廣弘明集 13.112

13.112

The Buddhist response says: The bodily marks of sages are not fixed; they manifest wonders according to the region. Thus, the sage with a snake's body and a dragon's head brought harmony to the Way in the high antiquity; the lord with double pupils and four breasts illuminated virtue in the middle antiquity. The Duke of Zhou’s inverted grip was merely a single hair of a fine steed; Yu’s ears reaching his shoulders were just a flake of jade from Mount Kunlun. (First, resolving doubt; next, praising the orthodox.) Now, the dharmakāya is equal to Thusness; boundless, its principle transcends designation. The transformation body arises from responding to beings; its wondrous form can be touched upon by names and words. Therefore, it possesses the radiance of the white ūrṇā and dark-blue eyelashes, the beauty of fruit-like lips and flower-like eyes, the marks of the svastika and the thousand-spoked wheel, and the distinctive excellence of the sun’s disk and moon’s radiance. It has the appearance of non-matter that is wondrous matter, and the body devoid of signs yet complete with all signs. Bhākula possessed them but incompletely; a wheel-turning king possesses them but not brightly. (The *Satyaka-sūtra* says: 'The nature born of non-matter surpasses all marks. First, the merit of surpassing the eighty minor marks adorns the Buddha's sun-like body. For example, if all beings of the four forms of birth in the trichiliocosm were to become wheel-turning kings, and this were multiplied a hundredfold, it would only equal the merit of a single hair of the Tathāgata. Multiplied another hundredfold, it forms the merit of a single minor mark. Multiplied another hundredfold, it forms the merit of a single major mark. Multiplied another hundredfold, it forms the merit of the white ūrṇā between the eyebrows. Multiplied another hundredfold, it forms the mark of the invisible uṣṇīṣa. Multiplied another hundredfold, it forms the merit of the spiral hair curls.') The ṛṣi wept in grief upon seeing him, lamenting that his own withered leaves were in the twilight of their day; the brahmacārin was moved upon witnessing him, sighing that the miraculous flower is rarely encountered. How could this merely be stepping on five and clasping ten to mark the extraordinary, or having a square face and an emaciated frame to display distinctiveness? (Cao Zhi’s *Treatise on Physiognomy* says: 'Confucius’s face was like a square ghost-mask; the Duke of Zhou’s form was like an emaciated tree.') How could the ugly resemble the beautiful, or Meng Ju compete in loveliness with Long Lian? This is the eighth inferiority of your Dao.