化被草木
huā bèi cǎo mù
"the transformations extended to grasses and trees"
What transformations? Who or what wrought them?
Turns out the narrative regarding those old sage-kings that started a while back has simply kept going after all, and there wasn't just a shift in focus. Those legendary rulers were apparently so good at what they did (or didn't do, as the case may be, since 無為 seems to be their thing) that not just humans but grasses and trees, singing birds and horses in the fields, were all brought around to their way of thinking. Remarkable indeed!
被 is a marker of the passive voice in modern Chinese, and can be used the same in classical Chinese under certain circumstances, but here it's used as "reach" or "extend to."
草木 "Grasses and trees" being subject to the influence of kings reminded me of the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of 本覺, or "original enlightenment," which holds that not only sentient beings, but all things, including inanimate objects like grasses and trees (which aren't inanimate at all, but whatever) inherently possess and express Buddha-nature. And speaking of Buddhism, when I was looking up various uses of 化, I ran across a reference to 化胡, the legend that Laozi, the mythical founder of Daoism, went to India to convert "barbarians" to Daoism, and either converted the Buddha or became the Buddha. Pretty wild, man, not least because it seems pretty non-Daoist to proselytize.
微臣
史大偉
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