弘明集 14.14

14.14

To the Department of State Affairs of the Sacred Court: We respectfully submit that within the six directions, all share the mirror of the radiant sun; all streams flow into the king of a hundred valleys. The ten thousand transformations are equal in empty profundity; all wonders take the single wisdom as their source. This is because principle possesses a thread of ultimate sovereignty, and things meet in no disparate destiny. Therefore, the Tathāgata crossed the deepest darkness to arise alone, accumulating diligent merits over vast kalpas. Radiating the lofty brightness that illuminates the three wretched paths, he plucked out immense delusion from its very inception. He plumbed the innermost recesses of sage virtue, and investigated the empty principle of non-production. Observing the pivotal turning of material transformation, he grasped the guiding bond of vast virtue. As for his peerless, heroic form and the dazzling brilliance of his divine radiance, even if a thousand suns were to shine together, he would still surpass them by far. His body varies in ten thousand forms yet is not many; his essence unites with supreme wonder yet is not one. He manifests emergence in the five paths of rebirth yet is not born; he displays entry into the cessation of form yet does not perish. Inaudible and subtle, indistinct and hazy, without name and without mark, none can fathom his depth, nor can any know his breadth. Responding to the manifold sentiments of beings, he never grows weary; traversing the ten thousand movements of things, he remains ever still. He crosses the sands of the Ganges in an instant, and consoles the eight wildernesses in the blink of an eye. Though Heaven and Earth were to collapse, he would not be disrupted; though hidden shifts might bear all away with force, he would not change. Inhaling the great fire [of the kalpa's end], he is not scorched; immersed in the great flood, he does not drown. Heaven and Earth are insufficient to express his virtue; literature and profound mysteries are inadequate to illuminate his Way. Immensely encompassing the six directions, his greatness cannot be measured; subtly entering what is without gap, his smallness cannot be named. Thereupon, he nurtures and matures all living beings, his transformation rivaling the primordial Mother. Free from desire and of non-action, yet there is nothing he does not do. He soars along the paths of responding to conditions, and wanders at ease beyond being and non-being. Towering above the foremost ranks of all sages, he rests serene and tranquil within the realm of Nirvāṇa. The Two Vehicles hide their thoughts in the attainment of manifold forgetting; the Ten Abodes still their reflections before the subtleties of motion and stillness. The King of the Brahmā gods sighs in admiration and yields to his virtue; Śakra submits his heart and disdains his own throne. For a sage to be such, it is indeed the ultimate! Thereupon, fulfilling the ancient prophecy of Dīpaṅkara, and verifying the portents and charts of Mahābhijñā[jñānābhibhū], he emerged through the five paths of rebirth with the rising of a dragon, surpassing emperors and kings to give law to his age. As king of the Way, he rules the three realms; his virtue covers the ten directions. His royal domain spans the sands of the Ganges, and his capital is the great chiliocosm. He reposes in the tranquil chambers of the nine concentrations, and ascends the cloud towers of the seven limbs of awakening. He bathes in the pure pools of the eight liberations, and strolls through the vast gardens of dhāraṇī. Thereupon, he dwells in the palace of compassion, and occupies the throne of Kongtong. Robed in imperial dragons and adorned with the secondary signs, his crown is marked with the uṣṇīṣa. Flanked on the left by the retinue of Maitreya, and supported on the right by the peers of Mañjuśrī; before him are sung the elegant odes of the Great Direction (Mahāyāna), while behind him are danced the imperial fan ceremonies of the four means of embracing. He is guarded by the virtuous gentlemen of the eight abodes whose bodies are empty; he is attended by the transcendent immortals of the four fruits who rise above the rest. The Three Terraces consist solely of sages; the Six Ministries consist solely of worthies. Thereupon, he proclaims teachings to King Wen of Ji and Confucius, governs as chancellor and wardens over Yu and Tang, brandishes his might to Tang and Wu, and serves as pastoral governor to the Three Sovereigns. As for his transforming work: he clears the level highway of the eightfold correct path, opens the open crossing of the three vehicles, lines up the marvelous mansions of non-action, and ferries beings across great suffering amid the weary dust. He bars the treacherous paths of the three evil destinies, and opens joy and delight to gods and humans. He confers nobility through the positions of the fruits [of practice], and bestows emoluments through the nourishment of sweet dew (amṛta). Those of immense merit he rewards with enfeoffments in pure lands; those of lesser achievement he directs to the safety of the conjured city. This is indeed a vast enterprise surpassing a hundred kings, the ultimate beginning of Great Peace! It is the pure court where the forms wandering the five destinies attain office, and the supreme summit for the ranks of scholars among the four modes of birth. Yet the deluded multitude meet with steep cliffs and turn their backs on the truth ever more distantly, rejoicing in the nearby satisfaction of moistening each other with foam, and forgetting how to preserve their wholeness afar in rivers and lakes. Therefore, the Demon King Pāpīyān planted the roots of folly in the beginningless past, accumulating deluded thoughts toward deceptive realms. Drifting on the great waves of the three taints, he plunged into the dense thicket of heterodox views. He went so far as to usurp the divine regalia, masquerading falsehood as truth, boasting himself a king in the heavenly palace and partitioning the lands of the sacred peaks. Issuing commands across the six heavens, he gave free rein to his biased might. Domestically, he appointed the various poisons as the Three Excellencies, and the nine bonds as the ministers of state; externally, he took the six heterodox masters as his generals, and the four arms of the military as his foot soldiers. Behaving arrogantly within, he had no dread of the imperial laws, vying in brilliance like fireflies against the heavenly sun. Thus of late, he raised his troops and brandished weapons at the Tree of the Way to resist divine majesty, thundering with the sounds of lightning and crashes, and deploying hordes that carried mountains and spat fire. Moreover, he brought delusion upon Dhāraṇīśvara in his quiet room, and caused