Right Sound Dharma Temple.
Ru Nan met Ruzhong's gaze, his expression neither joyful nor sorrowful. He raised a hand to push Ruzhong's hand off his shoulder and rebuked him in a voice imbued with Buddhist power:
"Ruzhong has been beguiled by the Evil Buddha. Desire and greed plague his heart."
"Attendants, take him away and suppress him for a hundred years. Let the many supreme, sacred Buddhist Scriptures cleanse his heart of corruption until he regains his senses."
His Buddhist voice reverberated outward.
Outside Right Sound Dharma Temple, voices also reverberated far into the distance.
No sooner had Ru Nan finished speaking than Arhats on either side rose and approached Ruzhong.
Ruzhong offered no resistance, allowing the Arhats to seize his arms.
What had been said here would spread eventually, at least within the Buddhist Sect. If Ru Nan did nothing, or tacitly accepted it, that would mean matters long since sealed like a verdict upon a closed coffin might be overturned and reconsidered.
Beyond the foundations of Buddhist doctrine, the dispute over Mahayana also involved other interests.
The most important and perilous issue was the Buddhist Sect's mundane Buddhas.
If they truly followed the tenets of Mahayana Buddhism, mundane Buddhas should never have existed within the Buddhist Sect.
The mundane Buddhas were outside cultivators the Buddhist Sect had taken in for its survival and interests.
Never mind the present-even back then, the Karma Buddhas had almost always treated mundane Buddhas differently, looking down on them.
They understood neither Buddhist teachings nor the future.
They knew neither principle nor karma.
If Mahayana Buddhism truly became the prevailing doctrine, the mundane Buddhas' standing would fall even further.
They would very likely even be stripped of the title of Buddha, and their interests and authority would plummet along with it.
From the