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. Taizong throws the paper down and the question open, rather than ruling on 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 as historical as his opponent: a devout Buddhist, chancellor more than once under the early Tang, and Fu Yi's real adversary in these debates. 相 in 宰相, chancellor, is xiàng; 興 in 興自屢朝, flourished through successive reigns, is xīng; 朝 in 屢朝 is cháo. 俯顖 (fǔ xìn), to bow the head, writes 顖 where the more usual character would stand — one of the 世德堂 text's orthographic habits.
'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 takes Fu Yi's charge of lawlessness and hands it straight back. 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.'
天子, the Son of Heaven, 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'; the rendering here follows 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, points at the legendary birth of the minister Yi Yin, said to have issued from a hollow mulberry tree with no ordinary parentage at all. Fu Yi's thrust is personal: you had a father and mother like anybody else, and you have taken up a teaching that throws them over.
Xiao Yu only pressed his palms together and said: 'Hell was established precisely for men such as this.'
Xiao Yu answers polemic with a gesture rather than an argument — 合掌, palms pressed together, the monk's salute — and one mild sentence that leaves nothing standing. 為 in 正為是人 is wèi, on account of, for the sake of.
The debate is staged as a real contest, and its two antagonists are the historical principals themselves — Fu Yi and the devout chancellor Xiao Yu, who did cross swords over Buddhism at the early Tang court. Xiao Yu meets Fu Yi on his own Confucian ground: the Dharma magnifies good and curbs evil, it aids the state unseen, and to deny a sage is itself a kind of lawlessness.
Fu Yi presses the sharpest thrust he has — that Buddhism is a fatherless teaching setting the individual against sovereign and kin — and drags in the legend of Yi Yin's parentless birth to shame a man who had ordinary parents. Xiao Yu then declines the terms of the quarrel altogether. He joins his palms and consigns his opponent to the very hell Fu Yi has just denied, and lets the gesture and the mildness carry the sting.