廣弘明集 12.16

12.16

I have heard that the Dharmakāya has no physical form, yet responds to beings with various expedients; thus it provisionally manifested a whole body, which was placed within the stūpa of Prabhūtaratna, and expediently divided its relics, which flowed into the shrines of Aśoka. Therefore, gathering and scattering accord with conditions, and presence and demise depend on living beings; the saintly power of expedient transformation is inconceivable. However, the Buddha was born in India, and according to its local customs, a burial necessarily entails cremation (jhapita), and the gathering [of relics] necessarily entails erecting a stūpa. A stūpa is indeed a shrine; a shrine means 'appearance' (mao), wherein sacrificial offerings and reverent service are carried out as if the appearance were still present. The ancestral temples and altars of soil and grain of the state today are all of this kind. Moreover, one hundred years after the Tathāgata's extinction, there was King Aśoka, who ruled the world with his iron wheel, employing ghosts and spirits through his august virtue and erecting spiritual shrines through the power of his merit. Thus eighty-four thousand stūpas were completed in no time, and halls of a thousand pillars and a hundred beams were accomplished before the morning was out. How could this have toiled human labor? It was naturally a divine feat. How could one doubt the deeds of sages and worthies with the sentiments of ordinary mortals? How would this differ from measuring the great ocean with a bucket, or gauging empty space with inches and feet? How could that be possible? When the relics flowed east, the King of Wu was the first to be moved; when Senghui prostrated and supplicated, as soon as his sincere devotion reached its peak, [the relic] suddenly arrived. When Sun Quan tested it, the anvil and hammer were dented while it became all the firmer. Thereupon its soaring light penetrated upwards, brilliantly illuminating the imperial screens; it emitted radiance that spread laterally, casting a luxuriant glow beneath the craggy galleries. At that time, [Seng]hui leaped with joy and broadly praised its majestic power; Quan and his court ministers, upon hearing it, all believed and submitted, forthwith constructing a stūpa and establishing a saṅghārāma for it. Because of this, Buddhist deeds were greatly propagated in the region east of the Yangtze. How could this be like the Supreme Lord's bones rotting in Guanzhong, where it is decided that there are no relics, or the Heavenly Master's body being buried in the belly of a serpent, where how could there be a preserved body? Having nothing to rely upon, they then produced bewitching falsehoods. Hearing that the Buddha had eight bushels of relics to signify his left-behind body, they subsequently kept two small stones to substitute for 'immortal eggs'. However, the 'immortal eggs' were originally the genitals of a mad boar, and the 'mystic altar' is merely the shrine of an old ghost. If one says relics are barbarian bones, in principle they still surpass the genitals of a mad boar; and how could a Buddhist stūpa—a 'barbarian mound'—be the same as the shrine of an old ghost? How could one equate high and low or express ranks in such terms? Therefore, when current Daoist priests see relics, they are like cinders in their eyes—how could they be willing to take refuge? When they behold stūpas, they are like thorns in their hearts, and they exclusively plot to destroy and demolish them, harboring evil in vain. How could this be permissible? The sovereigns and emperors throughout the dynasties have all planted good roots long ago and mostly cherished correct faith, expending treasures to construct stūpas and removing gems to venerate the true, all wishing to express their sincerity in pursuing the distant past and to convey their reverence as if [the Buddha] were present. Therefore, they renovated and raised nine tiers, exhausting all adornment; they constructed a hundred beams, exhausting magnificence. So it was that when a poor person offered an alms-bowl, a Brahmā palace was instantly formed; when an elder marked the ground with chalked cords, a heavenly hall immediately appeared. The way of cause and effect is completely clear in this principle; those of dim understanding cannot awaken to it.