廣弘明集 9.65

9.65

Your servant laughs and says: The Huahu jing says that Laozi converted Kashmir so that all revered the Buddha. Laozi said, "One hundred years hence, in the Tuṣita Heaven there will be another true Buddha, who will entrust his birth to the palace of King Śuddhodana in Śrāvastī. At that time, I will also dispatch Yin Xi to be born below and follow the Buddha, named Ānanda, who will compile the twelve divisions of scripture." One hundred years after Laozi departed, the king of Śrāvastī indeed bore a crown prince, who practiced asceticism for six years, attained the Way, was titled Buddha, and styled Śākyamuni. After forty-nine years, when he was about to enter nirvāṇa, Laozi appeared again in the world under the name Kāśyapa. Among the twin trees, he posed thirty-six inquiries to the Tathāgata on behalf of the great assembly, and when finished, the Buddha entered nirvāṇa. The Bodhisattva Kāśyapa cremated the Buddha's corpse, took the relics, divided them among the kingdoms, and built stūpas; King Aśoka then raised 84,000 stūpas. Deducing from these matters, Laozi originally did not become the Buddha. If he had become the Buddha, how could Laozi have returned to burn his own corpse and erect stūpas? This is truly laughable! Furthermore, various scriptures of Laozi mostly say that he became the Buddha, or became an imperial preceptor. Can it be that every imperial preceptor and Buddha under heaven necessarily had to wait for Boyang? In delivering humans and converting the world, must it strictly require Li Er? If one says that a Buddha cannot do it and it strictly requires the Dao, then from the Primal Qi onward, was there solely one Laozi, with no others allowed to awaken to the Great Dao and serve as imperial preceptors? If so, then Laozi was merely boasting of himself: 'Only I am capable.' Yet Buddhist scriptures state that everyone through their respective practices attains the fruit of Buddhahood. Daoist scriptures do not state this, having only the single Lord Lao. Why is the Buddhist teaching so vast, while Daoist scriptures are so narrow? Moreover, their absurd words and empty narrations have no basis from beginning to end. The Shu ji says that Zhang Ling was eaten by a serpent, yet they annotate that he ascended to heaven in broad daylight. The Hanshu says that Liu An was executed by the broadax, yet they claim he had long life and never died. That Daoists falsely claim Laozi became the Buddha—how could that be surprising?