佛祖歷代通載 9.59

9.59

（二十九）　時隱士阮孝緒。陳留人也。家世仕宦。父彥大尉從事中郎。孝緒年十三通五經大旨。十六丁家難。終喪入鍾山。聽講久之。母有疾。緒在席心驚而歸。合藥須生人參。躬入鍾山採求未獲。忽一鹿在前。心異之至鹿息處。果得人參。藥成母疾得愈。齊尚書令王晏來候之。緒惡其人穿籬而遁。及晏被誅以非黨獲免。甞以鹿林為精舍。環以林池杜絕交游。世罕得而見之。御史中丞任昉欲訪焉而不敢進。乃指鹿林謂其兄曰。其室則邇。其人甚遠。繇是朝貴絕於造請。唯與裴子野交好。天監末累召不赴。天子以為苟立虛名以要顯譽。故二何孝緒並得遂其高焉。南平元襄謂曰。昔君大父舉不以來游取累。吾弟獨執其志何也。緒曰。若麕䴥盡可參馭。何以異乎騄驥哉。鄱陽忠烈王其姊夫也。歲時之饋。一無所受。與劉著作同年。劉卒。緒曰。吾其幾何。即辨後事數日而亡。壽五十八。孝緒博極群書。無一不善。精力強記為學者所宗。既卒。門人諡曰文貞處士。初漢劉歆著七略。齊王儉著七志。孝緒普通四年著七錄。前五曰內篇。六曰佛法錄七曰仙道錄。謂之外篇。劉歆七略則以道家為諸子。以神仙為方技。王儉七志則先道而後佛。孝緒七錄則先佛而後道。蓋所宗有不同。亦由其教有淺深也。

(29) At that time, the hermit Ruan Xiaoxu was a man of Chenliu. His family had served as officials for generations; his father, Yan, was an Equerry-in-Ordinary to the Grand Defender. At age thirteen, Xiaoxu had mastered the general purports of the Five Classics. At sixteen, he encountered family bereavement; upon concluding the mourning period, he entered Mount Zhong and listened to lectures for a long time. His mother fell ill; while Xiaoxu was seated at a lecture, his heart was startled, and he returned home. To compound the medicine required fresh ginseng. He personally entered Mount Zhong to seek it, but could not find any. Suddenly, a deer appeared before him. Finding it unusual, he followed it to where the deer rested, and indeed found ginseng. The medicine prepared, his mother's illness was cured. Wang Yan, the Minister of the Department of State Affairs of Qi, came to visit him; Xiaoxu, despising the man, broke through a hedge and fled. When Yan was executed, [Xiaoxu] was spared because he was not of his clique. He once took the Deer Forest as his hermitage, surrounding it with woods and ponds to cut off social intercourse; people of the world rarely managed to see him. Ren Fang, the Palace Censor-in-Chief, wished to visit him but dared not enter; pointing to the Deer Forest, he told [Xiaoxu's] elder brother, "His room is close at hand, but the man is far indeed." From this, court nobles ceased calling upon him. He maintained friendship only with Pei Ziye. Toward the end of the Tianjian era, he was repeatedly summoned [to court] but did not go. The Emperor believed [such men] merely established an empty name to seek prominent fame, and so the two He brothers and Xiaoxu were all permitted to fulfill their lofty aloofness. Yuanxiang, Prince of Nanping, said to him, "In the past, your grandfather's appointments were never encumbered by worldly associations. Why do you alone cling to your resolution?" Xiaoxu said, "If roe deer and river deer could all be harnessed to carriages, how would they differ from thoroughbred steeds?" Prince Zhonglie of Poyang was his brother-in-law; he did not accept a single one of his seasonal gifts. He was of the same age as Liu the Editorial Director. When Liu died, Xiaoxu said, "How much time do I have left?" He immediately arranged his funeral affairs and died several days later, at the age of fifty-eight. Xiaoxu read widely across all books and was adept in everything; his vigorous energy and formidable memory were venerated by scholars. After his death, his disciples gave him the posthumous title "Recluse Wenzhen." Earlier, Liu Xin of the Han composed the *Seven Summaries*, and Wang Jian of the Qi composed the *Seven Treatises*. In the fourth year of the Putong era, Xiaoxu composed the *Seven Records*. The first five were called the "Inner Chapters"; the sixth was the "Record of the Buddhadharma," and the seventh was the "Record of the Dao of the Immortals," which were called the "Outer Chapters." Liu Xin's *Seven Summaries* treated the Daoists as among the philosophers and immortals as technicians of methods; Wang Jian's *Seven Treatises* placed Daoism first and Buddhism second. Xiaoxu's *Seven Records*, however, placed Buddhism first and Daoism second. This was because what they venerated differed, and also because of the shallowness or depth of the teachings.