宋高僧傳 3.34

3.34

無漏海中，震潮音而可怪；總持言下，書梵字而不常。未聞者聞，聞光音天之餘響；未解者解，解最上法之所詮。聖賢飲之為醇醪，凡劣啜之成糟粕。若夫有緣則遇，無道則違。秦獄既械其利防，此無緣也。漢庭肇迎其白馬，斯有感焉。聽彼異呼，覽其橫字，情可求而呼相亂，字雖殊而意且同。是故《周禮》有象胥氏通六蠻語，狄鞮主七戎，寄司九夷，譯知八狄。今四方之官，唯「譯」官顯著者何也？疑漢已來多事北方，故「譯」名爛熟矣。又如周、秦輶軒使者，奏籍通別國方言，令君王不出戶庭，坐知絕遐異俗之語也。若然者，象胥知其遠也，方言知其近也。大約不過察異俗、達遠情者矣。懿乎東漢，始譯《四十二章經》，復加之為「翻」也。翻也者，如翻錦綺，背、面俱花，但其花有左、右不同耳。由是「翻」、「譯」二名行焉。初則，梵客華僧，聽言揣意；方圓共鑿，金石難和；椀配「世間」，擺名「三昧」；咫尺千里，覿面難通。次則，彼曉漢談，我知梵說，十得八九，時有差違，至若怒目看世尊彼岸度無極矣。後則猛、顯親往，奘、空兩通，器請師子之膏，鵝得水中之乳，內竪對文王之問，揚雄得絕代之文，印印皆同，聲聲不別，斯謂之大備矣。逖觀：道安也，論五失三不易；彥琮也，籍其八備；明則也，撰《翻經儀式》；玄奘也，立五種不翻。此皆類左氏之諸凡，同史家之變例。今立新意，成六例焉。謂「譯字譯音」為一例，「胡語梵言」為一例，「重譯直譯」為一例，「麁言細語」為一例，「華言雅俗」為一例，「直語密語」為一例也。

Amidst the ocean of undefiled dharmas, the sounding of the tidal roar is wondrous; beneath the words of the dhāraṇī, the writing of Sanskrit letters is extraordinary. Those who have not heard come to hear—hearing the lingering resonance of the Ābhāsvara Heaven; those who have not understood come to understand—understanding that which is expounded by the supreme Dharma. Sages and worthies drink of it as pure wine, while the ordinary and inferior sip of it only as dregs. Indeed, where there is karmic affinity, one encounters it; where there is no Way, one goes against it. That the Qin prison shackled Shilifang was because there was no affinity; that the Han court initially welcomed the white horse was due to supernatural resonance. Listening to their alien cries and inspecting their horizontal writing, though feelings may be sought out, the vocalizations are confounding; though the scripts differ, the meaning is nonetheless identical. Therefore, the Rites of Zhou had the xiangxu interpreters who communicated the languages of the six Man barbarians, the didi who oversaw the seven Rong, the ji who were in charge of the nine Yi, and the yi who knew the eight Di. Why is it that among the officials of the four directions nowadays, only the title "yi" (translator) is prominent? It is suspected that because the Han and later dynasties were largely occupied with affairs in the north, the name "yi" became thoroughly familiar. Furthermore, just as the light carriage emissaries of the Zhou and Qin presented registers recording the local dialects of different states so that the sovereign without stepping outside his courtyard might sit and know the languages of distant and foreign customs—if that is so, the xiangxu knew that which was distant, and the dialect registers knew that which was near. On the whole, it was merely a matter of observing different customs and conveying distant sentiments. Splendid was the Eastern Han, which first translated the Scripture in Forty-two Sections, to which the term fan ("turning over") was subsequently applied. "Turning over" is like turning over embroidered brocade: both the back and the front have patterns, but the patterns merely differ in being reversed left and right. From this, the two terms fan ("render") and yi ("translate") came into use. In the beginning, the Sanskrit guest and the Chinese monk listened to words and guessed at meanings; trying to fit square and round together, metal and stone were hard to harmonize; a bowl was matched with "the world" (loka), and tossing was named "samādhi"; separated by a thousand miles though close at hand, face to face they could hardly communicate. Next, they understood Han speech, and we knew Sanskrit talk; eight or nine out of ten were obtained, yet discrepancies still occurred from time to time—reaching the point where "glaring with angry eyes" was rendered as "gazing at the World-Honoured One," and "the other shore" was rendered as "crossing beyond limitation." Later on, Faxian and Daojin went in person, while Xuanzang and Wukong were fluent in both languages; like a vessel holding the fat of a lion, or a goose extracting milk from water, like the court attendant answering the question of King Wen, or Yang Xiong obtaining writings unmatched through the ages, every seal matched without difference, every sound was distinct yet concordant; this may be called complete perfection. Looking back: Dao'an discussed the "five losses and three difficulties"; Yancong enumerated the "eight prerequisites"; Mingze composed The Ceremonial Protocols for Translating Scriptures; Xuanzang established the "five kinds of terms not to be translated." These are all akin to the general principles of the Zuo Commentary, matching the variable conventions of historians. Now I establish new concepts, formulating six precedents. They are: "translating the characters vs. translating the sounds" as one precedent; "Hu (Central Asian) languages vs. Sanskrit words" as one precedent; "re-translation vs. direct translation" as one precedent; "crude words vs. refined phrases" as one precedent; "elegant Chinese vs. vulgar Chinese" as one precedent; and "direct speech vs. esoteric speech" as one precedent.