弘明集 1.56

1.56

又誣云。尹文子欺之天有三十二重云云。又妄牽樓炭經。經云。諸天之宮廣長二十四萬里。面開百門。門廣萬里云云。答曰。佛經說天地境界。高下階級悉條貫部分。敘而有章。而誣者。或附著生長枉造偽說。或顛倒淆亂不得要實。何有二十四萬里之地。而容四百萬里之門乎。以一事覆之。足明其錯謬者多矣。藏獲牧竪猶將知其不然。況有識乎。欲以見博秖露其愚焉。

The slanderer also falsely says: “Master Yinwen deceived them, saying that heaven has thirty-two levels,” and so forth. He also wildly drags in the Soutan jing, where the scripture says: “The palaces of the devas are two hundred and forty thousand li in breadth and length, with a hundred gates opened on each side, each gate being ten thousand li wide,” and so forth. The answer is: The Buddhist scriptures explain the boundaries of heaven and earth, with all their gradations of high and low categorized and arranged systematically in clear order. Yet the slanderers either add fabricated extensions to concoct false doctrines, or invert and jumble them, failing to grasp the essential reality. How could a land of two hundred and forty thousand li accommodate gates of four million li? Examining it by this single matter is enough to clarify that their errors are manifold. Even bondservants and herd-boys would know this is not so, how much more so those with discernment? Wishing to display wide learning, they only reveal their foolishness.