破邪論 2.7

2.7

The Tuoba Yuan Wei had seventeen rulers, lasting in all 179 years. At that time, why was the dynasty long-lasting even though the Buddha had come? I answer: The Book of the Later Han states that Emperor Guangwu settled disorder and restored orthodoxy, and Emperor Ming brought about peace and prosperity. The people suffered no anxiety within a hundred li, and officials had no toil beyond their gates. Qilin entered the imperial parks, and divine phoenixes perched in the paulownias; there were red sparrows, patterned tortoises, dark birds, and white deer. Auspicious omens all arrived, and the myriad people were universally joyful. The emperor bestowed vast and boundlessly billowing grace, spreading moistening bounty that reached Heaven and welled from springs. The eight quarters imbibed his transforming influence, and the myriad states revered his wind. Works such as the Lunheng all say that the auspicious signs of the Later Han were not shameful even when compared to the Zhou and Xia. You say that where there is the Buddha, dynastic mandates are short; why then were these years long? Fu Yi says: In the Western Regions, the barbarian kingdom of Danmo had 320 soldiers; the Xiaoyuan kingdom had 200 soldiers; the Ronglu kingdom had 300 soldiers; the Qule kingdom had 300 soldiers; the Yinai kingdom had 350 soldiers; the Yulishi kingdom had 331 soldiers; the Shanxiang kingdom had 35 soldiers; and the Guhu kingdom had 45 soldiers. In all, the barbarian troops of these eight kingdoms amounted to 1,891 men. All of them managed to inherit their royal lines, occupy their lands, and wage war against one another to massacre each other's countries. How much more so now with the 200,000 monks and nuns of the Great Tang, who band together in barbarian teachings and fully win the hearts of the people—how could we not guard against them in advance? I answer: Checking the 'Treatise on the Western Regions' in the Book of the Han, it states that the eight kingdoms including Danmo and Xiaoyuan are all east of the Congling Mountains, barbarian kingdoms within Han territory, calculated to be no more than ten thousand li from Chang'an. They were originally not the land of Tianzhu where the Buddha was born. Furthermore, there were no monks and nuns plotting rebellion within them. Even if they committed evil, what does that have to do with the monks here? It is merely that a mad demon has entered Fu Yi's heart, raising heterodox doctrines outwardly, vainly citing past events and falsely slandering present worthies. The discerning know his wild talk, while the foolish will inevitably produce divergent views, bringing delusion and confusion to the court and countryside—this is profoundly lamentable! The first refutation: regarding the claim that the Buddha's coming to the Han land brought harm without benefit, ruined families where it entered families, ruined countries where it entered countries, and that the Buddha-Dharma only began to arrive in the time of Emperor Ming of the Han. A gentleman of right faith of the sacred court of the Great Tang states: The Buddhas, the Great Persons, are lofty gentlemen who transcend the secular, wandering in the wondrous park of nirvāṇa and abiding in the true emptiness of prajñā. They cannot be sought through words and images, nor measured by emotions and thoughts. Their form is identical with the Dharma-nature, and their life is equal to empty space. Yet responding to beings, they manifest bodies like the moon in the water. Therefore, Guḍa saw a three-foot appearance, while arhats beheld a sixteen-foot form. Vast, it fills empty space; minuscule, it enters a fine hair. Responding with physical forms in accordance with conditions, their transformation has no fixed standard. Investigating the origins of Śākyamuni: according to the Suburban Sacrifices of the Eastern Capital of Han, the Jin and Wei histories, Wang Jian's Catalogue of History, Fei Changfang's Record of the Three Jewels, and collating scriptures such as the Lalitavistara and the Abhiniṣkramaṇa-sūtra, all state that the Buddha was [conceived] in the time of Zhou, under the fifteenth sovereign, King Zhuang, in his ninth year, the guisi year, on the eighth day of the fourth month. Riding a sandalwood pavilion and manifesting the form of a white elephant, he descended from Tuṣita to the city of Kapilavastu in central Tianzhu, entering the womb of Queen Māyā, the principal consort of the kṣatriya royal lineage's Great King Śuddhodana. Arriving at the tenth year, the jiawu year, on the night of the eighth day of the fourth month when the Ghost constellation conjoined, beneath the plakṣa tree in the Lumbinī park, he was born from the right side of Queen Māyā, emitting a great radiance that illuminated the three-thousandfold world. The Scripture of Auspicious Responses says that when the boiling star appeared below, the Crown