Buddhism, introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, began to be widely accepted by the common people and scholars at that time during the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. During this period, former Qin began to build the Mogao Grottoes, the Northern Wei Dynasty excavated the Yungang Grottoes and longmen Grottoes, and emperor Wu of Liang sacrificed himself to the Tongtai Temple four times. Against this background, Fan Zhen of the Southern Dynasty openly put forward different views, sharply criticizing the Buddhist idea of reincarnation and karma, and wrote the famous "Theory of Divine Annihilation" that has been passed down to this day, and is even praised as "the first person to promote atheism in ancient China". So who is Fan Zhen? Does he really preach atheism? In what context was "Annihilation" created?
Northern Wei Dynasty Imperial Family Ritual Buddha (Image taken from Wikipedia")
Fan Zhen (范缜), courtesy name Zizhen, was a native of Wuyin, Nanxiang (present-day Biyang County, Henan), who was born in the Shunyang Fan clan and was the sixth grandson of Fan Wang, the general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and in that era when the shi clan gate valve monopolized the official field, this origin paved the way for his future career. Although he was born into a famous family, due to the early death of his father, the young Fan Zhen's family was not superior. When he was young, Fan Zhen studied under the famous Confucian Liu Yong (pronounced Tonghuan), who admired Fan Zhen's talent and personally crowned him. Most of the students under Liu Yong's door went out on a horseback ride, and although Fan Zhen was dressed in coarse cloth and walked every time he went out, he still "talked shamelessly". Although Fan Zhen, who was talented and learned from the famous Confucians, was very knowledgeable, he was not liked by the scholars around him because of his upright personality and his penchant for alarmism. Despite this, his career is still a smooth one.
At the time of Southern Qi, Fan Zhenguan went to Shang Shu Dian Zhonglang. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Southern Qi (during the reign of Emperor Wu of Qi in the Southern Dynasty, from 483 AD to 493 AD), Emperor Wu of Qi actively improved people's livelihood and implemented a policy of enriching the country at home; external efforts to ease relations with Northern Wei, in an effort to maintain peace. During this period, Emperor Wu of Qi sent some well-educated people from the country to northern Wei to ease relations between the north and the south, and Fan Zhen was also among them. During this mission, his talent and learning also attracted the respect and admiration of the Northern Wei dynasty and the public.
Southern Qi and Northern Wei (image taken from Wikipedia's "Southern and Northern Dynasties" entry)
During this period, Fan Zhen was also recruited as an aide by Emperor Qiwu's second son Xiao Ziliang (萧子良) the Prince of Jinling. King Jingling was known for his extensive knowledge among the princes, and at that time he was greatly appreciated by Emperor Qiwu and was appointed as a Situ. He was surrounded by many literati and scholars, among whom the "Eight Friends of Jingling" were the most famous, namely Fan Yun, Xiao Chen, Ren Fang, Wang Rong, Xiao Yan, Xie Shuo, Shen Yue, and Lu Qian, of whom Fan Yun was Fan Zhen's cousin, Xiao Yan was the later Emperor Wu of Liang, and Xie Shuo was the "Xiao Xie" in Li Bai's poem "Penglai Article Jian'an Bone, Middle Xiao Xie and Qingfa" ("Xuanzhou Xie Shu Lou BeiBei School Shu Yun"), these people can be described as the literary leaders who were famous at that time.
Portrait of Xiao Ziliang, King of Jinling (Image from Baidu Encyclopedia "Xiao Ziliang" entry)
Once, King Jinling invited guests and friends, and Fan Zhen was also among them. During the banquet, King Jinling talked about the Dharma with a pious face, but Fan Zhen suddenly stood up and openly said that he did not believe in Buddhism, which was really merciless. King Lingling then asked him, "You don't believe in karma, so how do you explain that some people in the world are born rich and some are born poor?" Fan Zhen replied, "A person's birth is like a tree's flower, which opens and withers at the same time, and some flowers fly over the curtain and fall on the indoor mat, just like His Highness; some flowers touch the courtyard wall and fall in the dung pit, just like the lower official." Although the difference between the noble and the lowly is huge, where is the cause and effect? King Lingling was speechless for a moment, although he was unhappy in his heart, but there was no way to refute it.