Sadāprarudita to wail in grief in the city marketplace. These are all mad, unrestrained acts of violence that violated the sage's decorum, disturbing China for a long time. The Sage Emperor grieved over the blindness and deafness of the benighted world; sorrowing over the fallen and lost, his grief only deepened. Intending to bring all heterodoxies together into a single view, and to merge the nine schools into the same crossing, he thereupon ordered generals of the company of Mahāsthāmaprāpta and selected soldiers of the ranks of the Vajrapāṇis—men who chew gold and crunch iron, warriors who charge through ice and tread upon fire. The brave soldiers were numerous as grains of sand, and the valiant heroes numbered hundreds of millions. Like streaming stars and rising winds, like dragons ascending, they advanced into the realm of the demons. They deployed the army with flawless strategies, pressing the foes into the fields of certain death. But the demonic bandits were disobedient, daring to cling to their barbarous obstinacy, and resisting like insolent outlaws. They planted their banners in lands of self-pride, and fortified themselves along the precipices of cloud-covered delusion, lining up their layers of resistance like fish scales. As for their tactical formation: the craggy Mountains of Folly defended their front, the surging Waters of Craving expanded at their rear, the dense Forests of Heterodoxy shadowed their left, and the deep Ravines of Ignorance girded their right. The soldiers of dust and toil glared like wolves at the front line, while the generals of the six heterodox masters strutted like tigers along the broad roads. Seen from afar, they rose like clouds eclipsing the heavens, or mists choking the six directions. Such a grand display has rarely been seen since the creation of the world! We, your servants, thereupon received the far-reaching majesty of the Sacred Court and deployed extraordinary strategies that surpassed the manuals of warfare. We encircled them with the cage of lofty calculation, and encompassed them with the net of profound plans. With elite cavalry a thousand ranks deep, infantry marching in ten thousand rings, and light detachments shading the wilderness, we occupied and blocked all strategic passes. We commanded the Front General Dāna to advance directly toward the banner of parsimony; the Rear General Vīrya drove the sluggish soldiers forward from behind; Dhyāna led skirmishing cavalry along their left flank; and Śīla guarded against stealthy treachery on their right. The Outer Army of Upāya deployed squadrons of surging cavalry across the level plains, and maneuvered light infantry beneath the winding gullies; they arrayed the tiger cohorts to soar high, and laid ambushes in hidden recesses. The Central Army of Prajñā grasped the wondrous mirror of the profound pivot, held the extraordinary arts of victory, commanded hundreds of millions of valiant generals, and directed vigorous soldiers numerous as the sands of the dust. Thereupon, the various armies echoed the call and advanced competitively by ten thousand roads, shaking the six directions and making Heaven and Earth tremble with their roar. Heroic warriors exerted their might, surging forward as the glitter of their naked blades eclipsed the sunlight, and the sound of the Dharma drums drowned out the peals of thunder. Diligent horses leaped and bounded; swift elephants flew as they were spurred into a charge. Bows of dhyāna rose like smoke and gathered like clouds; arrows of prajñā poured down like rain, flying through the sky. They whipped the foe with the lash of provisional names, driving them into the wilderness of non-being; they ground them down with the roar of the lion, and pierced them with the sounds of suffering and emptiness. Brandishing swords of Ganjiang, they cleaved wildly; thrusting spears and halberds, they vied in winning victory. Bodies of dust were strewn across the wilds, and blood of toil flowed into the long rivers. They smashed the crags of the Mountain of Folly, and dried up the torrents of the Waters of Craving. They tracked the usurpers down into the caverns of wrong views, and brought low the heights of the nests of the seven conceits. Thereupon, the demonic bandits had no scales left to raise in defense before them, and no hiding places in which to hope for escape behind them. With thoughts exhausted and roads cut off, they wavered in terror without support. The Demon King surrendered bound before the headquarters courtyard; the various generals surrendered their lives at the army gates. The gods submitted swiftly as lightning; the deluded followers hastened along the first rays of light like the wind. The imperial majesty swept through, just like the sun striking the dawn, or frost turning into a torrent to extinguish fire. Thus the fugitive rebels of ten thousand generations collapsed like crumbling earth in a single morning; the ancient troubles of China were cleared away in an instant! This was truly the miraculous achievement of the Sage Emperor's spiritual union [with the Way], a glorious deed renowned in the world across the ages. Even when Tang of Yin established cloud-like merits on the outskirts of the Xia, and King Wu of Zhou swept away the murky atmosphere on the fields of Shang, these were merely heroic deeds of high antiquity—how could they ever compare to the sacred merits [of today]? We, your servants, respectfully proclaimed the imperial plans to soothe and comfort those newly attached, establishing them in the mansion of Kongtong, nourishing them with the streams of the eight liberations, guarding them with the propriety of the precepts and virtues, and training them in the customs of the six perfections. The elderly have awakened to the truth through the new proclamations; the fallen and lost have finally heard the call to return home. Now, to accord with Heaven and comply with punishment is the way of the Chunqiu; to establish achievements and settle chaos was praised by the ancient kings. The chief evil has submitted and now reverently obeys the sacred laws. The six directions share the same brilliance, and all within the universe has been cleared. The profound breeze blows afar, and throughout the entire land all harbor celebration. The court sings the song of Kangzai, and the wilderness hums with poems of the joyful realm. The merit is lofty and the Way is great, beyond what sight can represent; the sage's thoughts are dark and deep, beyond what words can proclaim. We have outlined in brief the imperial majesty's extraordinary calculations, and also arrayed the soaring power of the various armies. Speeding as on electric relays and shooting like stars, we respectfully present this open declaration. We, your servants, are filled with sincere awe and clap our hands in praise.