蕭瑀廷辨 Xiao Yu Answers Fu Yi
太宗聞言，遂將此表擲付群臣議之。時有宰相蕭瑀，出班俯顖奏曰：「佛法興自屢朝，弘善遏惡，冥助國家，理無廢棄。佛，聖人也。非聖者無法，請寘嚴刑。」傅奕與蕭瑀論辨，言：「禮本於事親事君，而佛背親出家，以匹夫抗天子，以繼禮悖所親。蕭瑀不生於空桑，乃遵無父之教，正所謂非孝者無親。」蕭瑀但合掌曰：「地獄之設，正為是人。」太宗闻言，遂将此表掷付群臣议之。时有宰相萧瑀，出班俯顖奏曰：「佛法兴自屡朝，弘善遏恶，冥助国家，理无废弃。佛，圣人也。非圣者无法，请寘严刑。」傅奕与萧瑀论辨，言：「礼本于事亲事君，而佛背亲出家，以匹夫抗天子，以继礼悖所亲。萧瑀不生于空桑，乃遵无父之教，正所谓非孝者无亲。」萧瑀但合掌曰：「地狱之设，正为是人。」
逐句解 Line by line
When Taizong heard it, he cast the memorial down before his assembled ministers for them to debate.
將 in 遂將此表 is the disposal jiāng. The emperor throws the question open rather than deciding it himself.
Then the Chancellor Xiao Yu stepped forth from the ranks, bowed his head, and submitted: 'The Buddha-dharma has flourished through successive dynasties; it magnifies good and curbs evil, and secretly aids the state — in reason it may not be cast away.'
蕭瑀 (Xiao Yu, 575–648) is likewise historical: a devout Buddhist and repeated chancellor under the early Tang, and Fu Yi's real-life opponent in these debates. 相 in 宰相 ('chancellor') is xiàng; 興 in 興自屢朝 ('flourished from successive reigns') is xīng; 朝 in 屢朝 is cháo. 俯顖 (fǔ xìn, 'to bow the head') writes 顖 — a 世德堂 orthographic variant — for the more usual graph.
'The Buddha is a sage. He who holds no sage to be lawful is himself lawless; I beg that severe punishment be laid upon such a man.'
Xiao Yu turns Fu Yi's charge of lawlessness back upon him. 寘 (zhì, a form of 置) is 'to impose, to set upon.'
Fu Yi disputed with Xiao Yu, saying: 'Ritual propriety is rooted in serving one's parents and one's ruler; but the Buddha turned his back on his kin and left his home, setting a common man against the Son of Heaven and, by his succession of rites, defying those to whom he owed duty.'
The Son of Heaven, 天子, reads 子 as zǐ. The phrase 以繼禮悖所親 is difficult and may be a 世德堂 variant for the received 以繼體悖所親 ('an heir who yet defies his own kin'); it is rendered here along the lines of the transmitted sense.
'Xiao Yu was not born from a hollow mulberry tree, yet he follows a fatherless teaching — this is precisely what is meant by the saying: he who denies filial duty has no kin.'
空桑 ('the hollow mulberry') alludes to the legendary birth of the minister Yi Yin, said to have issued from a hollow mulberry without ordinary parentage. Fu Yi's point: Xiao Yu had parents, yet embraces a doctrine that (in the Confucian charge) abandons them.
Xiao Yu only pressed his palms together and said: 'Hell was established precisely for men such as this.'
Xiao Yu answers polemic with a Buddhist gesture — the 合掌 (pressed palms) of a monk — and a mild, devastating retort. 為 in 正為是人 is wèi ('for the sake of, on account of').
The debate is staged as a genuine contest, and its two antagonists are the historical principals themselves — Fu Yi and the devout chancellor Xiao Yu, who really did cross swords over Buddhism at the early Tang court. Xiao Yu's defense meets Fu Yi on his own Confucian ground: the Dharma does good and restrains evil, aids the state unseen, and to deny a sage is itself a kind of lawlessness. Fu Yi presses the sharpest thrust — that Buddhism is a 'fatherless teaching' that sets the individual against sovereign and kin — and invokes the legend of Yi Yin's parentless birth to shame Xiao Yu, who had ordinary parents, for embracing it. Xiao Yu's reply refuses the terms of the quarrel entirely: he joins his palms and consigns his opponent to the very hell Fu Yi denies, letting the gesture and the mildness carry the sting.