樂邦文類 1.92

1.92

Among the five sutras above, the Equal Enlightenment and the Amitābha both translate twenty-four vows of the bhikṣu Dharmākara. The Immeasurable Life and the Great Ratnakūṭa assembly translate forty-eight vows. There is in circulation a separate single-fascicle text titled Forty-Eight Vows Sutra, which was extracted from the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, not an independent text. Furthermore, the Sutra on the Adornment of Immeasurable Life translates thirty-one vows. The Fuxing states: "The numbers of vows differ because the versions and traditions vary; there is no need to reconcile them." However, reading the five sutras closely, their beginnings and endings are generally the same, seeming to derive from the same Sanskrit original; the differences lie merely in the translators expanding or abridging as appropriate. Yet when Jingxi spoke of "versions and traditions varying," he showed that while the Buddha's preaching was one, it adapted unevenly to faculties, resulting in differences in both compilation and translation. Thus, as to whether they are the same or different, I do not dare make a definitive judgment; let the reader examine them carefully. Among the five translations, the textual formulation is clearest in the Cao Wei version, which is why ancestral masters have mostly cited it in their writings.