歷代三寶紀 1.3

1.3

Now, following sūtras such as the Lalitavistara and the [Buddhacarita-]benxing [jing] to cross-check the Lu history, I casually present a single corner to respectfully transmit it to future philosophers, hoping to proclaim the sacred traces and the skillful means they relied upon. On the eighth day of the fourth month in the ninth year of King Zhuang, guisi, the Buddha manifested in the form of a white elephant, descending from Tuṣita to the right flank of Queen Māyā, the principal consort of the great King Śuddhodana of the city of Kapilavastu in Central Tianzhu. At that time, shadows of the various devas secretly guarded and escorted him into the womb, concealed from worldly eyes so that few knew. In the second month, the middle month of spring, of the tenth year, on the night of the eighth day when the Puṣya asterism conjoined, he was born from the right flank beneath the plakṣa tree in the Lumbinī grove. As the signs of his birth were clearly manifest, the Lalitavistara therefore says: “He radiated a vast great light, illuminating the three-thousandfold world,” which is what the Zuo Commentary describes as: “The fixed stars did not appear, and the night was bright.” The Ruiying jing says: “Comets appeared below to attend upon the prince’s birth,” and hence the Zuo Commentary states: “Stars fell like rain.” The Benxing jing says: “The empty sky was without clouds, and rain fell naturally,” and Mr. Du's commentary notes: “Presumably at that time there were no clouds”; the Zuo Commentary also says: “Falling along with the rain.” However, the calendar of the Ji Zhou took the eleventh month as the start of the year; what it calls the fourth month is actually the fifth day, xinmao, of the second month at present, and the Lu history is in error. When the śramaṇa Dao'an composed the Treatise on the Two Teachings, he used the Ji calendar to calculate and it still matched the eighth day; he only mistook the time of birth for the year of attaining the Way, which caused the Buddha's era to be thirty years too distant. In the first year of King Xi, gengzi, the Buddha was seven years old, and rode a goat cart to go to the hall of study. In the fourth year, guimao, at age ten, he tested his strength against his peers of the Śākya clan. In the third year of King Hui, dingwei, at age fourteen, he petitioned his father the king to go out on an excursion; passing through the eastern city gate, he saw a sick person and returned. In the sixth year, gengxu, at age seventeen, he took Yasodharā as his consort. In the eighth year, renzi, at age nineteen, at midnight on the eighth day of the fourth month, he leaped over the city wall and left home. (The Sūtra of the Twelve Excursions says that the Buddha left home at age twenty. The twenty-fourth fascicle of the Ekottarika-āgama says: “I was twenty-nine years of age when I left home because I wished to save people,” and also says: “At age twenty, I studied among the non-Buddhists.” The Dīrgha-āgama also says he left home at age twenty-nine. Calculating according to the general rule, the Tathāgata remained in the world for seventy-nine years; if he left home at twenty-nine and attained the Way at thirty-five, the period during which he transformed beings would have been only forty-five years. Yet the Chanyao jing says: “Throughout his single life, Śākyamuni taught and transformed sentient beings for forty-nine years.” Most sūtras state that he left home at nineteen; I now take this as correct. If he left home at twenty-nine and attained the Way at thirty-five, there are few sūtras [that say this]. Moreover, to say that he studied among the non-Buddhists for twenty years would mean that he only attained the Way at age fifty, which we know to be erroneous.) In the nineteenth year, guihai, at age thirty, on the eighth day of the second month when the bright morning star appeared, he was fully awakened and attained the unsurpassable Way. (In the lower fascicle of the Parinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Buddha told Ānanda: “Since I attained the Way, my years have naturally reached forty and nine. A Buddha is difficult to behold; only after one hundred and forty million years will there be a Maitreya.” The Chanyao says: “The Tathāgata's attainment of the Way was forty-nine years; this is of one single flavor.” Fascicle five of the Dīrgha-āgama says: the Buddha told Subhadra: “It has already been fifty years since I attained Buddhahood.”) For forty-nine years he dwelt among gods, humans, dragons, and spirits in the world, preaching the Dharma and transforming them, causing each to attain liberation and realize the four fruits; those who went against the stream of existence were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and those who escaped the three evil paths to be born among gods and humans were beyond count. When his karmic conditions with sentient beings had ended, the Buddha entered parinirvāṇa in the latter part of the night on the fifteenth day of the second month in the fourth year of King Kuang, renzi, in the city of Kuśinagara in Central Tianzhu. From then until the present seventeenth year of Kaihuang, dingsi, it has been 1,205 years since the Eye of the World was extinguished. (The Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Samantapāsādikā both say the fifteenth day of the second month. The Sūtra on the Bodhisattva Dwelling in the Womb says he entered nirvāṇa on the eighth day of the second month, and also says that his initial birth, attaining the Way, and up to his parinirvāṇa were all on the eighth day of the fourth month. Former worthies and older translations all say that it ought to be the second month. The reason for this is that Rājagṛha is three thousand li away from the city of the state of Kuśinagara. Only on the seventh day after the Buddha's extinction was the jhāpita performed, after which the disciples dispersed. Only then did Kāśyapa head towards Rājagṛha for the summer retreat to compile the repository of the Dharma. The great assembly he led, both the wise and the dull, all arrived at Rājagṛha before the screening and selection could take place; it would have been impossible to reach that location on the very same day. Furthermore, the other sūtras all say that parinirvāṇa occurred at midnight; only the Samantapāsādikā alone says it was at dawn. When sūtras explain the parinirvāṇa, the timing signifies a specific meaning: to demonstrate that sentient beings are separated from the Sun of the Buddha, it must take place during the watches of the night. If it were in the first watch of the night, when dawn is still far off, it would signify that the next Buddha would only appear in the world after a very long time; if at midnight, the distance is precisely balanced; if in the latter watch of the night, a Buddha would appear soon. Since Maitreya will only appear after a hundred million years, yet not in a different kalpa, midnight is the most fitting.)