釋氏稽古略 4.174

4.174

The *Heart Sutra*: Li Gou, courtesy name Taibo, was a man of Xujiang, praised in his time as a great Confucian. By this point, in the second year of Huangyou, Lord Fan Wenzheng recommended him in a memorial; right at his home gate he was appointed to an official post and further assigned to serve as Reader at the Imperial Academy. He died shortly thereafter. Taibo had initially composed the *Qianshu* and then expanded the *Qianshu*, exerting himself in refuting Buddhism. Great Master Mingjiao, the Venerable Song, carrying his own composition, the *Fujiao bian*, visited him to debate and clarify. Only then did Taibo turn his attention to reading Buddhist scriptures, and he sighed with regret, saying: "The discourses of our peers have not yet equaled even a single roll of the *Prajñāpāramitā Heart Sutra*. How could the Buddha's Path be easily comprehended?" His disciple Huang Hanjie questioned him about this by letter. Taibo replied, saying in brief: "That the people desire good is indeed their heaven-endowed nature. When the Confucians of antiquity were employed in the world, they certainly possessed that by which to instruct and guide them. The ears, eyes, nose, mouth, mental consciousness, and all the limbs of the people each had a master. How would they have had leisure to turn to heterodox paths? When the Confucians of later times are employed in the world, they have nothing with which to instruct and guide them. The ears, eyes, nose, mouth, mental consciousness, and all the limbs of the people have no master. Casting aside the Buddha, where else could they turn?" (from Wen Zhongwen's work). The *Heart Sutra* has three translations altogether, all circulating in the world. What Taibo referred to now is the version translated by Tripiṭaka Dharma Master Xuanzang by order of Emperor Taizong of the Tang, consisting of fifty-four phrases and two hundred sixty-seven characters.