宋高僧傳 1.40

1.40

The śramaṇa Amoghavajra, whose Sanskrit name was Amoghavajra, which in Chinese means 'Unfailing Diamond' (Bukong Jingang), commonly went by the two characters [Bukong] as an abbreviation. Originally of a Brahmin clan of North India, he lost his father at an early age and accompanied his uncle to visit the eastern realm. At age fifteen, he served the Tripiṭaka Master Vajrabodhi as his teacher. At first, he was instructed in the Sanskrit *Siddham* syllables and the science of linguistic sounds (śabdavidyā), and within a ten-day period he had fully mastered them. His master marveled greatly at him, conferred upon him the bodhisattva precepts, and led him into the great maṇḍala of the Vajradhātu; verifying the outcome by the casting of a flower, he knew that [Amoghavajra] would later greatly cause the teachings to flourish. When he received the full precepts, he thoroughly understood the Sarvāstivāda and was conversant with the scripts and languages of foreign realms. Whenever his master translated scriptures, he always had him assist in the translation. In studying the science of linguistic sounds, what normally required twelve years of effort he completed in six months. In reciting the *Mañjuśrī-Samantabhadra-praṇidhāna*, which had a term of one year, he finished it in two evenings. His keen intelligence was uniformly of this sort. Desiring to study the new yoga, the five families, and the rituals of the three mysteries, three years elapsed, yet his master had not taught him. Amoghavajra planned to return to India. His master dreamed that the images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas in the various temples of the capital were all moving eastward. Upon waking, he realized that Amoghavajra was a true vessel of the Dharma, and thereupon granted his request. He conferred upon him the five families' initiation, the homa rites, the ācārya practices, as well as the *Vairocana Sūtra* and the *Susiddhikara Rituals*, transmitting all of them to him. Later, his master went to Luoyang, and while attending upon him there, he met with his master's manifestation of nirvana; this was in the twentieth year of the Kaiyuan era. After the portrait hall was completed and the posthumous honors were finalized, having once received the final behest instructing him to go to the five regions of India and the Lion Country (Siṃhala), he subsequently deliberated on an expedition to far-off lands.