18 EMPEROR XIANZONG OF THE TANG RESPECTFULLY WELCOMES THE BUDDHA BONE

Days and months race by like shuttles on a loom;

The sword of time strikes at people’s faces and beheads them.

A cool breeze and a bright moon are around every morning,

Miasmic vapors envelop the body and must be endured day after day.

In the limitless sea of suffering it is difficult to reach a shore.

The boat of compassion can cross it—in vain you labor for other means.

Are you stronger and I weaker?—it does not matter,

None of us will avoid having his name marked in King Yama’s register.

When Xiangzi, the immortal youths, the dishes, and the landscape all vanished, the officials blamed each other, saying, “We didn’t recognize a divine immortal when he stood before us. What use are these eyes? Better to be a blind man who at least has some understanding in his mind.”

But Tuizhi said, “Don’t worry, my nephew is sure to come back.”

At that moment, Xiangzi appeared before him and called, “Uncle, here I am again.”

“Now that you have come back, you need to make up for your mistakes and make a fresh start by studying diligently, so as to give honor to your ancestors and lineage and procure appointments for your wife and protection for your children,” Tuizhi said. “Don’t say it’s enough that you’re good-looking—you’re not the only one with good looks in here. Quickly go change your clothes and come back.”

“I have returned to congratulate you on your birthday. As you disliked my dishes and would not eat them, how about a magical peach as a birthday present?” Xiangzi proposed.

“Magical or not, I don’t want to eat it,” Tuizhi said.

“While you are at it, bring some more magical peaches so that we all may have a taste,” Scholar Lin told Xiangzi. “That way you’ll earn yourself the goodwill of everyone present.”

“How could magical peaches be that easy to get ahold of?” Xiangzi said. “On the mountain where I live there is a magical peach tree in the northwest with fruit as large as bushels, all striped and dotted in scarlet. If a human being eats one, he becomes an immortal. In the southeast there is a magical peach tree with fruit the size of a pint. If a horse eats one, it becomes a dragon. In the southwest there is a magical peach tree with fruit the size of tea cups. If a dog eats them, it becomes an immortal crane. However, if you do not possess karmic affinity, you must not speak of eating them—you won’t even get to see their shadows.”

“If we have the affinity to meet you, then surely we also have the affinity to eat magical peaches,” Scholar Lin said. “It’s only because you’re stingy that you talk in this evasive manner.”

Xiangzi laughed and said, “I give in. Let me order the immortal youths to fetch some. Depending on how many there are, you may have to divide them up among yourselves.”

“As long as we get to eat them, who will argue about the amount?” Lin said.

Xiangzi then looked up to Heaven and called, “Cool Breeze, Bright Moon, quickly bring down some magical peaches.”

Right away two immortal youths descended from the sky, each carrying a tray of peaches which he handed to Xiangzi. Having received them, he held two peaches, prostrated himself, and congratulated Tuizhi, “I have no present with which to wish you and my aunt a long life. I wish that you may have a long life—as long as the life-span of a crane. Furthermore I wish that you will soon change your mind, resign your official positions, and follow me to cultivate yourself and discuss the Dao.”

He offered the remaining peaches to Scholar Lin and the other officials, saying, “I wish that you, my lord Lin, may withdraw from worldly affairs and resign from your office. The other officials shall take care of their careers and repay the nation with utmost loyalty.”

“My son, you have done what your heart desired by presenting me with the magical peaches,” Tuizhi said. “Now abandon fisher drum and clapper, change into cap and gown, and drink with my guests. Do not speak again of ‘leaving the family.’”

Xiangzi beat the fisher drum and sang,

“Uncle, why are you not anxious?”

“I wear silk brocade and dine on delicacies every day,” Tuizhi said. “I live in a finely painted and ornamented house and go about in high chariots drawn by noble steeds. What should I be anxious about?”

“I am afraid that disaster will come to you.

Once you have incurred your ruler’s ire, it is hard to stop.

