冥報記 3.3

3.3

後魏司徒崔浩。博學有才略。事太武。言行計從。國人以為模楷。浩師事道士冠謙之。尤不信佛。常虛誕為百姓所費。見其妻讀經。奪而投於井中。從太武。至長安。入寺。見有弓矢刀稻。帝怒誅寺僧。浩因進說。盡殺沙門。焚經像。勅留臺下。四方依長安行事。冠誦之與浩爭。浩不從。謙之謂浩曰。卿從今受戮。滅門戶矣。後四年。浩果無罪而族誅。將刑載於露車。官使十人。在車上。更尿其口。行數里。不堪困苦。號叫求哀。竟備五刑。自古戮辱未之前有。帝亦枉誅太子。又尋為閹人宗愛所殺。時人以為毀佛法之報驗（見後魏書。及十云因春秋）。

Cui Hao, Minister over the Masses of the Later Wei, was widely learned and possessed strategic talent. He served Emperor Taiwu, who heeded his words and followed his counsel, so that the people of the state took him as a model. Hao served the Daoist Kou Qianzhi as his master and utterly disbelieved in the Buddha, constantly saying that it was a vain delusion that brought waste to the common people. Seeing his wife reading a sūtra, he snatched it and threw it into a well. Following Taiwu to Chang'an, they entered a monastery and found bows, arrows, and weapons. The emperor in anger executed the monastery's monks. Hao thereupon came forward and urged that all śramaṇas be put to death and the sūtras and images burned. An imperial edict was issued by the Palace Secretariat ordering that the four quarters follow Chang'an's precedent. Kou Qianzhi disputed this with Hao, but Hao would not heed him. Qianzhi said to Hao, 'From now on, you shall suffer execution, and your clan shall be wiped out!' Four years later, Hao was indeed exterminated along with his clan despite being innocent [of treason]. When he was about to be executed, he was carried on an open cart. The officials had ten men ride atop the cart and urinate into his mouth in turns. After traveling several li, unable to endure the agony, he wailed and begged for mercy. In the end, all five punishments were fully inflicted upon him. Since ancient times, such execution and humiliation had never occurred before. The emperor also wrongfully executed the crown prince, and was soon afterward assassinated by the eunuch Zong Ai. People of the time considered this an evident retribution for destroying the Buddha-Dharma (see the *History of the Later Wei* and *Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen States*).