法華玄贊義決 1.78

1.78

Regarding the presence or absence of chapters, what is said to be the five losses and three difficulties refers to what Shi Dao'an, [whose fame] filled heaven, said: "In translating from the barbarian language into Chinese, there are five losses of the original and three difficulties. First, Indic syntax is completely inverted (some say 'the writing is inverted'; inspect further), and making it conform to Chinese is the first loss of the original. Second, Indic sūtras prize unadorned simplicity, while the people of Qin favor literary embellishment; to transmit it so that it suits the minds of the multitude cannot be achieved without literary embellishment; this is the second loss of the original. Third, Indic texts are exhaustively detailed; when it comes to eulogizing and praising, they are earnest and repetitious, three or four times, not minding the prolixity; now they are pruned and expunged; this is the third loss of the original. Fourth, in Indic [texts] there are explanatory elaborations that merely resemble disordered speech; on examining what is expounded and the previous words, there is nothing different; whether a thousand or five hundred [words], they are excised and not retained; this is the fourth loss of the original. Fifth, when a matter is already completed, [the text] turns to address adjacent matters, which in turn surpasses the preceding words; having done so, it expounds it afterward, yet all this is eliminated; this is the fifth loss of the original. However, the mind whose wisdom passes through the three penetrations was expounded by the one whose tongue covered his face; the sage necessarily accommodates the times, yet the customs of the times differ; to prune the elegant and ancient to adapt to the present is the first difficulty. The foolish and the wise are separated by heaven; the sage cannot be scaled; yet wishing to transmit the subtle words from above a thousand generations to match the latter-day customs below a hundred kings is the second difficulty. When Ānanda brought forth the sūtras, he was not far removed from the Buddha; the Venerable Mahākāśyapa had five hundred [arhats] with the six supernormal powers examine and write them down by turns; now, separated by a thousand years, we measure and excise them with recent opinions; those arhats were apprehensive like that, yet these men of birth and death are so complacent like this; is this not the recklessness of those who do not know the Dharma? This is the third difficulty." Having traversed these five losses and passed through these three difficulties, in translating Indic into Chinese, how could one not be cautious?