You have worked single-mindedly for the nation,

Yet you end up making enemies for yourself.

I admonish you to turn back soon and seek a friend beyond this world.”

“You have been away for a long time,” Scholar Lin remarked. “Now that you have returned, you should offer a cup of wine to your uncle and show your proper feelings as a nephew for him, instead of speaking of things that annoy him.”

Xiangzi sang again,

“If you once cultivated yourself in a previous life,

You reap the rewards in this life,

Yet I fear that the bridles of fame and the chains of profit are difficult to shed.

Is it not better to be like Zhang Liang, who retired from his office

And went to roam with Master Red Pine?

When Emperor Gao of the Han dynasty wanted to harm him, he could not.”

Tuizhi said, “Your words are very irksome. Listen to what I have to say”:

(To the tune “Mistletoe”)

“Talk no more nonsense;

It is futile to admonish me to cultivate myself.

I occupy a high and honorable position in the Ministry of Rites;

I have a close relationship with my ruler that is praised by everyone;

My family has enjoyed a wide reputation in officialdom for many generations;

I enter the imperial presence every morning, holding my tablet of office.

In such a position, who will agree to laugh and give up success and fame,

And instead suffer hunger and cold to study immortality?”

Xiangzi said, “Uncle, though that may be so, I am afraid that once your relationship isn’t as harmonious any more, no one will save you if you make even just a little mistake.”

“Beast!” Tuizhi said. “Your words show that you understand nothing about the intricate ways of officialdom. You must be insane. How can there be insane immortals in the mountains of Penglai? You’d better leave rather than continuing to disturb everybody’s peace.”

“Uncle, I have admonished you time and again, but you won’t change your mind,” Xiangzi said. “On the contrary, you even get upset. I believe it must be that you blame me for having eaten your food and drunk your wine. I will spit out the wine and food and return it to you.” Thereupon he vomited into a bowl and said, “Here it is.”

Tuizhi held his nose and said, “Stop being so disgusting.”

As these events were unfolding, Luying was standing behind the screen with Mme. Dou. When she saw what Xiangzi had done, she thought, “Perhaps my husband is a true immortal, after all.” She hurried forward, took the bowl, and was about to eat its contents when Mme. Dou snatched it away, poured it on the ground, and said, “You should be ashamed of wanting to eat such filth.”

Suddenly a white cat belonging to the household ran in and ate it all up. Immediately it changed into a white phoenix and flew off into the sky. Indignantly Luying said, “Mother-in-law, look, the cat turned into a phoenix after eating the vomit. Clearly we have made a mistake and my husband really is an immortal.”

Mme. Dou was also startled. “Yes, we really made a mistake!” she said.

“Since ancient times innumerable people have been deceived by such tricks,” Tuizhi said. “You must not believe him, my wife.”

When Xiangzi saw that Tuizhi remained stubborn and would not listen, he pointed toward the sky and said, “Uncle, look, immortals are coming.”

When Tuizhi looked up, groups of immortal youths and maidens were lined up in mid-air, holding banners and canopies. Riding on auspicious clouds, they descended from Heaven. Xiangzi took his seat among the clouds and gradually ascended to Heaven, vanishing from sight. Tuizhi improvised a lyric:

“Crafty fellow, you deserve my anger,

As you came to mislead me with frivolous words.

Where in this world is there a road to eternal life?

Who can reach the Clear Capital?

Though they set up golden statues holding bowls in immortal hands to catch the morning dew,

The emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of the Han never realized their foolishness.

Their stories make people laugh to the present day!

Their stories make people laugh to the present day!”

Xiangzi flew on his cloud straight to the Zhongnan Mountains to visit his teachers Zhong and Lü. “Xiangzi, how is Tuizhi’s deliverance coming along?” the two masters asked.

Xiangzi bowed low. “Masters, I am ashamed to say that I have descended into the world of mortals and attempted to deliver and transform my uncle five or six times already. But he just won’t change his mind. What am I to do?”