Prince was born; the Abhiniṣkramaṇa-sūtra also says that though the sky was cloudless, rain fell spontaneously. The Zuo zhuan says that stars fell like rain, and Du Yu's commentary explains that this was because there were no clouds at the time—which fully accords with the Buddhist sūtras. Thoroughly learned scholars consider this to be the time of the Buddha's birth. At nineteen he renounced the world, at thirty he achieved the Way, and for forty-nine years he remained in the world preaching the Dharma, benefiting gods and humans, and liberating all beings. In the fourth year of King Kuang of Zhou, the renzi year, in the latter part of the night on the fifteenth day of the second month, he entered parinirvāṇa at Kuśinagara. From his extinction until the present fifth year of Wude of the Great Tang, the renwu year, it is calculated to be 1,221 years. One hundred and sixteen years after his extinction, in eastern Tianzhu there was King Aśoka, who collected the Buddha's relics, commanded ghost soldiers, and widely erected 84,000 jewel stupas throughout Jambudvīpa. Within the nine provinces of this Han land of ours, there are also jewel stupas. The time of erecting these stupas fell in the twenty-sixth year of King Jing of Zhou, the dingwei year. The stupas arose in the Zhou era and passed through twelve kings down to the thirty-fourth year of the First Emperor of Qin. When he burned the texts, King Aśoka's various stupas were hidden and lost on account of this, and the whereabouts of Buddhist scriptures and chronicles became unknown. As the scripture catalogues of Shi Dao'an and Zhu Shixing state, in the time of the First Emperor, there were eighteen foreign śramaṇa worthies, including Shi Lifang, who brought Buddhist scriptures to convert the First Emperor. The First Emperor did not comply and ended up imprisoning Lifang and the others. At night, a sixteen-foot diamond being came, broke open the prison, and brought them out. The First Emperor was terrified and bowed his head to apologize. Question: Although there is this account, the year is not known; what can serve as proof? Please set forth the resolution. Answer: In the Western Han during the time of Emperor Cheng, the biography of the Director of Waterways and Grand Master of the Palace Liu Xiang states that Xiang widely viewed historical records and thoroughly inspected the classic scriptures. He would often state: 'Searching broadly through the classics and registers, I frequently saw Buddhist scriptures.' And when compiling the Liexian zhuan, he said: 'I searched the archived books and looked back into the Grand Historian's initial drafting of the illustrations of the immortals. From the Yellow Emperor down through six eras to the present, those who attained the Way of Immortality were over seven hundred persons.' Xiang examined their truth and falsity and definitively established 146 persons, further stating: 'Seventy-four of them have already appeared in Buddhist scriptures.' Inferring from Liu Xiang's mention of 'archived books,' these were probably books hidden among the populace during the Qin era; others say they were books hidden within Confucius's residence. Arguing from this, how could it not be that long before the Qin and Han, the Buddha-Dharma was already circulating in Cīnasthāna? Investigating what Dao'an recorded, the twelve worthies were also among the number of seventy; today the Liexian zhuan shows seventy-two persons. Examining the Scripture on the Parinirvāṇa of Mañjuśrī, it says: 'Four hundred and fifty years after the Buddha's extinction, Mañjuśrī arrived at the Snow Mountains and preached the twelve divisions of scripture for five hundred immortals; having finished, he returned to his native land and entered nirvāṇa.' The auspicious sign of the fixed stars was precisely that time. Checking the 'Treatise on Geography' and 'Treatise on the Western Regions', it says that the Snow Mountains are precisely the Congling Mountains; the thirty-six kingdoms beneath them had long submitted to the Han, and because the Congling Mountains have much snow, they were called the Snow Mountains. The place Mañjuśrī went to convert the immortals was precisely that location. Examining and verifying this, what Liu Xiang discussed can serve as proof. Although it met with destruction by fire in the Qin era, it emerged again with the rise of Han. Thus, in Jing, Yang, Wu, Shu, Fufeng, and Luoyang, the places where there are jewel stupas have all produced divine miracles; these are fully recorded in numerous books and are not mere conjecture. Checking the third year of Hongjia of Emperor Cheng, the year being guimao, Liu Xiang compiled the Liexian zhuan, which makes this clear. Hence we know that the Buddha-Dharma came long ago during the Zhou era. For a person blind from birth to say that where there is the Buddha dynasties are short is truly