辯偽錄 2.13

2.13

辯曰。夫星流貫昴。實標文命之祥。電繞樞星。是顯軒皇之慶。虹流華渚。沙昊於是膺期。星冠月輪。顓頊以之應瑞。赤龍[目*(電-雨+大)]瞹言旌帝堯。雲屯欝蒸實徵漢祖。此則聖人神異。譜牒具詳。未聞老子初生三日共出九步周行月妃散華日童揚彩之事。且星隕如雨。日有蝕之。春秋書之以為異事。李耳若有徵瑞。孔子何以不記乎。且魯陽揮戈而返日。淮南子有景公善言而退熒（劉向新文）貳師拔劍而泉流（前漢書中）耿恭拜井而水出（後漢書中）苟有奇相書為美談。老既無文事必虛唱。倚他大聖取為神奇。夫聖人現相雖有多途。託化誕生事無兩體。世尊百億化身。大千世界一時頓顯。化緣事訖便入涅槃。老子隨代降生。以何大謬乎。本是李耳。妄改其諱李伯陽而云光明。隱其本名而加美號。史記真文一詞不錄。道書偽說百種粧填。前之兩化。說在太易之前。後之十重。紀在伏犧之後。尋虛摭偽誑惑後人。前說五歲凝真二十入道。後則八十一歲生而皓首。自語矛盾。何待他攻。亳州厲鄉實而不認。北玄玉國虛而妄傳。聃耳髼頭謬說七十二相。野合懷胎諂云周行九步。採他釋瑞而為老奇。將此薰蕕亂彼蘭芷。北玄玉國山海之所不紀。天崗李谷地里之所匪詳。王儉百家（太尉王儉有百家譜）弗聞玉女之名。何姓氏苑罕說玄妙之族。案道士賈善翔高道傳序云。伯陽起迹於姬周。既云起迹於姬周。則是老子。不在商也。明知陽甲之時本無李耳。衰周之際始見老聃（胡曾云。七雄戈戟亂如麻。四海無人得坐家。老氏却思天竺去。便將徐甲過流沙。斯則周末時人明矣）避亂入秦死葬槐里。秦佚吊之三號而出。斯良證也。何更疑哉。史記本傳莫知所終。化胡浪語云過流沙。將如來降誕之禎。合老于過關之氣。汝雖巧會偽說孰憑。案燉煌實錄云。周桓王三十九年幸閑豫庭。與群臣對論古今。王曰。老聃父何如人也。天水太守索綏對曰。老聃父姓韓名乾字元卑。癃跛下賤胎則無耳。一目不明孤單乞貸。年六十二無妻。與隣人益壽氏宅上牧猪老婢子曰精敷。野合懷胎。八十一年而生。老子生而皓首。故號老君。此本實跡蔽而不傳。偷竊他能欲張老聖。家有弊帚享之千金。斯言信歟。

