该书(CUP 1987 初版)末章〈The second half of the T’ang (763–907)〉正作此论,且分项说得比脚注更细。书内第 148 页举实证:天台僧无恩因会昌之后注疏散佚,连「十妙」这样的本宗基本术语都只能自行推求;义寂(919–987)欲重辑智𫖮著作,遍求只得《维摩经》一疏。书内第 149 页总断:「Thus when the Hui-ch’ang and Huang Ch’ao disasters overtook the Buddhist world, the Ch’an and Pure Land movements proved far less vulnerable to the dismantlement of monasteries, confiscation of property, laicization of clergy, destruction of images, and loss of commentaries than did the doctrinal schools
核查全文
. Although the Hui-ch’ang suppression and the subsequent warfare… were responsible for bringing to an abrupt close an era of unparalleled creativity in Chinese Buddhist intellectual history, they paradoxically opened the way for the Ch’an and Pure Land schools… to establish themselves as the twin pillars of Chinese Buddhism」。其所举缘由亦与本章「三级依赖」相应:禅家谓「monasteries, images, and even scriptures were not necessarily essential for the religious life」,净土则「had the potential for surviving as a popular faith even though its clerical exponents were dispersed and its theoretical treatises were lost」。汤用彤《隋唐佛教史稿》序言总括先已核过,两说方向一致。 按:脚注自道「本章取其结论而重排其因果」——Weinstein 作「法难反而为禅净开路」,本章作「会昌没有挑选赢家,赢家在会昌之前就按依赖结构定了」,确是重排,注中已自陈,不算失据。