辯偽錄 3.2.5

3.2.5

At that time, Lecturer Master Sheng [spoke, quoting Fuyu’s memorial]: “Ever since our imperial dynasty’s Sagely Ancestor established the great line of succession, amid the ash of war, there arose scholars who founded their lineage, called the Quanzhen. Donning the caps and robes of Boyang and calling themselves Boyang’s followers, they abandon Boyang’s ancestral temple and contravene Boyang’s Dao and De. Spreading in all directions beyond count, they demolish monasteries and shrines and destroy holy statues. Spurious pictures and texts they fabricate, and unauthorized codes and rituals they falsely institute. Giving free rein to their heterodox doctrines to pander to the times and delude the multitude, they do violence to the Way of the Sages. Arbitrarily using baseless words, they themselves carve [printing blocks], incorporate them into their canon, and designate them as scriptures—truly laughable indeed! Take, for instance, the newly compiled Laozi’s Eighty-One Transformations Illustrated, the Scripture of the Conversion of the Barbarians, and the like: their countless false and preposterous claims cause those who understand to shiver to the teeth upon reading them, and to cover their noses upon hearing them.
“The Illustrations state: ‘In the gengshen year of Yang Jia, the eighteenth king of Yin, the True and Wondrous Jade Maiden lay asleep by day. She dreamed that the essence of the sun, riding nine dragons, descended and transformed into a five-coloured fluid pearl. She swallowed it and became pregnant. After eighty-one years, arriving at the fifteenth day of the second month in the gengchen year of Wu Ding, the twenty-first king, his mother grasped a plum tree, and he was born from her left flank. Lotuses sprang forth at his nine steps, while he paced in all four quarters. The Sun Boy radiated splendour, and the Moon Consort scattered blossoms. The Seven Luminaries shed flowing light, and auspicious clouds shaded the courtyard. The Four Spirits guarded him, and jade maidens received him in their hands. As his mother grasped the branch, ten thousand cranes soared through the sky, and nine dragons spat water. He possessed seventy-two marks and eighty-one minor signs. Pointing to heaven and pointing to earth, he proclaimed: “Only the Dao is uniquely revered!” When he grew up, he served King Wen as the keeper of the archives. Coming down to [the reigns of] Cheng and Kang, he served as the clerk below the pillar, and then abandoned his rank in Zhou.’ One knows not whence such words could have come!
“It also states: ‘On the eighth day of the fourth month in the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou, Laozi ascended to the Great Subtlety. He was reborn in the Li family of Chengdu. Meeting Yin Xi, he ascended once more and went to Western India. He made Yin Xi become a buddha to convert the barbarians, shaving his beard and hair to become a monk, and having bound himself by vows, he took refuge in him.’ Such several varieties of preposterous falsehood are entirely the prattle of children!
“Alas! The Buddha was born under King Zhao of Zhou; Laozi was born under King Ding. Yin Xi received the Daodejing in the yimao year of King Jing. Between them lie five hundred and seven years! How could Yin Xi have become a buddha? This is like ‘setting out for Yue today and having arrived yesterday’—is it not excessively preposterous?
“Now, Laozi’s beginning and end are fully recorded in the annals of the Zhou; yet now they claim that he was born from the True and Wondrous Jade Maiden under Yang Jia of Yin. If so, was this True and Wondrous one a mortal or a sage? If a sage, how could Laozi then have served the Zhou as an official? If a mortal, of what clan was she? Furthermore, if Laozi was a sage endowed with ten thousand auspicious portents, how could the people of his day not have known it, and instead treated him merely as an official? What reason could there be to cast off clear intelligence and act with such vulgarity? Should they not feel ashamed?
“Moreover, his grave mound exists today in Huaili. His followers claim that Laozi ascended in broad daylight—how then could there be a grave mound? Yet they abandon it amid thorns and brambles and offer no sacrifices. This is something that anyone possessing the eyes and brows of a human being would not do.
