傅奕之表 Fu Yi's Memorial Against the Dharma
表曰：西域之法，無君臣父子，以三塗六道，蒙誘愚蠢。追既往之罪，窺將來之福，口誦梵言，以圖偷免。且生死壽夭，本諸自然；刑德威福，係之人主。今聞俗徒矯託，皆云由佛。自五帝三王，未有佛法，君明臣忠，年祚長久。至漢明帝始立胡神，然惟西域桑門自傳其教。實乃夷犯中國，不足為信。表曰：西域之法，无君臣父子，以三涂六道，蒙诱愚蠢。追既往之罪，窥将来之福，口诵梵言，以图偷免。且生死寿夭，本诸自然；刑德威福，系之人主。今闻俗徒矫托，皆云由佛。自五帝三王，未有佛法，君明臣忠，年祚长久。至汉明帝始立胡神，然惟西域桑门自传其教。实乃夷犯中国，不足为信。
逐句解 Line by line
The memorial read: 'The doctrine of the Western Regions knows nothing of ruler and subject, of father and son. With its Three Paths and Six Ways it deludes and beguiles the foolish and ignorant.'
The memorial opens with the standard Confucian charge — that Buddhism dissolves the bonds holding society together, ruler to subject and father to son. 三塗, the Three Evil Paths (hell, hungry ghosts, beasts) and 六道, the Six Ways of rebirth, are the Buddhist map of where a soul may end up. 子 in 父子 is the noun zǐ, son. The lead-in 表曰, 'the memorial read,' heads the passage, and the document itself is set as a Reader's-edition text, as the imperial proclamation was in Chapter 11.
'It calls men to account for sins past and holds out the lure of blessings to come, so that with Sanskrit words chanted from the mouth they may scheme to steal exemption.'
梵言 is Sanskrit speech, the language of Buddhist recitation. 偷免, 'to steal exemption,' is the memorial's sharpest word: it makes remission of karma sound like tax fraud, a man mumbling a formula to get out of what he owes. 將 in 將來, the future, what is to come, is jiāng.
'Moreover, life and death, long life and early death, proceed from nature itself; while punishment and reward, awe and favor, rest with the sovereign of men.'
The heart of the argument, and it is a question of jurisdiction. How long a man lives is nature's business; punishment and reward, awe and favour (刑德威福) are the sovereign's. Between the two there is no vacancy for a church. 壽夭 is long life and early death.
'Yet now I hear that common devotees make false pretense, and all say these things proceed from the Buddha.'
矯託, to feign or make false pretext, is Fu Yi's word for crediting the Buddha with goods that nature and the throne in fact supply.
'From the Five Emperors and the Three Kings there was no Buddha-dharma; yet rulers were enlightened and ministers loyal, and their years and their fortune endured long.'
The appeal to high antiquity: the sage-kings governed well with no Buddha-dharma at all, so it cannot be necessary to good order. 長 in 長久 is cháng, long-enduring.
'It was only under Emperor Ming of Han that the barbarian god was first set up; and even then it was but the śramaṇas of the Western Regions who spread their own teaching.'
The historical claim, and broadly what tradition held: Buddhism is said to have entered China under Emperor Ming of the Later Han, in the first century. Both 胡神, the barbarian god, and 桑門 (sāng mén, from the Sanskrit śramaṇa, a Buddhist ascetic) are chosen to keep the faith sounding foreign.
'This is in truth an intrusion of the foreign upon the Middle Kingdom, and not worth crediting.'
The memorial closes on the oldest distinction available to it, 夷 against 夏, barbarian against Chinese. 為 in 不足為信 is wéi, in the construction 足為, 'sufficient to be held as'; 中 in 中國 is zhōng.
Fu Yi's memorial is a compact rehearsal of the classic Confucian case against Buddhism, and the novel gives it at full strength. Three arguments interlock: Buddhism voids the cardinal relationships of ruler and subject, father and son; its promise of karmic remission usurps powers over life, death and moral order that belong to nature and to the sovereign; and it is a foreign late-comer unknown to the sage-kings, an intrusion of the outside upon the Middle Kingdom.
The historical Fu Yi did memorialise in these very terms, and the storyteller's fidelity to the polemic is deliberate: by letting the opposition state its strongest case, the chapter earns the right to a decisive answer, and makes the coming imperial embrace of the Dharma the outcome of open debate. The memorial is set here as a Reader's-edition document rather than as rhapsody.