高僧傳 3.16

3.16

During the Yuanjia era of the Song, [Buddhavarman] reached Western Liang. Previously, there had been the śramaṇa Daotai, whose resolve and practical abilities were robust and determined. In his youth, he had traveled west of the Congling Mountains and traversed various lands, obtaining an Indic manuscript of the *Vibhāṣā* in one hundred thousand verses. Returning to Guzang, he waited eagerly with an open mind for an illustrious master. Hearing that [Buddha]varman had applied his mind to this treatise, he requested him to translate it. At that time Juqu Mengxun had already died, and his son [Juqu] Maoqian had succeeded to the throne. In the fifth year of Qian's Chenghe era, the year *dingchou*, on the eighth day of the fourth month—that is, the fourteenth year of the Song Yuanjia era—in the Xianyu Palace inside the city of Liangzhou, he invited [Buddha]varman to translate it. Daotai served as the scribe, while the śramaṇas Huisong and Daolang, along with over three hundred doctrinal scholars, checked and verified the text and its meaning. After two full years it was completed, totaling one hundred fascicles, and the śramaṇa Daoting composed a preface for it. Shortly thereafter, the Wei caitiff Tuoba Tao led a western campaign against Guzang; the land of Liang fell into turmoil and collapse, and scriptural texts and utensils were all burned and swept away, so that forty fascicles were lost, leaving only sixty surviving today. [Buddha]varman fled the turmoil and returned to the west; it is not known where he ended his life.