聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

辯偽錄

4 min read

Text ID
KR6r0149
Date
1286–1291
Dynasty
元

Biànwěi lù 辯偽錄

Records of Disputing the Spurious

written by 祥邁 (Xiángmài / Rúyì 如意, fl. late 13th c., 撰)

About the work

A 5-juan late-Yuán anti-Daoist polemical compilation, written by Xiángmài 祥邁 (字 Rúyì 如意) on imperial command. The work was undertaken in the wake of the great 1281 imperial proscription of the spurious Daoist scriptures by Yuán Shìzǔ Khubilai Qaghan 世祖 — the Mongol-Yuán ruler’s response to the protracted Buddhist-Daoist controversy of the early Yuán. Per the work’s own preface and the Shìjiàn jīgǔlüè xùjí j. 1, Yuán Zhìyuán 至元 18 / 10 / 20 = 1281-12-02, the emperor decreed the burning of all Daoist scriptures deemed spurious (with the Dàodé jīng exempted). In Zhìyuán 23 = 1286 Xiángmài was imperially commissioned to compile the documentary record. The work was completed by ca. 1291. Transmitted in Taishō 52 as T2116. The principal preface is by the Yuán Hànlín zhí xuéshì Fèngxùn dàfū Zhīzhìgào tóngxiū guóshǐ Zhāng Bóchún 翰林直學士奉訓大夫知制誥同修國史張伯淳.

Prefaces

Zhāng Bóchún’s preface frames the work in the canonical impartial-celestial mode: “Heaven is impartial in its covering, earth is impartial in its bearing-up, the sun and moon are impartial in their illumination — the Biànwěi lù follows this principle” — establishing the editorial pretence of impartiality that the polemical work nonetheless openly serves the Buddhist side.

Abstract

The work assembles the documentary record of the early-Yuán Buddhist-Daoist controversy, with a sustained polemical attack on the principal Daoist canonical claims:

  1. The huàhú jīng 化胡經 — long the central Daoist polemical claim against Buddhism (the assertion that Lǎozǐ went west and converted the barbarians, becoming the Buddha) — is systematically attacked here on textual-historical grounds.
  2. The “creation of jié time-units” 立劫運年號 — the Daoist appropriation of Buddhist-Sanskrit cosmological terminology (kalpa = jié 劫) and reuse of it in spurious Daoist scriptures.
  3. The doctrine of the sānjiè 三界 (“three realms” — appropriated from the Buddhist cosmology).
  4. The claim that Lǎozǐ was teacher to imperial dynasties — a Daoist political-genealogical claim systematically criticised here.
  5. The Língbǎo corpus’s “three caverns” 三洞 — argued to be late Daoist forgeries with no genuine antiquity.
  6. The “unifying breath” doctrine 合氣為道 — the Daoist sexual-alchemy practice, attacked on doctrinal-ethical grounds.
  7. Various other specific Daoist canonical claims — argued one by one to be spurious Daoist forgery.

The work is the principal documentary record of the early-Yuán Buddhist-Daoist conflict and the imperial proscription of 1281. Xiángmài served as a Buddhist disputant in the disputations with Daoist priests Qiū Chǔjī 丘處機 and Lǐ Zhìcháng 李志常 — the two principal Quánzhēn 全真 Daoist masters of the Yuán court. The work is therefore unique in being the documentary product of an active participant in the controversy.

Translations and research

  • Stephen Eskildsen, The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004) — uses Xiáng-mài’s testimony for early Quán-zhēn doctrine.
  • Vincent Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2007) — broader treatment of Yuán-Míng Daoism.
  • 野上俊靜, “元代道、佛二教の確執,” 大谷大學研究年報 2 (1943): 211–275 — the classic Japanese-language treatment of the early-Yuán Buddhist-Daoist controversy.
  • 吉岡義豊, “太上八十一化圖について,” Indian and Buddhist Studies 13 (1958): 254–257.
  • 胡小偉, “從《至元辨偽錄》到《西遊記》,” 河南大學學報（社會科學版） 44.1 (2004): 68–74.
  • 饒宗頤, “論元祥邁注《韓文公別傳》,” 人海燈 18 (1999): 2–5.

Other points of interest

The 1281 imperial proscription effectively terminated the Daoist huàhú jīng tradition in its institutional form — although the doctrine continued to circulate in popular religious materials. The Biànwěi lù is the principal documentary witness to the state-imperial deployment of Buddhist polemic to settle a Buddhist-Daoist controversy that had, in various forms, recurred for over a millennium. The polemic of the work is therefore particularly state-aligned and represents the late-imperial Buddhist establishment at its most institutionally-confident.

Graph View

Backlinks