三教平心論 1.23

1.23

Subsequently, there was Han Yu, whose views were just like Fu Yi's. His 'Inquiry into the Dao' and 'Memorial on the Bone of the Buddha' were mere commentaries on Yi. When Yi slandered the Buddha earlier, there was immediately Fazhi to resolve his confusion; when Yu slandered the Buddha later, why was there no one to dispute his errors? It was because Yi was Director of the Astrological Bureau, merely a man of techniques; Yu was renowned for his literary compositions, a Confucian scholar. As for the words of a man of techniques, people certainly were willing to dispute their correctness; but regarding the treatises of a Confucian scholar, the secular world usually dared not express approval or disapproval. I say: If a statement accords with principle, even if it does not come from a Confucian, it can be followed; if a statement involves slander, even if it indeed comes from a Confucian, it can be disputed. When Yu failed to understand the principle of the one thread running through our Way, how could one fail to clarify and dispute it, allowing his words to mislead later generations? Yu's words say: 'The Buddha is a teaching of the barbarians.' He merely saw that the Buddha-Dharma came from the Western Regions, and thereupon treated it as barbarian. He did not know that the Buddha was born in Tianzhu, and the five Tianzhus are the exact center of southern Jambudvīpa; thus the Buddhists certainly take it as the center. The Book of the Later Han says: 'The divine transformations of the Buddha-Dao arose in Shendu. That country is flourishing and opulent, blessed with harmonious air of the jade candle.' Thus the Confucians also take it as the center. From this we know that this [realm] is indeed a central realm, and conversely that [realm] is also a central realm; can one call it barbarian? The greatness of heaven and earth is inexhaustible and without end. Liezi says: 'Beyond the limitless there is again the limitless; beyond the inexhaustible there is again the inexhaustible.' This recognizes that it is limitless and inexhaustible, but does not know that it has limits and ends. King Aśoka enshrined the relics of the Tathāgata in eighty-four thousand locations throughout Jambudvīpa, yet in present-day China there are only nineteen locations. Is not China within Jambudvīpa like a single grain of millet in a great granary? How can one know that this is truly the center while that is truly not the center? Yu's view only recognized what was within the four seas and the nine provinces as the Central Realm, and what was outside the four seas and the nine provinces as the four barbarian lands; beyond this, there was nowhere else. How could he know that beyond the four barbarian lands there are again regions that are not barbarian? Yu's view was the view of one sitting at the bottom of a well looking at the sky. Otherwise, the country of Da Qin recorded in the History of the Northern Dynasties was tens of thousands of li away from Youzhou, lying outside the various barbarian lands; its caps and robes, rites and music, systems and literary culture were equally flourishing as those of China, and therefore it was called Da Qin and ranked on equal terms with the Great Han. Viewed from this perspective, there certainly is a central realm outside the four barbarian lands, and that the Book of the Han takes Shendu as a central realm is truly no falsehood. A frog in a well cannot be spoken to about the sea; it was truly beyond what Yu could know.