辯正論 8.5

8.5

君子曰。良有以也。良有以也。夫蘭庭鮑肆。日久愛其先狎。陽文敦洽。寵積緣其曲情。是以鹿馬殊形。秦人一其貌。麟麕異質。魯俗迷其容。吠聲之儔頓至於此。余今考其浮詐。重示後昆矣。案太上洞玄靈寶黃錄簡文威儀經云。元始天尊告太上大道君曰。下元黃錄靈仙品功過開度。其文在靈仙宮中。舊有八百部。自經龍漢舊文分散。遂至赤明其文改易。多有煩猥。今故抄集下元八十一條。撰為要用。上應三元之數。中應八景之神。下應二十四氣。常有三部威神侍衛靈文。君子曰。靈文真錄出於自然。天尊所保之文。眾聖所行之法。藏於玉檢祕在玄臺。三部威神四邊侍衛。元於無始極於無終。何為涉龍漢而分散。至赤明而改易耶。改易便為不實。分散即是無靈。有何詐妄頻招棄辱。

The Noble Person says: There is truly a reason for this! There is truly a reason for this! Now, between an orchid room and a dried-fish market, as days pass one grows fond of that with which one first grew intimate; when Yangwen was in favor, the accumulation of doting arose from his twisted affections. Therefore, though deer and horse are different in form, the Qin people treated them as the same creature; though the qilin and the roe-deer are of disparate substance, the customs of Lu were confounded by its appearance. The sort who merely bark at sounds have suddenly arrived at such extremes! I shall now examine their hollow frauds and make them clear again to later generations. According to the Taishang dongxuan lingbao huanglu jianwen weiyi jing (Scripture of Dignified Observances with Bamboo Slips of the Yellow Register of the Most High Numinous Treasure of the Cavern Mystery): 'The Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning addressed the Lord of the Most High Great Dao, saying: "The saving of the grades of merit and fault of the numinous immortals of the Lower Primordial Yellow Register was recorded in the Palace of Numinous Immortals. Originally there were eight hundred sections. But having passed through the Longhan era, the ancient texts became dispersed, and down to the Chiming era those texts were altered and exchanged, becoming mostly cumbersome and vulgar. Now I have therefore excerpted and compiled eighty-one items of the Lower Primordial, composing them for essential use. Above, they correspond to the count of the Three Primordials; in the middle, they correspond to the spirits of the Eight Radiances; below, they correspond to the Twenty-Four Qi. There are constantly awe-inspiring deities of the three divisions who attend and guard the numinous texts."' The Noble Person says: The numinous texts and true registers issue from spontaneity; they are texts preserved by the Heavenly Worthy, doctrines practiced by the multitude of sages, kept within jade cases and hidden in the Mystery Terrace, guarded all around by the awe-inspiring deities of the three divisions, originating in the beginningless and reaching to the endless. Why should they have traversed Longhan and become dispersed, and arrived at Chiming and been altered? If altered, they are untrue; if dispersed, they lack numinous power. What false deception is this, continually inviting abandonment and disgrace!