人天眼目 5.24

5.24

The monk Zicong asked the venerable Daguan Ying: 'Many masters of sūtras and treatises say that in India, from Kāśyapa down to the Venerable Simha, the transmission of ancestral masters was severed at that point. What is the truth about this?' He replied: 'Alas, those who speak like this have minds of arising and ceasing. Not knowing how to cherish men for the sake of the Dharma, they are like fireflies fighting the blazing sun, or sparrows trying to fill the vast sea—they only toil in vain. Furthermore, the twenty-fourth patriarch, the Venerable Simha, converted Basiasita, and from him also emerged Dharmadatta. The details of these circumstances are fully present in the *Baolin zhuan* compiled by the Śramaṇa Faju of Jinling, with a preface by the Śramaṇa Lingche of Kuaiji in the Tang, and corroborated by the *Xufa ji* of the Indian Tripiṭaka Master Jñānagupta of the Former Wei. It fully clarifies the matter of the transmission of the robe and the conferral of Dharma by the Venerable Simha prior to meeting his tragedy: starting with Mahākāśyapa as the head, the bloodline goes straight down to the twenty-fifth patriarch Basiasita, the twenty-sixth patriarch Puṇyamitra, and the twenty-seventh patriarch Prajñātāra, who conferred it upon Bodhidharma, who is the first patriarch of the land of Tang. Originally, when Tripiṭaka Master Jñānagupta came to China, he arrived at Baima Monastery in Luoyang. That was precisely the second year of the Jingyuan era (xinsi) under the Former Wei emperor, the Duke of Gaogui. Only two years had passed since Simha entered nirvāṇa. By this it is clearly known that the various masters of sūtras and treatises slander and deceive later generations. Alas, what can be done?' He asked: 'Did Great Master Bodhidharma bring the four-fascicle *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra* from India or not?' He answered: 'No. Busy-bodies made that up. Moreover, Bodhidharma transmitted solely the mind seal, did not establish words, and directly pointed to the human mind to see nature and become a Buddha. How could there be a four-fascicle sūtra?' Cong said: 'The *Baolin zhuan* also says this.' Ying said: 'The compilers did not have leisure to examine it in detail. Let me assess it for you: the *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra* has three translations. The first translation in four fascicles was translated by the Indian Tripiṭaka Master Guṇabhadra under the Song dynasty. The second in ten fascicles was translated by Bodhiruci during the Yuan Wei; Bodhiruci lived at the same time as Bodhidharma and was the one who administered poison to Bodhidharma. The third in seven fascicles was translated by the Khotanese Tripiṭaka Master Śikṣānanda during the reign of the Heavenly Empress of the Tang. Using these as proof, the order and falsehood can be known. Chan Master Ji of Yangshan also once argued this; the matter is very clear.'