Change, while the latter ten cycles are recorded as being after Fuxi. They seek after vacuity and pick up falsehoods, deceiving later generations. Earlier they say that at five years of age he congealed the real, and at twenty entered the Way; later they say he was born with white hair after eighty-one years [in the womb]. Their own words contradict each other—why wait for others to attack them? They do not acknowledge the reality of Laxiang in Bozhou, but falsely transmit the fictional Jade Realm of the Northern Dark. With drooping ears and disheveled hair, they absurdly claim seventy-two marks; conceived through illicit union, they flatteringly allege that he paced nine steps all around. They plucked the auspicious signs of the Śākya[muni] to serve as wonders for Lao[zi], taking this stinking weed to foul those orchids and angelicas. The Jade Realm of the Northern Dark is not recorded in the Shanhai jing; Tiangang and Li Valley are not detailed in any local registers. The Baijia pu of Wang Jian (Grand Defender Wang Jian had the Baijia pu) never mentions the name of the Jade Maiden, and the Xing shi yuan rarely speaks of the Xuanmiao clan. According to Daoist Jia Shanxiang's preface to the Gaodao zhuan, 'Boyang arose in the Ji clan's Zhou.' Since it says he arose in the Ji Zhou, Laozi was not in the Shang. One clearly knows that at the time of Yang Jia, there was originally no Li Er; only in the declining Zhou did Lao Dan first appear. (Hu Zeng said: 'The lances and halberds of the Seven Heroes were tangled as hemp; / Across the Four Seas, no one could sit at home. / Lao[zi] instead longed to live in Tianzhu, / So he took Xu Jia and crossed the flowing sands.' From this it is clear he was a man of the late Zhou.) Fleeing disorder, he entered Qin and died, being buried in Huaili; Qin Yi mourned him, cried out three times, and departed—this is good evidence! Why doubt it any further? The Shiji's basic biography says that no one knew his end. The loose talk of the Huahu jing says he 'crossed the flowing sands,' conflating the portents of the Tathāgata's birth with the vapor of Laozi crossing the pass. Cleverly though you may harmonize them, on what do your false assertions rely? According to the Dunhuang shilu, in the twenty-ninth year of King Huan of Zhou, the king visited the Xianyu Pavilion and discussed past and present with his ministers. The king asked: 'What sort of man was Lao Dan's father?' Suo Sui, the Prefect of Tianshui, replied: 'Lao Dan's father was surnamed Han, named Qian, with the courtesy name Yuanbei. He was crippled, base, and born without ears. Blind in one eye, solitary and impoverished, he begged for a living. At sixty-two he had no wife. He engaged in illicit union with Jingfu, an old swineherd bondwoman in the household of his neighbor the Yishou clan, and she became pregnant. After eighty-one years, he was born. When Laozi was born, his hair was white, hence he was called Laojun.' These were his original, true traces, yet they hide them and do not transmit them, stealing another's abilities in order to aggrandize Lao[zi]'s holiness. If one has a broken broom at home, one values it at a thousand pieces of gold—how true this saying is!