辯正論 6.63

6.63

The Buddhist response says: According to the preface to the Daode[jing], Laozi cultivated the Dao and kept himself hidden, making namelessness his concern; when the Zhou declined, he went out through the Pass, whereupon the two-chapter teaching was produced. However, the Zhou documents, the canons and counsels, contain nothing composed by Master Lao. According to the Erjiao lun and other texts, the five-thousand-character text was expounded by Rongcheng, and Laozi merely spoke it for [Yin] Xi—transmitting rather than originating. Furthermore, his official post was only an archivist, and his station was not that of a premier. Was the grand master of the prosperous Zhou not perhaps entirely fictitious? (First refuting the heterodox, then praising the correct.) Śākya descended his spirit at Kapilavastu and lodged his form in the royal palace. His wisdom was indeed born from innate knowing; his Dao was universal awakening. He radiated the light of wisdom across hundreds of millions of worlds, and spread the cloud of the Dharma throughout the great chiliocosm. His spiritual grace encompassed the ten directions, and his divine transformation extended to the four quarters. Canons loftier than precipitous cliffs and soaring peaks, scriptures housed in dragon palaces and borne on elephants' backs, are overflowing here! Even with the secret reckoning methods of Sang Hongyang, one could not count their finest dust; even with the discources on heaven by Zou Yan, one could not evaluate their trickles and drops. How could it be merely eighty-one chapters or a text set forth in five thousand characters? I regret that you have not peered over the high wall, leading you to utter the slander of Shusun Wushu. Yet how could this harm the sun and the moon? One can only lament your ignorance. This is the fourth inferiority of your Dao.