“Which magical powers did you display to him?” the two masters asked. Xiangzi described one by one the many miraculous feats he had performed since he received the imperial decree and descended into the ordinary world—how he had prayed for snow at the Southern Altar, had an audience with Xianzong, and intruded into his uncle’s birthday banquet.

As soon as they had heard what Xiangzi had to say, the two masters ascended with him to the gate of Southern Heaven and reported to the Jade Emperor, “Our disciple Han Xiang received an imperial decree to descend into the mortal world to deliver the Attendant Great General Chonghezi. This Han Yu, however, is so firmly caught in his greed for fame that he cannot be awakened. We await Your Majesty’s new directions.”

When the Jade Emperor heard this report, he became very angry and sent out the ministers of the Celestial Office to check the records. They reported back that according to the records, Han Yu of Changli County in Yongping Prefecture had originally been the Attendant Great General of the palace. Because he drunkenly quarreled with Yunyangzi over an immortality peach and in the course of the altercation smashed a crystal cup, he had been banished to be reborn in the human world. At age sixty-one he would face many obstructions and difficulties and would only then resume his earlier position.

The Jade Emperor said to Xiangzi, “Han Yu’s term of banishment is not yet over. Descend again to deliver him, and don’t be late.”

“Xianzong prefers Buddhism to Daoism, while Han Yu prefers Daoism over Buddhism,” Xiangzi replied. “Lan Caihe and I will take the shape of two foreign monks, and I’ll transform my clapper into a bone of Shakyamuni Buddha. Together we will go to the imperial court and present the bone to Emperor Xianzong. Once my uncle Han Yu remonstrates with Xianzong, the emperor will become very angry and will exile him as a prefect to Chaozhou. On the road in the Qin Mountains, I will make his horse die and his servants scatter. Then I will deliver him.”

The Jade Emperor approved the proposal and sent Lan Caihe off to accompany Xiangzi.

When Xiangzi and Lan Caihe had left the Gate of Southern Heaven, they changed into foreign monks. This is how one of them looked:

Clothed in a cassock embroidered with Buddhist treasures, a Vairocana cap set at an angle on his head. From his ears hung glittering golden rings. In his hand he held a metal staff as he made his way into China. His breast concealed a marvelous divine light; his feet were shod with boots of extravagant cut. He seemed like an arhat descended into the world, truly like a living Buddha come among humans.

This is how the other looked:

Wearing a woolen embroidered cap fastened on the left with a pin; clothed in a thin robe made of Turkish wool. His long earlobes touched his shoulders; his black eyes were round and shone like silver. In his hand he carried a box wrapped in golden silk, and he kept reciting foreign sutras in a heavy accent. Although he was a divine immortal in disguise, he looked just like a lama on a road in a western land.

When the two monks arrived at the Jinting post house, the post commissioner welcomed them, bade them sit down, and asked, “Where do you come from? What tribute are you bringing?”

The two monks replied in a foreign language, which the commissioner did not understand at all. At his side an interpreter appeared, who translated the monks’ words. Only then did the commissioner understand that they were foreign monks come to present a bone of the Buddha to the emperor.

“It is already late,” he told them. “Please stay at the post house for the night and continue your journey tomorrow.” He hastened to order that a vegetarian meal be prepared for them free of charge.

Xiangzi and Caihe secretly planned their next move. Xiangzi said, “Seeing the way people are, we may not have much of an effect on them if we don’t manifest some of our divine powers. Let’s send a dream to Xianzong tonight. When he ascends his throne tomorrow morning and orders his officials to interpret the dream, we will abruptly enter his presence. This approach should be of benefit to our mission.”

“Excellent plan,” Caihe said. Xiangzi sent a dream spirit to the palace to give a dream to the emperor. Just around the first watch, Xianzong saw in his dream the rice from a granary all scattered over a field. Beside the field stood a deity in golden armor, holding a bow in his left hand and two arrows in his right. He shot the arrows at Xianzong and they hit the center of his golden crown.

