弘贊法華傳 2.31

2.31

The above: Śramaṇa Dharmagupta, translated in the Sui as Fami, was a native of the kingdom of Laṭa in southern India. He was of the kṣatriya caste, with the clan name Vyāghra, which means 'Tiger Clan'. He had four younger brothers and was the eldest son. His parents were deeply attached to him and would not allow him to leave the household. However, because of his earnest love for the Dharma gate and deep desire to renounce the secular world, at the age of twenty-three he went to central India and only then was able to shave his hair. After Gupta received the full precepts, he spent another three years studying under a master. What his master had attained, he glimpsed in broad outline. Thereupon, he traveled through various Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna countries and monastic establishments, hearing and seeing twice as much. Later, hearing that the Three Jewels were flourishing in the great realm of Cīna (China), he and his companions were of one mind, setting their sights on coming here. Having reached Yiwu, he stayed there for one year. Meeting with troubles, they took refuge in the southwest; the road was purely gravel and desert, lacking both water and grass. The companions looked at one another, having nowhere to preserve their lives. They then temporarily placed the sūtras and treatises they were carrying beside the road and crossed mountains in search of water, hoping thereby to survive. The search having failed, their exhaustion and distress increased all the more. He single-mindedly recited the Avalokiteśvara dhāraṇī, and night rain suddenly fell, bringing complete joy to body and mind. Soon they returned to the original road, but looking around in all directions, everything was vast and indistinct; they had lost their way. Hesitating whether to advance or retreat, they simply let themselves move forward, and finally reached Guazhou, only then realizing that they had taken a roundabout northern route. Gupta had long admired the great empire, trudging over land for accumulated years; of the companions who initially made the pact, some had stayed behind and some had died. Looking at his solitary shadow as he reached this place, in the stillness he reflected on it, with grief and joy intermingling. Soon he received an imperial decree inviting him into the capital city, where he was accommodated in a celebrated monastery and provided for abundantly; this was in the tenth month, winter, of the tenth year of the Kaihuang era. Not long after his arrival, he gained a fair understanding of the Chinese language. Furthermore, receiving a special imperial decree commanding him to engage in translating sūtras, he resided at Xingshan Monastery, where he held the originals and translated them, producing many accurate and sound renderings. The Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna treatises he recited were all profound and essential; when it came to expounding and explaining them, he broadly propagated their subtle purports, repeatedly resolving longstanding doubts for scholars of this land. When Emperor Yang established his capital at the eastern capital, his veneration was deep and generous; as for the Buddha-Dharma, he exalted it still more. He then issued a decree to establish a translation bureau inside the Shanglin Park on the southern bank of the Luo River, seeking out and promoting the eminent and outstanding so as to permanently safeguard the transmission of the Dharma. He immediately issued a decree summoning Gupta and various scholars, all of whom assembled there. Together with Śramaṇa Yancong, he supplemented and translated the aforementioned chapter. In the second year of the Wude era, he passed away by the banks of the Luo River.