續集古今佛道論衡 1.67

1.67

The Dharma Master replied, saying, 'The Buddha was born on the eighth day of the fourth month in the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou, the year jiayin. He left household life at nineteen in the forty-second year of King Zhao of Zhou, the year renshen. He attained the Way at thirty in the second year of King Mu of Zhou, the year guiwei. Manifesting in the world to convert it for forty-nine years, he entered parinirvāṇa on the fifteenth day of the second month in the fifty-second year of King Mu of Zhou, the year renshen. Calculating now, 345 years passed after the Buddha entered nirvāṇa until Laozi was first born in the third year of King Ding of Zhou. After he was born, he was eighty-five years old, and by the first year of King Jing of Zhou, 425 years had passed before he first traveled west with Yin Xi. Based on these dates, the gap is vastly different; why does this base fellow make such blind statements, rashly claiming that the Buddha was his attendant? Is this not indeed "making a valley of a high cliff"—no small error!?' Jiang Bin said, 'According to the text of the Kaitian [jing], Li, the Imperial Scribe, traveled west to convert the barbarians, and the Buddha was his attendant; this also ought not to be mistaken. For the Dharma Master to rashly reject this matter—I fear the logic is not yet sound.' The Dharma Master replied, saying, 'The Buddha is the Dharma King! Thus he was able to descend his spiritual presence from Tuṣita and be born into the royal palace, fully endowed with the ten thousand blessings and gathered with a hundred million virtues, universally converting the trichiliocosm and equally delivering the six realms of rebirth. When walking, golden flowers uphold his feet; when seated, it is upon a lotus throne of a hundred jewels. When he goes forth, Śakra precedes him; when he enters, King Brahmā attends behind him. On his left, the Secret Traces [Vajrapāṇi] assists him, taking the severance of heterodoxy and falsity as his efficacy; on his right, Vajradhara stands, taking the destruction of heterodox māras as his merit. Countless bodhisattvas serve as his sons of the Dharma; immeasurable śrāvakas serve as his assembly of sages. The Four World-Guarding Kings pay court to him morning and evening; the gods, dragons, and the eight classes of beings receive and attend him day and night. Heavenly music hangs in the sky like clouds; heavenly flowers scatter down like rain. With a single lion's roar, non-Buddhists return to the truth; the Dharma drum sounds of itself, and heterodox māras submit to what is right. How could he be an attendant to an archivist of the Zhou? If the Imperial Scribe under the Pillar of the Zhou possessed the capacity of a son of the Dharma King, he should have manifested spiritual powers as appropriate in the Zhou era; how could he have fled the world into the west before being able to transform beings? If the Imperial Scribe had been able to transform his era, then although the virtue of the Zhou was said to be in decline, it still inherited the legacy of King Wen, King Wu, King Cheng, and King Kang. Since the Imperial Scribe had served through five kings of the Zhou era, why did he not augment them with spiritual transformations and reveal to them the medicine of the Dharma? If he had been capable of this, it would have been like the wind over the grass, its direction completely free; what need was there to secretly flee to the west to convert the barbarian customs far away? Furthermore, the Dharma King and the Imperial Scribe were separated by more than 420 years. Now to say they were contemporaneous and that [the Buddha] served particularly as his attendant—this is an excessive error indeed, deeply to be lamented! Since you, benevolent one, have this tale from the Kaitian [jing], this is merely the flowery prose of reckless extravagance—how could it be worthy of reliance and belief?'