北山錄 7.1.6

7.1.6

added sixteen characters to his text.) From this it is known that the indelible words were what they had not yet grasped. Dao'an, by means of the three difficulties and five losses, evaluated translations in detail and exhausted their crucial subtleties. (This is because Sanskrit texts are difficult to understand, the sacred intent is profound and far-reaching, and the phrasings and purport must be refined and fitting: this constitutes the difficulties. Not being skilled in the sacred purport, omitting chapters and phrases, and having coarse and disordered language: this constitutes the losses.) Later generations were unable to investigate their purport, nor did they hold them as standards, considering that their words did not come from the center, staring blankly as if they had not heard. (Staring blankly is the appearance of looking straight ahead. Because ancient translations of sutra texts were unpolished, people subsequently failed to investigate them and were bewildered, understanding nothing, like the translations of An Shigao.) Furthermore, Ruism is the teaching of this land; from tadpole script it changed into the two seal scripts, (In antiquity there was tadpole script; later there were the great seal and small seal scripts. King Xuan of Zhou's grand scribe Zhou created the great seal script; Li Si and others of Qin created the small seal script; Cheng Miao created the clerical script.) and seal script changed into clerical script. Moreover, passing through the Qin destruction, the texts were sometimes contradictory or missing. (In the thirty-third year of the First Emperor, because various scholars debated affairs of the Qin, Prime Minister Li Si submitted a memorial, and they burned the books and buried the scholars, destroying the classical records of previous generations.) The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors have disparate accounts of selection and rejection; (Some say the Three Sovereigns refer to the Heavenly Sovereign, Earthly Sovereign, and Human Sovereign; others say Fuxi, Shennong, and Huangdi. The Five Emperors are Shaohao, Zhuanxu, Diku, Yao, and Shun.) how could the order of chapters in the Lu and Qi Lunyu be fixed? (The Lu Lun has twenty chapters, and the Qi Lun has twenty-two chapters; between them the sequence is also different.) Between the Liji and the Chunqiu, in Duke Ai's eulogy for Kong Qiu, which additions and omissions are correct? (When Kong Qiu died, Duke Ai of Lu eulogised him; the texts transmitted in the rites differ from one another.) Between the Jia yu and the Tan gong, when Zhongni played the zither earnestly and grieved, how could their texts be identical? (After the auspicious sacrifice he played the zither; the texts of the Liji and the Jia yu are not the same.) Therefore, what Mengzi and Zhuangzi grasped was to forget the words and take the meaning; (Meng Ke, courtesy name Ziyu, authored a book of fourteen chapters; Zhuang Zhou authored a book of ten scrolls; both established intent through allegories, and one cannot grasp the text to settle the meaning.) and in the commentaries of Ma Rong and Zheng Xuan, the characters were mutually altered. (Ma Rong, courtesy name Jichang, was from Beihai; Zheng Xuan, courtesy name Kangcheng, was also from Beihai; both commented on the Shijing, the rites, and the Lunyu, and each had differences.) How much more so with the disparate languages of the five Indias and the divergences among the tenets of the various schools! (There are the differences of the six tenets and eighteen schools, and the emptiness and nature of the Great and Small Vehicles are also each distinct.) Repeatedly suffering persecution, (The destructions under the Zhou and the Wei.) the clear and the turbid are hard to distinguish; when translating Sanskrit into Chinese, how could it be uniform? If one strikes a bell with a reed, (A reed is a small bamboo.) its resonance will not be exhausted; if one peers at the sky through a tube, its boundary will not be reached; and if one seeks to comprehend the sage with the common mind, how could its profundity be revealed? Yet one must rely on the strength of the reed to hear its harmony, follow the edge of the tube to observe its boundary, and exhaust the deliberation of the common mind to refine its principle. And the reason why those who transmit the Dharma abhor blunders so deeply is that they rely on those who are not earnest in the ultimate Dao. (Those who see the vastness of the texts and the differences among various editions, and become intimidated and do not investigate them: this is the defect of scholars.) They take jade-rollered scrolls bound with cords (Guan means a cord; teng means to bind; it refers to tying up scriptures.) and, because they issue from the golden mouth, consider the text fixed. Those who delight in polishing and carving consider their devotion to the scriptures an error; those who disparage discussion regard it as worldly knowledge and clever sophistry. (These are scholars who transmit the mind; they consider those who lecture to have the error of relishing the scriptures, and those who discuss to have the affliction of worldly knowledge and clever sophistry.) Zhongni said: 'The gentleman fears others because of what he himself cannot do; (Respecting those who can because he himself cannot.) the petty person disbelieves others because of what he himself cannot do.' (Because he himself lacks ability, he also does not value what others understand.) Therefore, the gentleman fosters other people's talents, while the petty person suppresses others to claim victory. Yet in the world there are those who conceal defects and hide flaws, ornament their intelligence to trap the vulgar, steal the empty reputation of a profound master, and conceal their murky minds to deceive themselves. (Not having accumulated understanding in the first place, they immediately style themselves masters; their minds are full of deception and arrogance, and they always fear being scrutinized.) They simply do not know that when thirst is extreme, drinking is abundant; when doubt is deep, awakening is profound. They are arrogant men! (What is called an arrogant and insolent man.) Someone said: 'If one points out the blemishes of past worthies, will people not find fault with the teachings?' (Dismissing past worthies on the grounds of directly explaining true principle without being obstructed by things.) I say: That is not so. Shennong distinguished the hundred herbs not to lead people into poison; Qibo discussed acupuncture and moxibustion stones not to injure people's five viscera. (The Buddha preached sutras not to cause people to fall.) Did the Southern Flower Sage's criticism of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius cause every household to lack the Six Classics? (Zhuang Zhou criticized the Duke of Zhou and Confucius; yet were the Six Classics not practiced?) Did Ban Gu's history critiquing Sima Qian's record cause every household to lack the Shiji? (Ban Gu's Han shu criticized Sima Qian's Shiji.) In the past, Vasubandhu composed the Kośa, and Saṅghabhadra wrote the Samayapradīpikā (Hail) to refute it; Vasubandhu changed its title to the Nyāyānusāra (Conforming to Correct Principles), and both treatises were propagated together, enabling those who came after to examine what was direct and dispel obscurity, discern the refined from the coarse, and make their choice. (Bodhisattva Vasubandhu composed the Kośakārikā; master Saṅghabhadra composed the Kośahail to destroy it, like hail destroying sprouts. When he went to challenge Vasubandhu, Vasubandhu avoided him; Saṅghabhadra then sent his treatise to him. Vasubandhu inspected it, saw that it completely conformed to his own meaning, and consequently changed its title to the Nyāyānusāra-śāstra.)