The refutation states: Now, a shooting star piercing the Pleiades was truly the auspicious omen marking Wenming [Yu the Great]; lightning encircling the Pivot Star revealed the rejoicing for Xuanyuan [the Yellow Emperor]; a rainbow streaming down to the floral islet was when Shaohao responded to his destined time; a star capping the lunar disc was the auspicious sign by which Zhuanxu answered [heaven's mandate]; a red dragon shimmering and dim foretold Emperor Yao; and dense gathering clouds truly bore witness to the Han progenitor [Gaozu]. These were the divine wonders of sages, fully detailed in genealogical records. One has never heard of Laozi at birth having three suns rise together, walking nine paces in all directions, the lunar consort scattering flowers, or the solar youth displaying brilliance. Furthermore, stars falling like rain and eclipses of the sun were recorded in the Chunqiu as extraordinary events; if Li Er had possessed verifying portents, why would Confucius not have recorded them? Moreover, when Luyang swung his spear, the sun retreated (in the Huainanzi); Duke Jing's good words turned back Mars (in Liu Xiang's Xinxu); when the Ershi General drew his sword, a spring gushed forth (in the Qian Hanshu); and when Geng Gong bowed to a well, water sprang out (in the Hou Hanshu). If there are miraculous occurrences, books make them into splendid tales. Since there are no texts for Lao[zi], this is certainly an empty claim—relying on another's Great Sage and appropriating him to make oneself marvelous. Now, although sages manifest signs through many paths, the matter of taking birth through apparitional transformation has never had a dual nature. The Bhagavān has hundreds of millions of transformation bodies, appearing simultaneously throughout the great thousandfold world, and when the conditions for conversion are finished, he enters nirvāṇa. But Laozi is born in age after age—how could it be so utterly absurd? Originally he was Li Er, yet they falsely changed his taboo name Li Boyang, calling him Guangming ('Bright Light'), concealing his original name and adding flattering titles. Not a single word of this is recorded in the authentic text of the Shiji, yet Daoist fabrications fill it out with a hundred kinds of embellishments. The first two transformations are described as being before the Great Change (Taiyi), while the later ten sequences are recorded as being after Fuxi. Searching out vanity and gathering falsehoods, they deceive and delude later generations. Earlier they said that at five years of age he congealed truth and at twenty entered the Way; later they say he was born at eighty-one with white hair. Self-contradictory in their own words, why wait for others to attack them? They reject the reality of Lixiang in Bozhou and falsely transmit the fictitious Northern Black Jade Country. With drooping ears and disheveled hair, they absurdly claim seventy-two marks; born of an illicit coupling, they flatteringly claim he walked nine paces. Plundering the portents of the Śākya[muni] to serve as the wonders of Lao[zi], they take this noxious weed to confuse those orchids and irises. The Northern Black Jade Country is not recorded in the Shanhai jing; the Tiangang and Li Valleys are nowhere detailed in geography. In Wang Jian's Hundred Families (Grand Commandant Wang Jian wrote the Baijia pu), the name of the Jade Maiden is unheard of; and in He's Xingshi yuan, families of the 'Profound and Wondrous' are rarely mentioned. According to the preface to the Gaodao zhuan by the Daoist Jia Shanxiang: 'Boyang began his traces in the Ji-Zhou.' Since he says that he began his traces in the Ji-Zhou, Laozi was therefore not in the Shang. One clearly knows that in the time of Yangjia there was originally no Li Er; only in the declining Zhou did Lao Dan first appear. (Hu Zeng said: 'The spears and halberds of the Seven Heroes were tangled like hemp; within the four seas, no one could stay at home. Lao[zi] then thought of going to India, and so took Xu Jia across the Flowing Sands.' This clearly shows he was a man of the late Zhou.) Fleeing turmoil, he entered Qin, died, and was buried at Huaili; Qin Yi mourned him with three wails and departed—this is excellent proof! Why doubt it any further? His original biography in the Shiji states that no one knows where he ended; the reckless talk of 'converting the barbarians' says he crossed the Flowing Sands. Conflating the auspicious signs of the Tathāgata's descent and birth with the vapor of Laozi crossing the pass—clever though your joining may be, what reliance is there on false tales? According to the Dunhuang shilu: In the thirty-ninth year of King Huan of Zhou, he visited the court of leisurely repose and discussed antiquity and the present with his ministers. The king said, 'What kind of man was Lao Dan's father?' Suo Sui, the Grand Administrator of Tianshui, replied, 'Lao Dan's father was named Han Qian, courtesy name Yuanbei. He was crippled, base, and born without ears; blind in one eye, he was a solitary beggar. At the age of sixty-two he had no wife, and he had an illicit coupling with an old pig-herding bondmaid named Jingfu in the household of his neighbor, Mr. Yishou. She became pregnant, and after eighty-one years gave birth. Laozi was born with white hair, and thus was called Lord Lao.' These were his original, true traces, yet they conceal and do not transmit them, stealing the abilities of another to aggrandize Lao the sage. 'A worn-out broom in one's own house is cherished like a thousand pieces of gold'—can these words be believed?