續高僧傳 2.11.3

2.11.3

高祖具聞。 勅琮錄出賜諸道俗永為警誡。 自爾專思罪累。 屏絕人事。 息意言筌行方等懺。 供給貧病。 晚以所誦梵經四千餘偈十三萬言。 七日一遍用為常業。 然琮久參傳譯。 妙體梵文。 此土群師皆宗鳥迹。 至於音字詁訓。 罕得相符。 乃著辯正論。 以垂翻譯之式。 其詞曰。 彌天釋道安每稱。 譯胡為秦。 有五失本三不易也。 一者胡言盡倒而使從秦。 一失本也。 二者胡經尚質。 秦人好文。 傳可眾心非文不合。 二失本也。 三者胡經委悉。 至於歎詠丁寧反覆。 或三或四不嫌其繁。 而今裁斥。 三失本也。 四者胡有義說。 正似亂詞。 尋檢向語文無以異。 或一千或五百。 今並刈而不存。 四失本也。 五者事以合成將更旁及。 反騰前詞已乃後說而悉除此。 五失本也。 然智經三達之心。 覆面所演。 聖必因時時俗有易。 而刪雅古以適今時。 一不易也。 愚智天隔聖人叵階。 乃欲以千載之上微言。 傳使合百王之下末俗。 二不易也。 阿難出經去佛未久。 尊大迦葉令五百六通迭察迭書。 今雖千年而以近意量截。 彼阿羅漢乃兢兢若此。 此生死人平平若是。 豈將不以知法者猛乎。 斯三不易也。 涉茲五失經三不易。 譯胡為秦。 詎可不慎乎。 正當以不關異言傳令知會通耳。 何復嫌於得失乎。 是乃未所敢知也。 余觀道安法師。 獨稟神慧高振天才。 領袖先賢開通後學。 修經錄則法藏逾闡。 理眾儀則僧寶彌盛。 稱印手菩薩豈虛也哉。 詳梵典難易。 詮譯人之得失。 可謂洞入幽微能究深隱。 至於天竺字體悉曇聲例。 尋其雅論亦似閑明。 舊喚彼方總名胡國。 安雖遠識未變常語。 胡本雜戎之胤。 梵惟真聖之苗。 根既懸殊。 理無相濫。 不善諳悉多致雷同。 見有胡貌即云梵種。 實是梵人漫云胡族。 莫分真偽良可哀哉。 語梵雖訛比胡猶別。 改為梵學知非胡者。 竊以佛典之興。 本來西域。 譯經之起。 原自東京。 歷代轉昌迄茲無墜。 久云流變稍疑虧。 動競逐澆波。 尠能迴覺。 討其故事。 失在昔人。 至如五欲順情。 信是難棄。 三衣苦節定非易忍。 割遺體之愛入道要門。 捨天性之親出家恒務。 俗有可反之致忽然已反。 梵有可學之理何因不學。 又且。 發蒙草創。 伏膺章簡。 同鸚鵡之言。 倣邯鄲之步。 經營一字為力至多。 歷覽數年其道方博。 乃能包括今古網羅天地。 業似山丘文類淵海。 彼之梵法大聖規摹。 略得章本通知體式。 研若有功解便無滯。 匹於此域固不為難。 難尚須求。 況其易也。 或以內執人我外慚諮問。 枉令祕術曠隔神州。 靜言思之愍而流涕。 向使法蘭歸漢僧會適吳。 士行佛念之儔。 智嚴寶雲之末。 纔去俗衣尋教梵字。 亦霑僧數先披葉典。 則應五天正語充布閻浮。 三轉妙音並流震旦。 人人共解。 省翻譯之勞。 代代咸明。 除疑網之失。 於是舌根恒淨。 心鏡彌朗。 藉此聞思永為種性。 安之所述大啟玄門。 其間曲細猶或未盡。 更憑正文助光遺迹。 粗開要例。 則有十條字聲。 一句韻。 二問答。 三名義。 四經論。 五歌頌。 六呪功。 七品題。 八專業。 九異本。 十各踈其相。 廣文如論。 安公又云。 前人出經。 支讖世高。 審得胡本。 難繼者也。 羅叉支越。 斲鑿之巧者也。 竊以得本開質斲巧由文。 舊以為鑿今固非審。 握管之暇試復論之。 先覺諸賢高名參聖。 慧解深發功業弘啟。 創發玄路早入空門。 辯不虛起義應雅合。 但佛教初流方音尠會。 以斯譯彼仍恐難明。 無廢後生已承前哲。 梵書漸播真宗稍演。 其所宣出窮謂分明。 聊因此言輒銓古譯。 漢縱守本猶敢遙議。 魏雖在昔終欲懸討。 或繁或簡理容未適。 時野時華例頗不定。 晉宋尚於談說。 爭壞其淳。

Gaozu heard all of this. He decreed that [Yan]cong transcribe it and bestow it upon the clergy and laity as an everlasting warning. From then on, he focused his thoughts on his accumulation of transgressions, cut off mundane affairs, silenced his mind regarding the snare of words, performed vaipulya repentances, and provided for the poor and sick. Later in life, he took as his constant practice the Indic scriptures he had recited—over four thousand verses, amounting to one hundred and thirty thousand words—chanting them once through every seven days. Moreover, Cong had long participated in translation and had a wonderful grasp of the Indic script. The masters in this land all took the 'bird tracks' [Chinese script] as their authority, but when it came to sounds, characters, glosses, and definitions, they rarely achieved correspondence. He therefore composed the Bianzheng lun (Treatise on Distinguishing the Correct) to bequeath a standard for translation. His text states: / Shi Dao'an, whose fame filled heaven, repeatedly stated: 'Translating from Hu into Qin has five ways of losing the original and three difficulties.' / First: the Hu language is entirely inverted, and making it conform to Qin is the first way of losing the original. / Second: Hu scriptures value plainness, whereas the people of Qin favor literary polish. When transmitting [texts] to satisfy the minds of the masses, without literary polish they will not meet [approval]; this is the second way of losing the original. / Third: Hu scriptures are meticulous. When it comes to praise and chanting, they are earnest and repetitive, [repeating] three or four times without minding the verbosity; to prune and excise this now is the third way of losing the original. / Fourth: in the Hu texts there are expository passages that resemble chaotic phrasing; when one examines what preceded, the text is no different—sometimes a thousand words, sometimes five hundred—and now cutting these out and discarding them is the fourth way of losing the original. / Fifth: after an affair is completed, it is about to touch upon another matter, yet it turns back to recount the former words, and only then speaks of what follows; to remove all of this is the fifth way of losing the original. / However, the mind of the Wisdom Scripture (Prajñāpāramitā) [comes from] the three penetrations; it was expounded by him whose tongue covered his face. The Sage necessarily adapted to the times, and mundane customs change; yet expunging the refined and archaic to accommodate the present day is the first difficulty. / The