Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 41
Continuing the Third Collection (三筆). A historically significant entry: Zhuhong's direct engagement with the writings of early Jesuit Catholic missionaries then circulating in late-Ming China, arguing from within traditional Buddhist cosmology that their "Lord of Heaven" corresponds only to a minor deity among countless higher and lower heavens the missionaries had no way of knowing about.
118. 天說（一）— On Heaven (Part One)
A historically significant entry: pressed by a respected elder to respond to the writings of newly arrived Jesuit Catholic missionaries, Zhuhong argues from within traditional Buddhist cosmology that their "Lord of Heaven" corresponds only to a comparatively minor deity presiding over one small portion of a cosmos vastly larger than they could have known.
一老宿言：「有異域人為天主之教者，子何不辯？」予以為教人敬天，善事也，奚辯焉？老宿曰：「彼欲以此移風易俗，而兼之毀佛謗法，賢士良友多信奉者故也。」因出其書示予，乃略辯其一二。彼雖崇事天主，而天之說實所未諳。按經以證，彼所稱天主者，忉利天王也；一四天下，三十三天之主也。此一四天下，從一數之而至於千，名小千世界，則有千天主矣。又從一小千數之而復至於千，名中千世界，則有百萬天主矣。又從一中千數之而復至於千，名大千世界，則有萬億天主矣。統此三千大千世界者，大梵天王是也。彼所稱最尊無上之天主，梵天視之，略似周天子視千八百諸侯也。彼所知者，萬億天主中之一耳，餘欲界諸天皆所未知也。又上而色界諸天，又上而無色界諸天，皆所未知也。又言天主者，無形、無色、無聲；則所謂天者，理而已矣，何以御臣民、施政令、行賞罰乎？彼雖聰慧，未讀佛經，何怪乎立言之舛也。現前信奉士友，皆正人君子，表表一時，眾所仰瞻以為向背者，予安得避逆耳之嫌，而不一罄其忠告乎？惟高明下擇芻蕘而電察焉。
A respected elder once said to me: "There are people from foreign lands here now teaching a religion of the Lord of Heaven — why do you not respond to them?" I thought to myself that teaching people to revere Heaven was surely a good thing in itself, and saw no need for any response. The elder continued: "They wish to use this teaching to transform popular customs, and along with it they denounce the Buddha and slander the Dharma — and a good many worthy scholars and friends have already come to embrace their teaching." He then produced their own written work and showed it to me, and so I offer here a brief response to one or two of its points.
Though they honor and serve a "Lord of Heaven," their actual account of Heaven itself is, in truth, something they have never properly examined. Verified against the sutras, what they call the Lord of Heaven corresponds to what Buddhist scripture calls the King of Trāyastriṃśa Heaven — the ruler of the thirty-three heavens above a single world illuminated by one sun and one moon. Counting a thousand such single worlds together forms what is called a "small thousand-world system," which would then contain a thousand such lords of heaven. Counting a thousand small thousand-world systems together forms a "medium thousand-world system," containing a million such lords of heaven. Counting a thousand medium thousand-world systems together forms a "great thousand-world system," containing ten thousand million such lords of heaven. Presiding over this entire three-thousand-great-thousand-world system is the Great Brahmā King himself. What they call their own supreme, unsurpassed Lord of Heaven, viewed from the perspective of Brahmā, would resemble roughly how the Zhou dynasty's own Son of Heaven might regard just one among his eighteen hundred feudal lords. What they actually know amounts to no more than a single deity among ten thousand million such deities — and they remain entirely unaware of all the other heavens within the desire realm itself, to say nothing of the form-realm heavens above that, or the formless-realm heavens above even those.
They further claim that their Lord of Heaven has no form, no color, no sound at all — but if this is so, then what they call "Heaven" is nothing more than an abstract principle. How, then, could such a being possibly govern subjects, issue decrees, or carry out reward and punishment? Clever though these foreigners may be, they have simply never studied the Buddhist sutras — small wonder, then, that their own claims contain such errors. And since the scholars and friends who currently follow this teaching are, by and large, genuinely upright and honorable people, respected figures of our own age whom many others look to for guidance, how could I avoid the discomfort of speaking words that grate on the ear, and fail to offer my honest counsel in full? I only hope that those of true discernment will weigh even the words of an ordinary, humble person like myself, and examine this matter with clear judgment of their own.
This entry documents Zhuhong's own direct engagement with early Jesuit Catholic missionary literature circulating in China during his lifetime — most likely writings associated with Matteo Ricci's mission, active in China from 1583 until his death in 1610, whose Chinese-language works explicitly criticized Buddhist doctrine as part of their own effort to win over the Confucian literati; Zhuhong's response here, addressing this new teaching from within the framework of traditional Buddhist cosmology's multi-tiered heavens (Trāyastriṃśa, the thousand-world systems, Brahmā, and the form and formless realms above), is historically significant as one of the earliest and most substantive Buddhist responses to Catholic missionary teaching in China, predating by decades the more famous anti-Christian polemics compiled later in the Ming and early Qing.