lamentable! According to the sūtras and vinaya, Śākyamuni's true Dharma lasts one thousand years, the semblance Dharma one thousand years, and the final Dharma ten thousand years. For the first five thousand years, learners among the four assemblies attain the three clear knowledges and realize the four fruits of the path; even after the final Dharma arrives, they still wear the kāṣāya robe. Checking the Zhoushu yiji, it says that King Mu heard there was a Buddha in the west, and thereupon rode his eight fine steeds, including the Bay, travelling west to seek the Buddha and thereby perform an exorcistic ritual. Inferring on this basis, it accords with Master Shangtong of the Qi responding to the envoy from Goguryeo: 'The Buddha was born in the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao, the fifth sovereign of the Western Zhou, the jiayin year; down to the present fifth year of Wude, it has been 1,577 years.' Truly, by the time of King Mu, the Dharma had already traveled eastward; Liu Xiang's words are made all the clearer. Furthermore, when Emperor Wu of Han excavated the Kunming Lake and found black ashes, he asked Dongfang Shuo. Shuo said: 'This is not known to your subject; you may ask the barbarian peoples of the Western Regions.' Later, when the foreign śramaṇa Dharmaratna arrived, he was asked about the matter. Ratna said: 'These are the residual ashes from the kalpa fire.' Since Dongfang Shuo was broadly knowledgeable, a man of universal learning, and born with extraordinary talent, there was no question he did not answer, no word he did not reply to; how could he have failed to understand, anticipating and noting the barbarian? It was merely that Shuo had long known that the Buddha-Dharma would flourish and an eminent person would surely arrive, hence he gave this answer. After the Buddha passed away, Ānanda held the teachings in memory, not losing a single word. Mahākāśyapa convened the council; one thousand arhats wrote them all on bark and paper, and inscribed them on tree leaves, causing five hundred Central States to revere and uphold them together, and sixteen great kings to erect stupas simultaneously. Reaching the Han era, it flowed eastward to the two capitals, spanning sixteen generations of emperors, translating barbarian and Sanskrit manuscripts into the correct language of Han, transmitted continuously down to the present for nearly six hundred years. Therefore, the sun of the Buddha shone again, starting from the beginning of Yongping; scriptures and images flourished anew, bursting forth from the start of Kaihuang. The Wei man Zhu Shixing and the śramaṇa Wei Dao'an and others all recorded them: combining both Chinese and foreigners, monks and laity, there were 182 persons in all; the translated sūtras, vinaya, precepts, treatises, Great and Small Vehicle tripiṭaka, and miscellaneous records, totaled 2,171 works in 6,446 fascicles. None failed to shower sweet dew upon the realm of the eight māras, and shed the sun of wisdom within the three realms of existence, guiding those of the future and transmitting the supreme undertaking forever. In teaching people to abandon evil and practice good, the Buddha-Dharma comes foremost; in benefiting the state and aiding the people, nothing can match it. You say it 'ruins families'—whose family has it ruined? You say it 'ruins countries'—which country has it ruined? You heterodox wretch, you hornless beast! Long harbouring a jackal's heart and perpetually nursing a scorpion's venom, you lack a hair's breadth of goodness and bear guilt heavy as mountains. Growing in evil without repenting, as you age you become all the more obstinate. To measure the Sacred Honoured One with the deliberations of one blind from birth—how is this different from the quail laughing at the roc, or the well-frog disbelieving in the vast sea? You can truly be called an icchantika, a recalcitrant breed, a sinner of the hells! Grieving and pitying you, I have therefore composed this treatise. If we examine the seventy-two rulers, the Three Sovereigns, the Five Emperors, Kong Qiu, Li Lao, and the sages and worthies of the Han land, none failed to have their bones buried by the Three Springs and their corpses lie prostrate in the Nine Earths. None had anything like the Buddha's relics, which manifest auspicious omens and emit light, do not burn in fire, and are not shattered by anvil and hammer. Being present today, this can be proven immediately by putting it to the test! Relying on this single matter alone, it is sufficient to recognize the divine virtue of the Buddha-Dharma. Who among the various sages of Cīnasthāna can be compared with him? Yet you wish to destroy and abolish it—such a deed is hard to tolerate! Damaging moral customs, ruining the field of merit, deceiving and confusing the common people, and staining the imperial court—this is truly lamentable!