「一葦渡江」與「喫肉邊菜」 -- 兩個著名禪宗故事的歷史探究="Using a Stalk of Reed as a Boat to Sail Across the Yangzi River" and "Eating Only Vegetable that Cooked with Meat": A Historical Survey onTwo Well-Known Stories of Chan Buddhism
一葦可航; 慧能大師披剃前的行獵生涯; 蔬食與喫三淨肉; 求法沙門與旅行商人; "The Yangzi River could be Sailing across by evenAboarding on a Stalk of Reed"; Master Huineng's Career as a Hunter before Enfrocked; Vegetarianism and the Eating of the Three Kinds of Clean Flesh; Cleric Pilgrims and the Secular Traveling Merchants
Summary There are two well-known stories of Chan Buddhism. The first one is recorded in Ven. Ke-Qin's (克勤, 1063 ~ 1135) Bi-yan Ji (《碧巖集》)，or the Blue Cliff Record)，says that the Indian monk Bodhidharma (+536)，the canonized First Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China, after visited the Southern Dynasty of China, he went to the Northern Dynasty by Using a reed stalk as his ferry to sail across the Yangzi River. Ke-Qin himself remarks that it is only a legend.
After his survey，the author found that the above- Mentioned legend is arose after the Tartar Jin (金) in the Yellow River Valley sent troops to across the Yangzi to invade the Southern Song Dynasty in 1129，and even occupied her capital Lin-an (臨安). After the Jin troops returned home in the early of next year，people of the Yangzi Valley began to complain the military defence along the Yangzi was too weak.
At the same time，the intelligences of this Valley also recalled that in San-guo Zhi (《三國志》，or The History of the Three Kingdoms) records a high ranking central official Shao Xu (邵續，227 ~ 275) presented a memorial to King Sun Hao (孫皓，R. 264 ~ 280), the last monarch of the Wu (吳) Kingdom，warning that: "In case we did not enstrenghten our defence along the coast of the Yangzi now，probably our enemy would easily sailing across the river by aboarding on a stalk of reed to come to attack." With the metaphor given by Shao Xu，then people created the above mentioned legend concerning Bodhidharma as a way of ridiculing the weak defending power of their government.
The second one，however，is only recorded in the Yuan (元) monk Ven. Zongbao's (宗寶n.d.) Liu-zu Tan-Jing (《六祖壇經》，or The Altar Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch)，says that before he enfrocked，Hui-neng (慧能638 ~ 713)，the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China, had once serving as an attendant to a team of professional hunters. Even though working in such a team，Hui-neng still keeping vegetarianism. When preparing meal for the hunters, he casted vegetables into the meat cooking pot，and then he ate only vegetables.
According to the author's intensive survey，he discovers that Hui-neng is a native of Liao (獠), a savage tribe of Southern China, and this people is famous in night hunting. Therefore，he believes that Hui-neng being accepted by the team due to his hunting skill. In another word，Huineng was in fact one of the hunting members in his laity. In this situation, Huineng could not be escaped from killing animals. Perhaps he would not be a vegetarian also.
Besides, from the authors another work that concerning the history of Buddhist pilgrimage from China to India (this book will publish very soon)，he discovers that in case a Chinese pilgrim，lay or cleric，who went to