Zi Liang asked, "If you don't believe in cause and effect, why should there be wealth in the world, and why should there be poverty?" "The birth of a man is like a tree and a flower, with the same hair and one branch, all opening up and falling with the wind, and the curtain of its own falling on the mat, and the fence wall falling on the side of the dung." His Highness is also the one who falls on the throne; the one who falls into the dung is also the lower official. Although the nobles and the lowly are on the other side, where is the cause and effect? "
History of the South, vol. 57
After that, Fan Zhen further deepened his theory and wrote the famous "Theory of Divine Annihilation". When King Ling heard about it, he summoned a group of senior monks to debate with Fan Zhen, but he still couldn't defeat him. One of them, Wang Yan, wrote an article mocking Fan Zhen, in which he wrote, "Poor Mr. Fan! He didn't even know where the gods of his ancestors were. He thought that he could block Fan Zhen's mouth in this way, but he did not expect that Fan Zhen would retort with a witty retort: "Poor Mr. Wang! You know where the gods of your ancestors are, but you can't commit suicide to follow your ancestors. "
Wang Yan of Taiyuan wrote a mocking treatise: "Woo-ho fanzi! He did not know where his ancestral deities were. "I want to be right after du chi." He said, "Woo-oh prince! Know where their ancestral deities are, but cannot kill them to follow them. "Its dangers are all like this.
Seeing that the debate could not refute Fan Zhen, King Ling quietly asked Wang Rong to tell Fan Zhen privately, "The theory of annihilation is groundless, and if you insist on such heretical ideas, I am afraid that you will be intolerable by orthodox thought." As long as you give up such heretical ideas and use your talents to learn, you can at least become a Zhongshulang. Fan Zhen laughed and replied, "If I am really willing to sell my thoughts in order to become an official, then I have already become a senior official at the level of Zhongshu Ling, how can I look up to the little Zhongshu Lang?" "
During the reign of Emperor Jianwu of Qiming (494-498 AD), Fan Jian served as the Taishou of Yidu. There are Wuxiang Temple, Tang and Han Temples, and Huli Temples in Yidu, and Fan Zhen, who has never believed in ghosts and gods, saw this situation and ordered the sacrifice activities of these three temples to be cut off.
Later, Fan Zhen left his job because his mother died and needed to go home to serve the funeral. At this time, due to the tyranny of the last emperor of Southern Qi, The Marquis of Dongxiao, Xiao Yan, the assassin of Yongzhou, took the opportunity to raise an army to revolt. When the rebels passed through Fan Zhen's hometown, Fan Zhen, who was still serving mourning, came to greet him in mourning clothes. It turned out that Xiao Yan and Fan Zhen had both been aide to King Jingling and were old friends, and the two of them were very happy to see each other this time. In 502, Xiao Yan successfully overthrew Southern Qi, established the Liang Dynasty, and proclaimed himself emperor, who was the liangwu emperor who was famous for his reverence for Buddhism. Soon after the establishment of the new dynasty, Fan Zhen, who had the merit of "self-greeting the king's master", was appointed as the Taishou of Jin'an, and in the fourth year of tianjian (505 AD), he was promoted to Zhongshu Zuocheng. When Fan Ji left jin'an taishou and prepared to enter the capital, he gave all his money to Wang Liang, the former Zhongshu Ling. Originally, Fan Zhen and Wang Liang had served as Shang Shu Lang at Shang Shutai together, and their relationship was very good, but Wang Liang was demoted to a Shuren because he had offended Emperor Wu of Liang. Shortly after taking office as Zhongshu Zuocheng, Fan Zhen of Gengzhi interceded for his friend Wang Liang in front of hundreds of officials of the imperial court, which angered Emperor Wu of Liang and was exiled to Guangzhou.
Portrait of Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu (image taken from wikipedia for "Emperor Wu of Liang" entry)
In the sixth year of Tianjian (507 AD), Fan Zhen was recalled to the capital to serve as Zhongshu Lang and Guozi Doctor. During this period, he continued to preach his own views of annihilation. Emperor Wu of Liang had been actively promoting Buddhism since he ascended the throne, and in the third year of tianjian (504 AD), he issued an edict to list Buddhism as the state religion. Fan Zhen's view of the theory of theosophy openly refuted Buddhist thought, and for a while there was a clamor in the government and the opposition, in response to which Emperor Wu of Liangwu issued an edict entitled "The Theory of Divine Annihilation under the < of the Emperor>", which summoned more than sixty people, including buddhist monks, important officials of the imperial court, and relatives of the emperor and the state, to issue articles refuting the "Theory of Divine Annihilation".