Xianzong awoke with a start, his body covered in cold sweat. The next morning he summoned his officials and said, “We had a dream last night in which We saw the rice from a granary all scattered over a field. Beside the field stood a deity in golden armor, holding a bow in his left hand and two arrows in his right. He shot the arrows at Us and they hit the center of Our golden crown. Does this bode ill or well?”

Holding his tablet of office before his chest, Scholar Lin knelt before the throne and reported, “This dream is highly auspicious. It indicates the arrival of tribute and extraordinary persons from a foreign country.”

“Explain in detail so that We may understand it,” Xianzong said.

“Rice in a field combines into the character fan, meaning “foreign.” A man holding a bow and two arrows is the character fo (“Buddha”). Fan are foreigners; fo is a foreign treasure. Your dream means that today foreigners will present an extraordinary object.”

Just then, two foreign monks arrived in front of the Palace of the Five Phoenixes. They were carrying a large, gold-threaded casket, inlaid on top with a purple pearl. The casket contained a bone of Shakyamuni Buddha and was surrounded by rosy light and auspicious pneuma. In loud voices the monks called, “Emperor of the Great Tang, listen! The Buddha lived in the West and never came east. However, he took pity on all living beings of the Four Continents, who are afflicted by greed, murder, lust, heresy, lies, and deceit; who are neither loyal nor filial, neither benevolent nor righteous; who don’t honor the sun, moon, and stars, and don’t cherish the Five Grains, thus creating boundless sins and transgressions that will affect them throughout their existences.

“Therefore he sent the Bodhisattva Guanyin in the thirteenth year of the Zhenguan reign period of Emperor Taizong to instruct the Elder Gold Cicada, who ascended the Thunder Clap Monastery in Western Heaven to worship the Buddha and seek sutras, deliver the souls of the departed, and instruct those who are deaf and blind to the dharma.¹ However, those that can be enlightened by means of the sutras are few, while the number of those who benefit from the powers of the Buddha is inexhaustible. Now here is a finger bone left behind by the World-Honored One when he returned to Heaven. It weighs nine pounds and six ounces and was located at the Phoenix Soaring Monastery. It is said that it was displayed once every thirty years and that year was always one of bountiful harvests and peace. We have come especially to present it to Your Majesty so that all sentient beings under Heaven may honor the Tathagatha and widely cultivate good karma. May it protect the nation’s blessings for all eternity and secure the emperor’s plans.”

When the eunuchs heard the words of the foreign monks, they quickly memorialized the emperor. In addition, the commissioner of the Jinting post house submitted his report. Having heard this testimony, the emperor said, “That Daoist who prayed for snow said that an unusual person would come from the West who would preserve Our person and the blessings of the nation for countless years. Today his words are proven true.” Immediately he summoned the foreign monks for an audience.

Offering the Buddha bone, the foreign monks stood at the foot of the throne. When Xianzong saw the auspicious light and swirling pneuma, he was overjoyed. He stood up, descended from his throne, and accepted the Buddha bone. He placed it on the dragon and phoenix table and bowed before it. He ordered the Monastery of Shining Prosperity to prepare a vegetarian feast for the foreign monks. Every imaginable kind of delicacy was arranged, and though they were of the human world, they seemed to excel the immortal cuisine of Heaven.

When the two monks had eaten, they knocked their heads and took their leave from court. Xianzong wanted to reward them with ten ounces of gold, ten pairs of white jade ornaments, a thousand rolls of silk, and a bushel of bright pearls, but the two monks just waved their sleeves and walked out, their heads held high, not accepting any of it.

Xianzong respected them all the more for it and wanted to keep the Buddha bone in the palace. In the second month he promulgated a decree that the bone was to travel from monastery to monastery throughout the empire. Wherever it arrived, everyone should recite the Buddha’s name, and every household should feast the monks. Those who uttered slanders and were disrespectful were to be prosecuted for blasphemy. Everyone from the court officials and imperial relatives down to the common people hastened to give alms reverently, afraid only to do less than was expected of them. Some gave away all their possessions; others worshiped by burning incense on their heads and arms. There was none who did not bow to Heaven and praise the name of Buddha.