“Zhuangzi and Liezi were also illustrious secondary sages of Boyang’s lineage. Yet Master Zhuang said that when Lao Dan died, Qin Yi mourned him, uttered three cries, and came out. Why alone did he make no mention of his ascension to the Great Subtlety? Master Lie, although having praise for a single good word from the barrier-keeper Yin Xi, also once set it aside; and he was pleased that Master Kong answered that there was a Great Sage in the West, taking it as an ultimate word. Why alone did he make no mention of the conversion of the barbarians? If we briefly adduce these two examples, the many errors will be dissolved.
“Since what is said before and after completely contradicts their own history, it seems not to refer to Lao Dan. If so, is there outside of Lao Dan another Supreme Lord Lao who attained sagethood? Why fabricate falsehoods to slander the sages in this way? Furthermore, in this world there are also the most worthless people; yet how would even a woodcutter or a cowherd boy dare to casually deceive them? How much less a Great Sage! Master Kong said: ‘One who slanders the sages lacks the law.’ This is the way to great disorder!
“Moreover, a new stele of the Three Teachings has been erected in Xuchang, placing Laozi in the seat of honour with the Buddha and the Ru flanking him. This too is an extreme failure to examine antiquity! For the status of the Three Teachings has stood for over a thousand years from the Han until now, just like fingers set upon the palm: short and long, left and right, naturally have their fixed places. How could ordinary men and women alter them? Observing these followers who knit their brows in imitation and forget their roots, they are intent on destroying the Way of the Great Awakened One! Yet it is not that by slandering it they can destroy it; what is pitiable is that the Way of Boyang is swept down to the dust!
“Why is this? It is like wisteria clinging to a tall pine: its branches and leaves luxuriate and its shade covers acres. When woodcutters and cowherds pass by, they look up and sigh, saying: ‘How vast and lush! How luxuriant and flourishing is the wisteria!’ Speaking thus, they do not mention the great root of the pine and cypress. Before long, when the pine has no way to extend its branches and leaves, it withers; when it withers, the wisteria is cut off and falls to the ground, with nowhere to attach itself. Though its deep roots and firm base remain, if one wishes to view it again reaching up to the Milky Way, would that not be far-fetched?
“Alas! The Way of Boyang has come to just such a pass!
“Fortunately, we have encountered our Sovereign, heroic, inheriting the sagely throne, intelligent and wise, who governs heaven. The mirror of Xuanyuan penetrates the eight quarters; the sun of Shun illuminates the four seas. Discerning the finest hair so that nothing remains hidden, he oversees the great succession with impartiality. I humbly pray that he will rectify the canons, plans, instructions, and proclamations of the Three Teachings to preserve and harmonize the Great Peace, establishing a compass and plumb line for ten thousand generations—this is surely no small remedy.
“Rustic that I am, Fuyu, unable to bear looking up to heaven and gazing upon the Sage, with sincere trepidation and sincere fear, bowing my head again and again, respectfully submit these words.”
This was in the eighth month of the yimao year.
After the Emperor had examined it, fully discerning the rights and wrongs and thoroughly understanding good and bad, he issued an imperial decree, saying:
“Great Master Nama and the Elder of Shaolin have submitted a memorial, saying: ‘The Daoist masters have destroyed the scriptures and teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha and have produced false scriptures; they have destroyed holy statues of Śākyamuni Buddha and sculpted Lord Lao [in their place]; and they have sculpted Śākyamuni Buddha to sit below Lord Lao.’ When confronted together with Perfected Master Li and questioned, Perfected Master Li said, ‘I had no knowledge of this at all.’
“Now I commission the various judges headed by Büchür: those who produced the false scriptures and the printing blocks, whoever may have them, confront them with the evidence. If they have truly newly fabricated these lying scriptures, hand them over to Great Master Nama. As for those Daoist masters who produced the false scriptures, when confronted face to face with all the judges headed by Büchür and refuted, decide their guilt; whether light or heavy, Great Master Nama should determine it. Furthermore, regarding those who destroyed statues of Śākyamuni Buddha and Avalokiteśvara and resculpted them as Li the Lord Lao, order those Daoist masters to sculpt statues of Śākyamuni and Avalokiteśvara again as before.”