歷代三寶紀 9.234

9.234

右一部合七卷。周武帝世。月婆首那。生知俊朗。自魏達齊之梁逮陳。世學佛經尤精義理。洞曉音韻兼善方言。那先在鄴齊受魏禪。諸有蕃客去留任情。那請還鄉。路經江左。因爾遂被梁武帝留。勅總監知外國使命。太清二年忽遇于填婆羅門僧求那跋陀。陳言德賢。有勝天王般若梵本。那因祈請乞願弘宣。求那跋陀嘉其雅操豁然授與。那得保持以為希遇。屬侯景亂未暇及翻。携負西東諷持供養。到陳天嘉乙酉之歲。始於江州興業伽藍方果譯出。沙門智昕筆受陳文。凡六十日。江州刺史儀同黃法氍為檀越。越州僧正沙門釋慧恭三十德僧監掌始末。具經後序不廣煩述。那雖一身而備經涉歷魏齊梁陳。相繼宣譯。

The above one work, totaling seven fascicles. In the reign of Emperor Wu of the Zhou dynasty. Upasūna was brilliant and enlightened by nature. He went from the Wei to the Qi, reached the Liang, and arrived at the Chen. He had studied Buddhist scriptures for generations and was especially proficient in their doctrinal principles; he thoroughly understood phonetics and was also skilled in regional languages. Upasūna had earlier been in Ye; when the Qi received the abdication of the Wei, all foreign guests were permitted to leave or remain at will. Upasūna requested to return home. His route passed through Jiangzuo, and as a result he was detained by Emperor Wu of Liang, who ordered him to oversee foreign diplomatic missions. In the second year of the Taiqing reign, he suddenly met the Brahmin monk Guṇabhadra of Khotan (translated in Chen as Virtuous and Worthy), who possessed a Sanskrit text of the Suvikrāntavikrāmi Prajñāpāramitā. Upasūna thereupon made a fervent request, asking to propagate it. Guṇabhadra praised his refined conduct and generously bestowed it on him. Upasūna obtained and preserved it, regarding it as a rare encounter. During the rebellion of Hou Jing, he had no leisure to translate it; he carried it eastward and westward, reciting, upholding, and making offerings to it. Arriving at the yiyou year of the Tianjia reign of the Chen, he was finally able to produce the translation at Xingye Saṅghārāma in Jiangzhou. The śramaṇa Zhixin transcribed the Chen text. It took sixty days in all. The Commissioner of Jiangzhou, Opening with Equivalence Huang Faqu, served as the dānapati. The Sangha-director of Yuezhou, the śramaṇa Shi Huigong, along with thirty monks of virtue, supervised the process from beginning to end. It is fully recorded in the scripture's postface and is not recounted here in detail. Although Upasūna was but a single person, he traveled through and experienced the Wei, Qi, Liang, and Chen, successively translating and propagating [the Dharma].