大唐故三藏玄奘法師行狀 1.4

1.4

I have humbly heard that the teachings of the eightfold noble path are truly the ferry bridge out of the sea of suffering; the tenet of the One Vehicle is indeed the stairs to ascend to nirvāṇa. Yet, because the capacities of living beings were not yet mature, [these teachings] remained hidden west of the Congling Mountains. When the teaching of the Lotus blossomed, its warmth melted the stones of Jiaohe. Then Mātaṅga entered Han, and the doctrine was expounded by the Yi and Luo rivers; Saṅghavarman journeyed to Wu, and its tenets reached Jing and Chu. From then onward, individuals came to cultivate the causes of liberation, and households came to establish the bodhisattva's practice. Thus we know that the benefit of transmitting the Dharma is vastly broad! The Dharma Master possessed a resolute nature soaring a thousand fathoms, and a depth that calmed the waves of ten thousand traces. Rescuing the drowning mundane world was the sorrow of his heart; sustaining the Great Dharma was the task of his life. Therefore, he was able to scale repeated obstacles in search of the scriptures, and tread perilous paths to seek the Way. Treasured in foreign lands, he obtained genuine texts in full. From everything spoken by the Tathāgata during his lifetime—the Vaipulya teachings on Gṛdhrakūṭa and the half-word texts of Mṛgadāva—down to all that was composed and based upon by the later sages Aśvaghoṣa, Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, as well as the revered eighteen differing tenets such as the Huishan and the Zhuting, and the tenets of the disparate paths of the five divisions: he gathered and investigated them all, grasped their purports, and obtained all their texts. Furthermore, regarding the traces of the Buddha's time in the world, such as the steadfast forest of nirvāṇa, the bodhi tree of defeating Māra, the towering stūpa of Kaniṣka, and the mountain where the shadow was left in Nagarahāra: he personally paid homage to them all, omitting none. His heart's wish was fulfilled, and his awakened observation was also complete. Intending to bestow them upon his native land, he accordingly transcribed six hundred and fifty-seven works of Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Dharma teachings, requested seven statues including [the Buddha] turning the wheel of the Dharma, and more than one hundred grains of the Buddha's flesh-śarīra. On the twenty-fifth day of the first month in the spring of the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, he returned to Chang'an. Clerics and laity rushed to welcome him; the entire capital emptied and markets closed. Moreover, this journey traversed tens of thousands of leagues and underwent every difficulty and peril, such as mountains of stagnant yin and freezing cold, ravines of flying billows and churning waves, the vapors of virulent poisonous black winds, and packs of lions and ferocious beasts. These were the regions where Faxian lost his companions, the places where Zhiyan left his associates behind, where Ban [Chao] and Zhang [Qian] never set foot, and where Chang [Hong] and Dahuai never wandered. The Dharma Master was completely self-reliant and solitary in his realization, fearless and unobstructed. He fanned the Tang breeze beyond the Eight Rivers, and made known the state's benevolence among the Five Indias, causing the kings and lords of distant realms to direct their hearts toward the imperial carriages and turn toward the capital of our state, continuously looking up to the heavenly paths. Although the holy majesty moved [them] from afar, it was also through the power of the Dharma Master's communication and exposition. Since returning to his home country to translate and propagate, it was as if the first preaching was taking place in the Āmrapālī park; the refined texts and profound meanings were as if newly spoken from the golden mouth. He cherished every inch of time, striving diligently without laxity. His spiritual demeanor was untroubled and free, devoid of any obstruction. After attending to his duties, he would still explain to the worthy masters the texts and meanings composed by Western sages, the depth and shallowness of their purports, and their different categories, as well as the matters of his youthful days traveling around the lecture halls here, his lofty discourses and intense debates, which resounded abundantly in their ears without him showing any fatigue. His vigor surpassed other men to such an extent! Since the Dharma Master returned to the country until now, twenty years have passed. In total, he translated seventy-five works of Sanskrit texts, rendering them into the Tang language, making a total of one thousand three hundred and forty-one scrolls. There still remain five hundred and eighty-two works untranslated. Those already translated, such as the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, the Mahāvibhāṣā, and the Nyāyānusāra, are all treasures safeguarding the realm and reservoirs for scholars. However, as for the undertaking of translating scriptures, its origins began in the Han with Mātaṅga down to the present Tripiṭaka Master, numbering over a hundred clerics and laymen over time. Translators of earlier generations were mostly Brāhmaṇa Dharma Masters; because they had newly arrived in the Eastern Xia, regional tongues were not yet harmonized, and those who received and transmitted them had difficulty understanding. Whenever they transmitted a single phrase, they were bound to hesitate in detailed deliberation and doubt, and for this reason inversions and errors were many. Today's Dharma Master was lucid and accomplished in the languages of both the Tang and Sanskrit realms, and his translation was agile and skillful, like showing someone an object placed upon the palm of the hand, clear and distinct without difference. Therefore, though the years were not many, his achievement was twice that of former sages. Even as Kumārajīva was praised for his excellence in the Qin tongue, he translated scriptures for over ten years yet produced only two hundred-odd scrolls. Weighing them against each other by this, the difficulty and ease can be seen. What is lamentable is that his lifespan was cut short, and he did not finish his aspirations. How sorrowful! How grievous!