Pòxié lùn 破邪論
Treatise on Destroying Heresy
written by 法琳 (Fǎlín, 572–640, 撰)
About the work
A 2-juan early-Tang Buddhist polemical treatise, the first of 法琳 Fǎlín’s two great anti-Daoist polemics. Composed at Jǐfǎsì 濟法寺 in Cháng’ān; the conventional dating is Wǔdé 武德 5 = 622, two years after the Tang founder Lǐ Yuān 李淵 had issued his decree privileging Daoism (and hence Lǎozǐ, claimed as imperial ancestor) over Buddhism. The work was written in direct response to that imperial preference. Transmitted in Taishō 52 as T2109. The principal preface is by Yú mìshū 虞祕書 (= the early-Tang scholar Yú Shìjī 虞世基’s brother Yú Shìnán 虞世南’s circle, traditional attribution).
Prefaces
The preface frames the work in the canonical apologetic mode: “The wonders of the spirit are not measurable by calculation; the perfectly-coagulated principle is not delimitable by [the cord and the carpenter’s square]. The Way is invisible and the principle is silent — Lǎo and Zhuāng can speak of it; the xiàng and the yǎn are firm and resilient — Confucius can grasp them …” — using the canonical Confucian-Daoist comparative-rhetorical framework to introduce the Buddhist position.
Abstract
The work directly attacks the LǐTáng imperial preference for Daoism by attacking Daoism’s central canonical claims:
- The huàhú jīng 化胡經 (the Daoist polemic that Lǎozǐ went west and converted the barbarians, becoming the Buddha) — Fǎlín systematically demolishes this claim through chronological argument: the Buddha Śākyamuni’s lifedates pre-date Lǎozǐ’s, making the huàhú claim chronologically incoherent.
- Daoist talisman-and-ritual practice — Fǎlín argues that the Daoist ritual apparatus is doctrinally arbitrary and historically late.
- The state-religious priority of Buddhism over Daoism — Fǎlín argues that the Buddhist tradition has older imperial endorsement (the Hàn Mǐngdì introduction) and stronger doctrinal-philosophical defensibility than the recently-systematised Daoist tradition.
The text is structured in two juan, with the first juan setting out the main argument and the second juan presenting concrete documentary evidence (citations from the standard histories, Buddhist scriptures, and Daoist materials in their Buddhist-friendly portions).
The work was politically perilous. Fǎlín’s defence of Buddhism against the imperial Daoist preference would in the next generation (under Tàizōng 太宗, who was even more committed to the Lǎozǐ ancestral claim) lead to his trial and exile (639) and his death the following year. The Pòxié lùn and its companion KR6r0143 Biànzhèng lùn are therefore the principal documentary witnesses to the high cost of Buddhist apologetics under the early LǐTáng.
Translations and research
- Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) — the principal English-language treatment, with extended discussion of Fǎ-lín’s apologetic project.
- Tang Yongtong 湯用彤, Suí-Táng Fó-jiào shǐ gǎo — the classic Chinese-language survey.
- Thomas Jülch, Apologetik und Polemik im Buddhismus Chinas (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014) — modern German-language treatment.
- Charles D. Orzech and others on early-Tang Buddhist-Daoist relations.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal documents of the Tang-period Daoist-Buddhist competition for imperial sanction — a competition that the Buddhists ultimately won institutionally (Buddhist establishments would dominate the Tang religious landscape) but at considerable cost to individual apologists like Fǎlín. The preservation of his works in the Buddhist canon is itself a documentary memorial to a courageous Buddhist resistance to imperial religious policy.
Links
- CBETA: T52n2109