集古今佛道論衡 1.28

1.28

The Emperor said, 'Were the Buddha and Laozi contemporaries, or not?' Jiang Bin said, 'When Laozi went west to convert the barbarians, the Buddha was at that time his attendant. Clearly they were contemporaries.' The Dharma Master asked, 'How do you know this?' Bin said, 'Based on Laozi’s Scripture of Opening Heaven (Kaitian jing), I know this thereby.' The Dharma Master asked, 'Under which king of the Zhou and in which year was Laozi born? Under which king of the Zhou and in which year did he go west?' Bin said, 'In the third year of King Ding of Zhou’s accession, the yimao year, in the state of Chu, Chen commandery, Ku county, Li township, Quren village, on the night of the fourteenth day of the ninth month at the zi hour, he was born. In the fourth year of King Jian of Zhou, the dingchou year, he served Zhou as the archivist of the treasury. In the thirteenth year of King Jian, he was promoted to Grand Astrologer. In the first year of King Jing, the gengchen year, at the age of eighty-five, seeing the virtue of Zhou decline, he thereupon went west with Yin Xi, the magistrate of the Hangu Pass, to convert the barbarians. This is sufficient to make it clear.' The Dharma Master said, 'The Buddha was born on the eighth day of the fourth month in the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou, and passed away into nirvāṇa on the fifteenth day of the second month in the fifty-third year of King Mu. Calculating from his entry into nirvāṇa, three hundred and forty-five years elapsed before Laozi was born in the third year of King Ding. Once born, he reached eighty-five years of age; down to the first year of King Jing, four hundred and twenty-five years in total had elapsed before he first fled west with Yin Xi. Based on this, the years are far apart. Are you not thoroughly mistaken?' Bin said, 'If the Buddha was born in the time of King Zhao of Zhou, what written records does this come from?' The Dharma Master said, 'The Zhou shu yiji (Different Records of the Book of Zhou) and the Han faben neizhuan (Inner Chronicle of the Origins of the Dharma under the Han) both contain explicit statements.' Bin said, 'Since Confucius was a lawgiver and sage, why was there at that time no written record whatsoever from him concerning the Buddha?' The Dharma Master said, 'Your understanding, benevolent sir, is like viewing things through a tube; your reading has not been wide. Looking into it, Confucius had the Sanbei bujing (Threefold Contingency Divination Classic), which speaks of heaven, earth, and humanity. The text concerning the Buddha appears in the Middle Contingency. If you would graciously open and investigate it yourself, you would not harbor this delusion.' Bin said, 'Confucius was a sage; he understood without speaking. Why would he resort to divination?' The Dharma Master said, 'Only the Buddha is the King of All Sages and the Foremost of the Four Kinds of Born Beings, thoroughly discerning the beginning and end, auspicious and inauspicious, throughout the two limits of past and future for all sentient beings, without relying on divinatory observation. The other lesser sages, although understanding the principles of what is yet to come, must rely on yarrow stalks and tortoise shells to commune with the numinous hexagrams.'