廣弘明集 14.19

14.19

Fu also says: 'The Hu people of the Western Regions were born from mud; therefore, they serve mud and tiles.' These, too, are unconsidered words. When erecting numinous icons and depicting revered forms, the materials used are diverse; they are not only mud and tiles. Carved or cast, they use iron, wood, gold, and bronze; painted or embroidered, they are also upon pigments and fine silk. Would he also claim that the gentlemen and ladies of the Western Regions were all born from these things? Furthermore, the ancestral temples of the Central Lands take wood for their spirit tablets; would one then say that the gentlemen who established the rites were all nourished and born from wood? Parents cannot be forgotten, so ancestral temples are built for them; the Buddha cannot be forgotten, so his images and forms are erected, to manifest boundless devotion and express reverence as if he were present. In honoring the sage and venerating his virtue, what fault is there? Those who regard good as an offense will naturally also regard evil as merit.