Only Minister of Rites Han Yu would not worship the Buddha. He held forth, “As a high minister, I am responsible by office for the reform of customs. Buddhism is the nirvana teaching of the West. The Buddha is a filthy thing of the West. Besides, what evidence is there that this is really the Buddha’s finger? That an enlightened age can be duped like this—how can I not feel anger in my heart?” Then he submitted the following memorial to Emperor Xianzong:

I humbly submit that Buddhism is but one of the religious systems obtaining among barbarian tribes, that only during the later Han dynasty did it filter into the Middle Kingdom, and that it never existed in the golden age of the past.

In remote times, the Yellow Emperor ruled for a hundred years and lived to the age of a hundred and ten; Shao Hao ruled for eighty years and lived to the age of a hundred; Zhuan Xu ruled for seventy-nine years and lived to the age of ninety-eight; Emperor Gu ruled for seventy years to the age of a hundred and five, Emperor Yao for ninety-eight years to the age of a hundred and eighteen; while both emperors Shun and Yu lived to be a hundred. During this time the empire was in a state of perfect equilibrium and the people lived to ripe old age in peace and prosperity; but as yet the Middle Kingdom did not know of Buddha. After this, Tang of Yin lived to be a hundred. His grandson Taimou ruled for seventy-five years, and Wuding for fifty-nine years, and though the histories do not tell us to what age they lived, it cannot in either case be reckoned at less than a hundred. In the Zhou dynasty, King Wen lived to be ninety-three, while King Mu was on the throne for a hundred years. As Buddhism had still not penetrated to the Middle Kingdom, this cannot be attributed to the worship of Buddha.

It was not until the reign of Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty that Buddhism first appeared. Emperor Ming’s reign lasted no longer than eighteen years, and after him disturbance followed upon disturbance, and reigns were all short. From the time of the Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, and Yuan-Wei dynasties onward, as the worship of Buddha slowly increased, dynasties became more short-lived. Only Emperor Wu of Liang reigned as long as forty-eight years. During his reign, he three times consecrated his life to Buddha, made no animal sacrifices in his ancestral temple, and ate but one meal a day of vegetables and fruit. Yet in the end he was driven out by the rebel Hou Jing and died of starvation in Taicheng, and his state was immediately destroyed. By worshipping Buddha he looked for prosperity but found only disaster, a sufficient proof that Buddha is not worthy of worship.

When Emperor Gaozu succeeded the fallen house of Sui, he determined to eradicate Buddhism. But the ministers of the time were lacking in foresight and ability; they had no real understanding of the way of the ancient kings, nor of the things that are right both for then and now. Thus, they were unable to assist the wise resolution of their ruler and save the country from this plague. To my constant regret, the attempt stopped short. But you, Your Majesty, are possessed of a skill in the arts of peace and war, of wisdom and courage the like of which has not been seen for several thousand years. When you first ascended to the throne, you prohibited recruitment of Buddhist monks and Taoist priests and the foundation of new temples and monasteries, and I firmly believed that the intention of Gaozu would be carried out by your hand, or if this were still impossible, that at least their religions would not be allowed to spread and flourish.

And now, Your Majesty, I hear that you have ordered all Buddhist monks to escort a bone of the Buddha from Fengxiang and that a pavilion be erected from which you will in person watch its entrance into the imperial palace. You have further ordered every Buddhist temple to receive this object with due homage. Stupid as I am, I feel convinced that it is not out of regard for Buddha that you, Your Majesty, are praying for blessings by doing him this honor, but that you are organizing this curious spectacle for the benefit of the people of the capital and for their gratification in this year of plenty and happiness. For a mind so enlightened as Your Majesty’s could never believe such nonsense.