Emperor Wu of Liang wrote in his edict:
"The doctrine of the present should be physical. If you want to talk about no Buddha, you should set up a guest and a host. ...... If it is said that it is not what it is, if it is not seen, if it is not seen, if it is contrary to the scriptures, it can be sincere. The theory of the destruction of God is unknown. "
"The > of the Theory of The Annihilation of God < The Emperor"
Emperor Wu of Liang did not want to make a posture of relying on authoritarianism to suppress dissidents, and this edict was also implicitly persuading Fan Zhen to abandon the viewpoint of the theory of divine annihilation ("violating the scriptures and betraying relatives, and being sincere in his words"), but the upright Fan Zhen regarded this article as a challenge issued by the emperor, and he listened carefully to the emperor's "opinion" - "If you want to talk about no Buddha, you should set up a guest and a host", and changed his "Theory of Divine Annihilation" into a more suitable form for the form of the main guest question and answer of the controversy, a total of thirty-one articles, which also formed the "Theory of Divine Annihilation" that we see today.
In the Theory of The Annihilation of God, Fan Believe believes that the essence of "God" (which can be simply understood as the spirit or soul of man) and "form" (which can be simply understood as the form of man) is one thing, and "God" must rely on "form" to exist, and "form" disappears "God" naturally disappears.
"God is the form, and the form is the god; if the form exists, the god exists, and the form is destroyed."
Book of Liang, vol. 48
Fan Zhen further used the relationship between blade and sharpness as a metaphor to show that "God" could not exist without "form". Fan Zhen believes that the relationship between the human spirit and the body is like the relationship between the sharp and the blade, the spirit is only the attribute of the human body, so there is no soul that can exist without the human body, and the Buddhist theory of reincarnation is even more impossible to establish.
"God is to the quality, Judas is to the sword; form is to use, Judas is to the sword; the name of the sword is not the sword, and the name of the sword is not the sword." However, there is no knife in the relic, and there is no profit in the knife. If you have not heard of the sword and have survived, will you allow the form to die and God to be there? "
In the face of Fan Zhen's behavior, which seemed to be a bit "provocative", more than sixty princes and magnates who received the edict at that time published more than seventy articles refuting the "Theory of Divine Annihilation", but they also failed to make Fan Zhen abandon his views. In the end, Cao Siwen, a member of the Zhongshu She, only returned to Emperor Liangwu on the grounds that "my knowledge is shallow, and I am not able to say that Fan Zhen" ("Siwen's love is stupid and shallow, and I can't break its sharp edge" "Hongming Collection" volume IX "The Theory of the Destruction of the Gods in The Book of Difficult Fan Zhongshu"), and Emperor Liangwu had no choice but to order the controversy to be stopped.
Perhaps motivated by the propagation of materialist ideas, Fan was portrayed as a materialist philosopher and atheist warrior, and the annihilation controversy was interpreted as a counterattack of progressive ideas by feudal reactionary forces. However, if we abandon the preconceived positions and ideologies, this controversy actually has a more reasonable interpretation.
First of all, is Fan Really a materialist and an atheist?
From the viewpoint of "The Theory of Divine Annihilation", we can clearly see that Fan Zhen attributed man's spiritual consciousness to all the attributes of the human body itself, and "God" must exist depending on the existence of "form". From this point of view, when analyzing the relationship between "God" and "form", Fan Zhen regards the "form" that can be regarded as the material "form" that can be regarded as the source of the "God" that can be regarded as consciousness, although "form" and "God" are not completely equivalent to the matter and consciousness in modern philosophical thought, but Fan Zhen's thought does already have the fundamental characteristics of materialism. In addition, Fan Zhen extended this view, proposing that the temple sacrifice advocated by Confucianism is not a sacrifice to ghosts and gods, and the sage "Shinto religion" is only to "cultivate the heart of filial piety, and to steal the meaning of thinness", so as to educate the people, not really believe in the existence of ghosts and gods. It can be seen from this that he not only denied the Buddhist idea of karma and reincarnation, but even the Confucian concept of ghosts and gods.
