辯偽錄 2.26

2.26

辯曰。案後漢西域傳三國志魏隋書西域志（圖六十卷志四十卷合一百卷成西域志）並紀西天五印有佛聖跡。或幢或柱咸勒其事。不說老君曾留名字。初張騫西來。始傳浮圖之號。至於今代。國使往還無慮百人。並不見老君西化之說。古谷皇帝西征盡海。所到之地唯有佛僧。行近西北海有一國土。城中佛塔森然若林。彼國君王唯是和尚。又唐王玄策奉使西行。至摩竭陀國。於耆闍崛山及佛成道處。咸述碑銘讚佛聖化。未聞說有老君之事（上之銘讚在王玄策傳中）又湛然居士扈從太祖西征于闐及可弗叉國。越天山過雪嶺。風化具詳。赤未知有老子之事。即今煦烈大王皇帝親弟鎮守西域。在尋思干西南雪山之西。使命往還來往不絕。除親諮詢老化云。並云無聞。則老子神異道書偽出。既非通論。何足信哉。

Refutation: According to the 'Account of the Western Regions' of the Hou Han shu, the Sanguo zhi, the Wei shu, and the Xiyu zhi of the Sui dynasty (with sixty fascicles of illustrations and forty fascicles of treatises, making one hundred fascicles in total comprising the Xiyu zhi), all record that in the five Indias of the Western Regions there are sacred traces of the Buddha; whether on pillars or columns, the events are all inscribed, but none say that Lord Lao ever left his name. When Zhang Qian first went west, the title 'Buddha' was first transmitted. Down to the present dynasty, state envoys traveling back and forth have numbered easily a hundred, and none have seen any account of Laozi traveling west to convert anyone. When Emperor Güyük campaigned in the west all the way to the sea, wherever he arrived there were only Buddhist monks. Traveling near the northwest sea, there was a kingdom where Buddhist pagodas in the city stood as dense as a forest, and the monarch of that kingdom was entirely a Buddhist monk. Furthermore, when Wang Xuance of the Tang went on a mission to the west and reached the kingdom of Magadha, at Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa and the place where the Buddha achieved awakening, he composed stele inscriptions praising the Buddha's holy conversion, but never heard of anything concerning Lord Lao (the above inscriptions and praises appear in Wang Xuance's biography). Furthermore, when Upāsaka Zhanran accompanied Taizu on his western campaign to Khotan and the land of Khavandha, crossing the Tian Shan and traversing the Snow Mountains, he recorded the local customs in full detail, yet he too knew nothing of Laozi. At present, Prince Hulegu, the Emperor's younger brother, is stationed guarding the Western Regions, to the southwest of Samarkand and west of the Snow Mountains; envoys travel back and forth without interruption, and when personally inquired about Laozi's conversion [of the west], all say they have heard nothing of it. Thus, the divine anomalies of Laozi in Daoist books are spurious fabrications. Since they are not commonly accepted facts, how could they be worthy of trust?