The minds of the common people, however, are as easy to becloud as they are difficult to enlighten. If they see Your Majesty acting in this way, they will think that you are wholeheartedly worshipping the Buddha, and will say: “His Majesty is a great sage, and even he worships the Buddha with all his heart. Who are we that we should any of us grudge our lives in the Buddha’s service?” They will cauterize the crowns of their heads, burn off their fingers, and in bands of tens and hundreds cast off their clothing and scatter their money, and from daylight to darkness follow one another in the cold fear of being too late. Young and old in one mad rush will forsake their trades and callings and, unless you issue some prohibition, will flock round the temples, hacking their arms and mutilating their bodies to do him homage. And the laughter that such unseemly and degenerate behavior will everywhere provoke will be no light matter.

The Buddha was born a barbarian; he was unacquainted with the language of the Middle Kingdom, and his dress was of a different cut. His tongue did not speak nor was his body clothed in the manner prescribed by the kings of old; he knew nothing of the duty of minister to prince or the relationship of son to father. Were he still alive today, were he to come to court at the bidding of his country, Your Majesty would give him no greater reception than an interview in the Strangers’ Hall, a ceremonial banquet, and the gift of a suit of clothes, after which you would have sent him under guard to the frontier to prevent him from misleading your people. There is then all the less reason now that he has been dead so long for allowing his decayed and rotten bone, this filthy and disgusting relic, to enter the Forbidden Palace. ‘I stand in awe of supernatural beings,’ said Confucius, ‘but keep them at a distance.’ And the feudal lords of olden times when making a visit of condolence even within their own state would still not approach without sending a shaman to precede them and drive away all evil influences with a branch of peach wood.

But now and for no given reason Your Majesty proposes to view in person the reception of this decayed and disgusting object without sending ahead the shaman with his peach-wood wand, and to my shame and indignation none of your ministers says that this is wrong, none of your censors has exposed the error.

I beg that this bone be handed over to the authorities to throw into water or fire, that Buddhism be destroyed root and branch forever, that the doubts of your people be settled once and for all and their descendants saved from heresy. For if you make it known to your people that the actions of the true sage surpass ten thousand times ten thousand those of ordinary men, with what wondering joy will you be acclaimed! And if the Buddha should indeed possess the power to bring down evil, let all the bane and punishment fall upon my head, and as Heaven is my witness I shall not complain.

In the fullness of my emotion, I humbly present this memorial for your attention.

Ever since the age of the Warring States, Daoists and Confucians contended for dominance and disputed each other. By the end of the Han, Buddhism was added, but its followers were still few. Since the Jin and Song dynasties, it has flourished more every day, and from emperors and kings down to the officials and commoners, there is none who does not honor and believe in it. Those below do so out of fear of punishment and desire for blessings, while those above like to debate about emptiness and being. Only I, Han Yu, abhor how Buddhism robs the wealth of the nation and confuses its people. Therefore I forcefully reject it.²

When Han Yu had submitted the memorial, Xianzong became greatly enraged and said, “This menial Han Yu insults the court and slanders the worthies and sages. How disgusting! The commander of the Imperial Bodyguard shall bind him and lead him to the Yunyang execution grounds, where he is to be publicly beheaded. If anyone remonstrates, he shall go with Yu.”

Twenty to thirty executioners appeared who ripped off Tuizhi’s court robes and led him in chains to the execution grounds. When Tuizhi saw the many flags fluttering, the sun gleaming on the swords and spears, and the place filled with a hundred people or more, he became very frightened. He looked up and called, “Heaven! I, Han Yu, have served my country with a loyal heart. What would be the hardship if I alone were to die? However, my nephew Xiangzi has not yet returned home, and so my death could not but be unfilial.”

As they arrived at the execution grounds, suddenly a man stepped forward to speak up on his behalf.

If you do not know whether Tuizhi survived or not, listen to the explanations in the next chapter. Truly,

When King Yama has set death for the third watch,

On no account will he let a person live on until the fifth.

Green Dragon and White Tiger walk together;

Good and ill fortune are never guaranteed.