續高僧傳 4.9

4.9

I, being unenlightened and undiscerning, presumptuously partook of this assembly. Conversing with him, I repeatedly shared the changes of seasons. Listening to his speech and watching his conduct, his name and reality matched each other. Exerting himself morning and evening, he allotted time and divided duties. Reverent and untiring, he focused exclusively on religious tasks. His words were devoid of fame and gain, and his actions entirely free of superficiality. He subtly discerned dispositions and capacities, and readily grasped the natures of living beings. Neither haughty nor fawning, his public action and retirement were appropriately timed. He brought forth profound insights, and through argument he resolved doubts and dilemmas. He was truly an eminent sage of the final age, indeed a Dharma general of the Buddhist tradition! Furthermore, when he initially dispersed ignorance and entered the Dharma, he was singularly distinguished from ordinary peers. Listening to and examining sūtras and treatises, he made this his regular task. Having traveled extensively through the eastern realm, drawing upon and consulting the various masters, he exposed his mind and exhausted their refined tenets, leaving none among the groves of scholars who did not yield in admiration, and completely renewing the halls of learning. He was then able, undaunted by tens of thousands [of li], to seek out the supreme Dharma, vowing to sacrifice his bodily life with the certainty of meeting [the truth] as his expectation. Setting out from Zhangye, he traversed the Dragon Sands. Facing perilous difficulties mid-journey, body and mind nearly perished. Upon arriving at Gaochang, his renown shone ever brighter. Sent off as an emissary through the states, he fully encountered auspicious tokens. His path went out through the Iron Gate and the Stone Gate; in person he rode across sand ranges and snow ranges. Passing through celestial perils, his determination grew all the more ardent; encountering fierce bandits, his spirit became ever more valiant. Moreover, he took refuge in and received the true teaching, succeeding the lineage under Śīlabhadra. Principles were immediately made clear in speech; doctrines required no repeated instruction. He widely unfolded differing doctrines, storing them completely within his breast, causing the Indian saṅgha to yield their hearts to him, never failing to supply him with teachings. Furthermore, because the Treatise on the Awakening of Faith originated from Aśvaghoṣa, the monks of that land wished to receive its original text. Xuanzang then translated it from Chinese into Sanskrit, disseminating it throughout the five regions of India. Thus the causes of Dharma conversion were reciprocally advanced between East and West. Moreover, other treatises of the Western regions placed high value on grammar (śabdavidyā); Xuanzang humbled his mind to request determinations, comprehending them as soon as they were imparted, resulting in seven alterations of grammatical form that set in motion unusual methods, and three cycles through the extensive treatise that broadened his mind. Hence, the three thousand student monks of the Mahābodhi Monastery (Śīlāditya's monastery) were all called vessels of wisdom and ramparts guarding the citadel. Yet when they beheld his speech and heard his phrasing and tenets, all snapped their fingers in admiration, exclaiming, "What manner of man is this!" Wherever he traveled through more than one hundred and thirty states beyond the frontier and east of the sea, among both clerics and laypeople, the unorthodox and the orthodox, those who heard his name unfailingly revered his virtue and took refuge, fostering an even deeper faith; he was able to enhance the honor of the nation, extending illumination afar. That tributes arrived year after year was entirely Xuanzang's merit. Were he not endowed with heavenly brilliance and born with sage-bestowed knowledge, how could he have revitalized this great heritage and transmitted the surviving traces? Of the successive biographies of monks who went to India, beginning with Faxian and Fayong and ending with Daosui and Daosheng, there were seventeen return journeys succeeding one another mid-route. In taking someone fluent in both Chinese and Sanskrit, subtly conversant with textual vehicles, capable of raising the nation's prestige, and enlightening both the heterodox and orthodox, none was greater than Xuanzang. It is regrettable that more than half of the scriptural collections remained untranslated by him. Had his years not been cut short, he would have brought them all out. Impermanence overtook him so suddenly—how lamentable!