"If they are all saints, they have no religion. The place of teaching is really a head. The love of the head of the Qian, often noble birth and death. When there is a spirit in death, there is a long fear. Death and ignorance mean slow and easy. The saints knew that this was the case, so the temple altar port was dedicated to his sincerity, and he wantonly gave a few feasts to complete his innocence, honored his ancestors with the respect of the poor suburbs, and honored the strict father with the enjoyment of the Heavenly Ming Hall. "
The Hongming Collection, Vol. IX
There is a lot of controversy about whether Fan Zhen is an atheist, mainly because there is a difference between "there are people, there are ghosts, and there are ghosts." This sentence, but immediately following this sentence there is another sentence : "When a man is destroyed, he becomes a ghost, and when a ghost is destroyed, he is not known." Fan Zhen really did not oppose the existence of goblins and ghosts, and was therefore considered not to be an atheist, which was too narrow to see an atheist point of view. The "ghost" referred to in Fan Zhenwen is neither worthy of enjoying human sacrifice nor reincarnated as a human being, but only has a "mysterious difference" with man, just as the beast has a "difference between flying away", not a supernatural existence, failing to refute the existence of ghosts and monsters does not affect its atheistic position, but only reflects that the people of that era did not have enough understanding of the natural world.
Secondly, regarding this controversy, it is not Fan Zhen's victory over Buddhism, and today's scholars believe more that "Fan Zhen's opponents cannot refute Fan Zhen, but Fan Zhen cannot refute his opponents." This is a debate, not a real scientific study. After all, many of the people who participated in the controversy at that time did not have high Buddhist attainments, and the two sides had huge differences in their understandings of ideas such as "god", "form", cause and effect, and reincarnation, and the two sides did not "produce a substantive confrontation." Fan Zhen did not deeply understand the theory of Buddhism, and most of the people who debated with him did not understand it deeply, and it was precisely because of this that Fan Zhen could not persuade those who believed in Buddhism sincerely, let alone stop the continued spread of Buddhism.
In this controversy, what should most amaze our descendants is that when the emperor of the Ninth Five-Year Emperor was confronted with Fan Zhen, who held "heretical ideas", he adopted the method of convening monks and laymen to write articles and debates, rather than insulting and insulting, and did not use his power to persecute or even kill. The tolerant attitude toward "heretical thought" shown by this way of coping also prompted the ideas of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism to begin to learn from each other in that era, and jointly contributed to the ideological prosperity of that era.
As for the other central figure of this controversy, Xiao Yan, the Emperor of Liangwu, although he has a slight negative color in this article, he himself is not a stupid and superstitious person. Although he was regarded by later generations as a latecomer because he indirectly caused the Hou Jing Rebellion, he was quite accomplished in literature, scripture, historiography, and Buddhism, and the "theory of the homology of the three religions" he put forward—that is, the belief that the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism had the same source, and could all indoctrinate people's hearts toward goodness—to a certain extent, it also became an abuse of the confluence of the three religions in later generations.
Confucius handed Shakyamuni to Lao Tzu, which embodies the idea of the confluence of the three religions (image taken from the Wikipedia entry "Three Teachings")
Buddhism itself, which was severely criticized by Fan Zhen, was not a scum to be overthrown in that era, preaching good and evil with retribution, and exhorting and killing Buddhism not only gave the low-level commoners the psychological comfort of doing good in this life and getting rid of the sea of suffering in the next life, but also gave the upper-class rulers a new ideological tool to educate the people's hearts.
At a time when the controversy was deadlocked, Emperor Wu of Liang stopped the debate, and it seemed that Fan Zhen had won the debate, but the development of Buddhism in China was not affected in any way, and even ushered in its heyday during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Fan Zhen himself was not persecuted, and continued to serve as Zhongshu Lang and Dr. Kuniko until his death. The abrupt end of this controversy may be that Emperor Wu of Liang himself was worried that the continuation of the controversy would endanger political stability, or perhaps Emperor Wu of Liang did not care that Fan Zhen's own views were contrary to his own, and the controversy was only a whim. But in any case, Fan Zhen is not afraid of authority, dares to question, and adheres to the truth of the scholarly style is always worthy of admiration by future generations.