宋高僧傳 3.32

3.32

Shi Manyue was a man of the Western Regions. When he came to China, his purpose lay in translating and propagating the teachings. He had mastered all the practices of the Yoga method, and having achieved many miraculous results, he was widely venerated and admired. During the Kaicheng reign period, he presented Sanskrit birch-bark leaves; it happened that the Ganlu Incident had just occurred and the imperial court was devoid of order and discipline, having no leisure for translation. At that time, National Preceptor Wuda, Zhixuan, loved the study of phonetics and linguistics (śabdavidyā) and revered Manyue as his master; the two grew deeply intimate. Manyue instructed him in the Sanskrit script as well as the bounds and conditions of phonetics and letters, the siddhaṃ script, and the eight declensional cases, so that Zhixuan deeply grasped their profound subtleties. Zhixuan said, "How marvelous! I understand the tongues of both regions; might I be permitted to join the ranks of interpreters?" He then requested that various dharani spells be translated, and together with Bodhivajra, Vajrasiddhi, and others, they re-translated the Collection of Dhāraṇīs (Tuoluoni ji) in four fascicles, and also the Scripture of the Victorious One Spoken by the Buddha for Prince Viśuddhadeva (Fo wei Pixutuotianzi shuo zunsheng jing) in one fascicle. They scrutinized and re-examined the text three times, exhausting every nuance of the Buddha's intent. In this land there had previously been a twelve-fascicle Collection of Dhāraṇīs; of these newly translated four fascicles, it is not recorded that they entered the Tripiṭaka. Where Manyue and his companions ended their lives remains unknown. Next there was the Tripiṭaka master Prajñācakra, in Chinese Zhihuilun (Wheel of Wisdom), who was likewise a man of the Western Regions. During the Dazhong reign period, he practiced the Great Maṇḍala rituals; having already received consecration (abhiṣeka) to become an ācārya, he was well-versed in local dialects and deeply penetrated esoteric speech, authoring The Root of the Buddha's Dharma (Fofa genben). Taking Mahāvairocana as its doctrine, it serves as that upon which all Buddhas rely. The root of the Dharma is precisely the dhāraṇī. As for producing boundless doors to the Dharma, practitioners cultivate morality, concentration, and wisdom, using dhāraṇī to assist in their accomplishment; as an essential means of swift attainment, nothing surpasses it. He also composed Instructions on Pointing the Way (Shijiao zhigui) in more than ten sections, all of which are key locks to the Great Teaching. Transmitted by his disciple Shaoming, it was carved on stone to record and hand down during the Xiantong reign period.