difference between ignorance and wisdom is as great as heaven, and the Sage cannot be reached by ordinary steps; yet wishing to transmit the subtle words of over a thousand years ago to conform to the degenerate customs beneath a hundred kings is the second difficulty. / When Ānanda brought forth the scriptures, it was not long after the Buddha's [parinirvāṇa]; the venerable Mahākāśyapa had five hundred [arhats] with the six spiritual penetrations examine each other and write each other's words. Now, though a thousand years have passed, people measure and trim them using modern conceptions; those arhats were fearful and cautious like that, while these persons of birth and death are so self-satisfied like this. Is it not that those who know the Dharma are bold? This is the third difficulty. / Incurring these five losses of the original and passing through the three difficulties, how can one not be cautious when translating Hu into Qin? It is merely a matter of transmitting words that do not concern different tongues so that they are understood and integrated. Why should one further be concerned about gains and losses? This is indeed something I have not dared to comprehend. / In my observation of Dharma Master Dao'an, he uniquely possessed divine wisdom and towered with natural genius. A leader among past worthies, he opened the way for later scholars. He revised the scriptural catalogue so that the treasury of Dharma was expounded ever more broadly; he regulated the community's rites so that the jewel of the Saṅgha flourished ever more. How could it be empty praise that he was called the Bodhisattva of the Printed Hand? When he analyzed the difficulties and ease of Indic texts and evaluated the merits and shortcomings of translators, it may be said that he penetrated deep into the obscure and was capable of investigating the profound and hidden. As for the scripts of Tianzhu and the phonological rules of Siddham, when one examines his elegant treatises, he also seemed thoroughly clear about them. In the past, people called that region by the collective name of 'Hu countries'. Although An had far-reaching insight, he had not yet altered conventional phrasing. Hu originally refers to the descendants of the mixed Rong tribes, whereas Brahma (Tianzhu) is the scion of the true sages. Their roots being so utterly disparate, in principle they should not be conflated. Those who are not well-versed often echo each other without thought; seeing a Hu countenance, they immediately call it a Brahma lineage, or being truly a Brahma person, they casually call him of Hu stock. That they do not distinguish the genuine from the spurious is truly lamentable! Although spoken Indic has become corrupt, compared with Hu it is still different. If we change it to 'Brahma studies' (Indic studies), people will know it is not Hu. / I humbly reflect that the rise of Buddhist scriptures originally came from the Western Regions, and the inception of scriptural translation originated from the Eastern Capital (Luoyang). Through successive dynasties it grew increasingly prosperous, down to the present without faltering. For a long time it has been said that through transmission and change, gradual flaws and defects have arisen. Men competitively chase after shallow currents, and few are capable of returning to awakening. When we investigate the precedents, the fault lies with the men of the past. As for the five desires according with sentiment, they are indeed hard to abandon; the austere discipline of the three robes is surely not easy to endure. Severing affection for the physical body left behind by parents to enter the essential gate of the Path, and casting aside natural kin to make pravrajyā one's constant endeavor—these worldly matters that can be overturned have suddenly been overturned; so why, then, when Indic has principles that can be learned, should one not learn it? Furthermore, when beginners start out, they submit themselves to texts and bamboo slips; they are like parrots mimicking speech or like someone imitating the walk of Handan: expending the