“吾之有大患者,为吾有身”新诠——中古佛道论辩语境中的“老君身体”

A New Understanding on "I Have Fears Because I Have a Body" : "Laojun’s Body" in the Debate Between Daoism and Buddhism in Mediaval Times

在中古佛道论辩的背景下,一些佛教徒针对《道德经》中“吾之有大患者,为吾有身”一语,对老君的神性进行质疑。佛教方面将这句话中的“吾”理解为“老君”的自指,实际是文本认知变迁过程中的一个“误解”,背后存在老子神化和佛经要素借鉴等原因。然而,中古佛教内部对这句话的认识实际并不统一,非常积极的评价也时常出现,评价态度的不同常常反映着不同宗派间的义学分歧。与此同时,中古道教徒则从多方面对这句话进行诠释,尝试解决其对老君神性的负面影响,并回应来自佛教的批评意见。

In the context of the debate between Daoism and Buddhism during the medieval period,some Buddhist questioned the paradox between Lord Lao’s godship and the proposition that“I have fears because I have a body”from Daodejing.This explanation on“I(self)”was actually a misunderstanding by reason of the change of the cognition about how this classic was created.The causes of this text cognition’transformation included Laozi’s deify,Daoism referring to Buddhist sutra’s features,and so on.However,there were different opinions and attitudes in medieval Buddhism,and we can also see some very positive evaluation about this sentence in many works written by Buddhist monks in that period.The evaluating differences in Buddhism may reflected the doctrine divergence between the different traditions and sects.Meanwhile,the Daoist also pushed out many interpretations on this sentence,and we can see their effort to solve this paradox and respond to the query from Buddhism.