大宋僧史略 2.40

2.40

I have heard that monks, when equated to officials, correspond to the fifth rank. However, I have not seen this clearly recorded in administrative statutes or historical biographies; I merely trust what has been handed down. (I also once saw that the five ranks of monks are not official civil ranks.) When they recite the scriptures up to the required standard and take the examination and pass, this is the selection of monks. Shaving the head and donning the kāṣāya, this is shedding commoner's clothing. Receiving the unmanifest precept dharmas embodied in the form through imperial authorization, this is [attaining] official rank. Expounding the teachings of the Tripiṭaka, they serve as envoys of the Tathāgata. Converting and guiding both internal and external assemblies to turn away from evil toward good, they govern the people. Practicing the Way for the state to protect the people from disaster, they achieve the highest merit ratings. If one does not compare their grades and ranks or evaluate their functional posts, how could this be achieved? Should a gentleman of the Dharma gate in the future present an address to the sovereign, petitioning for a clear edict allowing comparison with such-and-such an office and such-and-such a rank, it would mark the beginning of a fine precedent in this age of the Semblance Dharma; accomplished by our own efforts, would it not be wonderful? As for verifying their native places and ancestral registries, this existed in the Southern Dynasties (see the Gaoseng zhuan). It was purely for the sake of searching out and promoting them that official registers were created; to bind them to administrative bureaus, there had to be proof. The source of this proof is precisely the ordination certificate from the Bureau of Sacrifices (Cibu die). According to the Xu huiyao: In the fifth month of the sixth year of Tianbao, an imperial decree ordered that monks and nuns should, as before, be taken charge of by the Commissioners of Merits of the Two Streets, and not be subordinate to the Bureau of Receptions. The monks and nuns they ordained were still to have certificates issued to them by the Bureau of Sacrifices. (Tang dynasty Bureau of Sacrifices certificates were all mounted on plain damask or brocade with gold-inlaid rollers; they were indeed imperial patents! If not official posts, what could they be called?) The granting of certificates began during the reign of Xuanzong. Coming to the Jianzhong era of Dezong, an imperial edict ordered that when monks and nuns throughout the realm died or returned to secular life, on that very day the three directors were required to submit the certificates to their local county; each month the prefecture would send them via the Court Tribute Envoys to report to the ministry, submitting them together with the imperial warrants and patents, which were noted and cancelled; in the capital city, the certificates were directly presented to the Bureau of Sacrifices and surrendered. (The letter of appointment was the precept certificate.)