高僧傳 1.32

1.32

At that time, in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Jin, although monasteries and sacred images were revered in the capital, the profound Vaipulya sūtras remained hidden beyond the Congling Mountains. Dharmarakṣa sighed with indignation, resolved to propagate the Great Way, and thereupon followed his master to the Western Regions, travelling through numerous countries. The foreign states had thirty-six different languages, with scripts to match; Dharmarakṣa studied them all, thoroughly mastering their glosses, sounds, meanings, and written forms, being fully conversant in every one. He then brought back a vast collection of Sanskrit sūtras and returned to the central lands, translating and writing them into the Jin language along the route from Dunhuang to Chang'an. Those he translated and studied included the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, and others, amounting to one hundred and sixty-five works. What he strove for day and night was solely the spread of the Dharma as his lifelong task; writing and translating throughout his days, he never spoke of weariness. That the scriptural Dharma came to be widely disseminated in China was through Dharmarakṣa's efforts.