廣弘明集 7.6

7.6

頴川人。後居江左。博涉眾書志調矯俗。初與梁武布衣相知。及帝登位。仕不及之。濟負氣曰。會眉鼻上磨墨作檄耳。帝深不平之。梁州刺史陰子春左遷。濟作大詩贈之。文傳時俗。或稱于帝者。帝曰。箇人雖有才。亂俗好反不可用。濟以不得志。常懷悒怏二十餘載。見帝信重釋門寺像崇盛。便于時上書論佛教貪淫奢侈妖妄。又譏造同泰寺營費太甚必為災患。其表略。以三墳五典帝皇之稱首。四維六紀終古之規模。及漢武祀金人。黃新以建國。桓靈祀浮圖。閹竪以控權。三國由茲鼎峙。五湖仍其荐食。衣冠奔於江東。戎教興於中壤。使父子之親隔。君臣之義乖。夫婦之和曠。友朋之信絕海內散亂三百年矣。濟所控詞述於僻者。至於貞槩絕俗。固莫敘之。斯偏黨也。述金人之初降致黃新之篡等。並安擬也。至如周斬紂首豈見佛經。秦坑儒士非關釋化。禮崩樂壞未覩浮圖。戰國無主何關僧偽。乃云綱紀之亂。何能亂之。夫婦父子何人不是。但妄言耳。不足述之。然濟極言惘僧深訾佛者。統知上書必不會旨。亦知不能排除佛法。直是恨帝不拔於微流無榮宦於朝廷也。所以鄙詞罵僧深文毀佛。其實寄意詈於上帝也。後之醜詞並擬斯矣。

A native of Yingchuan. Later he resided in Jiangzuo. He read widely across various books and had an unconventional temperament that defied vulgar conventions. Originally, he and Emperor Wu of the Liang were commoner acquaintances. When the emperor ascended the throne, [Ji's] official career did not match his ambitions. Bearing resentment, Ji said: 'One day I will grind ink on his eyebrows and nose to write an檄 [indictment]!' The emperor was deeply displeased with him. When Yin Zichun, the Inspector of Liangzhou, was demoted, Ji wrote a great poem and presented it to him, the text of which circulated widely among contemporaries. Someone praised it to the emperor, but the emperor said: 'Although this person has talent, he confuses customs and loves rebellion; he cannot be employed.' Because Ji could not fulfill his ambitions, he constantly harbored sullen depression for over twenty years. Seeing that the emperor trusted and revered the Buddhist lineage, and that temples and images flourished, he thereupon submitted a memorial arguing that Buddhism was greedy, lewd, extravagant, and deceitful. He also criticized the construction of Tongtai Temple, saying that its excessive expenditures would surely bring about disasters. His memorial stated in summary: 'The Three Fen and Five Dian are the paramount texts of emperors and monarchs; the Four Cardinal Virtues and Six Principles are the perpetual models from ancient times. Coming to Emperor Wu of Han sacrificing to the golden men, Wang Mang's Xin dynasty was established; when Huan and Ling sacrificed to the Buddha, eunuchs seized power. From this, the Three Kingdoms stood like a tripod, and the Five Barbarians successively encroached. The capped and robed nobility fled east of the Yangtze, and the barbarian religion arose in the Central Plains. It has caused the affection between father and son to be severed, the righteousness between ruler and minister to be perverted, the harmony between husband and wife to be neglected, and the trust between friends to be cut off; the realm within the seas has been chaotic for three hundred years.' The accusations raised by Ji merely describe the deviant; as for chaste integrity transcending the world, he certainly did not relate it. This is bias. Stating that the initial descent of the golden man brought about the usurpation of the Xin dynasty and the like are all arbitrary analogies. As for the Zhou executing King Zhou, did they ever see Buddhist sutras? The Qin burying Confucian scholars had nothing to do with Buddhist transformation. When rites collapsed and music decayed, they had not seen the Buddha. When the Warring States lacked a sovereign, what had that to do with the deceit of monks? He claims that the social order was disrupted, but how could [Buddhism] disrupt it? As for husbands and wives, fathers and sons, who is not like that? These are merely reckless words, not worth recounting. However, that Ji went to extremes in defaming monks and deeply vilifying the Buddha was because he thoroughly knew his memorial would not accord with the imperial will, and also knew he could not eradicate the Buddhist Dharma; he was simply resentful that the emperor did not raise him from obscurity or grant him an honored office at court. Therefore, using vulgar words to curse monks and deep phrasing to vilify the Buddha was actually to lodge his intent to insult the emperor on high. Subsequent scurrilous writings all imitated this.