utmost effort to master a single character, only after reading through many years does their way become broad. Only then can they encompass the present and antiquity and net heaven and earth; their achievements are like hills and their writings like the abyssal sea. The Indic methods of that [land] are the models of the Great Sage; if one roughly grasps the basic grammar and understands the general forms, then if one works with effort, one's comprehension will be without obstruction. Compared to this land, it is certainly not difficult. If the difficult must still be sought, how much more so what is easy! Yet some, internally clinging to self and other, are externally ashamed to inquire, vainly causing this esoteric art to be separated far from the Divine Continent (China). When I contemplate this in silence, I am moved to shed tears of pity. If previously Dharmarakṣa had returned to the Han, Seng Hui had gone to Wu, the likes of Shixing and Fonian, or the later followers of Zhiyan and Baoyun, upon shedding their secular robes had immediately been taught Indic characters, and while partaking in the number of monks had first opened the palm-leaf scriptures, then the correct speech of the Five Indias would have filled and spread through Jambudvīpa, and the wonderful sound of the three turnings [of the wheel] would have flowed together through Cīnasthāna (China). Everyone would understand it together, sparing the labor of translation; every generation would be fully clear, eliminating the errors of the net of doubt. Thereupon, the organ of the tongue would be constantly pure, and the mirror of the mind ever more radiant; relying on this hearing and contemplation, it would forever become their spiritual lineage. / What An expounded broadly opened the profound gate, but its finer subtleties were perhaps not yet exhaustive. Relying further on the authentic texts to help illuminate his remaining traces, when roughly laying out the essential guidelines, there are ten items: first, phonology of characters; second, syntactic prosody; third, questions and answers; fourth, names and meanings; fifth, sūtras and treatises; sixth, songs and hymns; seventh, dhāraṇī efficacy; eighth, chapter titles; ninth, professional study; tenth, variant manuscripts. Each has its characteristics delineated, as fully detailed in the treatise. / Master An also said: 'Among the earlier people who brought forth scriptures, Lokakṣema and An Shigao accurately grasped the Hu originals and are hard to match. Dharmarakṣa and Zhi Qian were skilled at chiseling and carving.' / I humbly reflect that grasping the original brings forth plainness, whereas skilled carving stems from literary embellishment. Formerly it was regarded as chiseling, but now it is certainly not deemed accurate. In the leisure of holding the brush, I venture to discuss it again. The wise worthies of former enlightenment had high renown matching the sages; their wise comprehension burst forth profoundly and their achievements were magnificently initiated. First clearing the mysterious path, they early entered the gate of emptiness; their eloquence did not arise in vain, and the meaning properly harmonized with refinement. Yet when the Buddha's teaching first flowed in, the regional dialects were rarely understood; translating from that into this, there was still fear that it would be hard to understand. This did not hinder later generations from carrying on the work of former philosophers: Indic texts gradually spread, and the true doctrine was slightly expounded; what was proclaimed may ultimately be called clear. Taking advantage of these words, I venture to evaluate the ancient translations. Though the Han clung to the original, one still dares to assess it from afar; though the Wei belongs to the past, one ultimately wishes to investigate it retrospectively. Sometimes verbose, sometimes concise, in principle they were perhaps not fitting; at times rustic, at times ornate, their standards were quite unstable. The Jin and Song valued philosophical discourse, competitively ruining their pure simplicity.