法苑珠林 55.59

55.59

The One Beyond the World replied: “These too are unconsidered words! In reverently establishing spiritual statues and depicting venerable forms, the materials used are many, not only mud and tiles. Some are carved or cast from iron, wood, gold, or bronze; some are painted or embroidered on pigments and plain silk. Would you then say that the gentlemen and ladies of the Western Regions are born universally from these materials? Moreover, the shrines of the Central State take wood for the spirit tablets; would you say that the gentlemen who instituted the rites were all reared from wood? Parents cannot be forgotten, hence ancestral shrines are built for them; the Buddha cannot be forgotten, hence his physical images are erected to express the boundless heart and manifest reverence as if he were present. In admiring the sage and looking up to his virtue, what fault is there? If stūpas and shrines are images of mud and wood and ought not to be revered, then are the forms of the wooden tablets in the state shrines also not to be revered? Those who find fault with the good would also take evil to be merit.”