傳法正宗記 9.69

9.69

佛馱跋陀羅。天竺人也。此云覺賢。本姓釋迦氏。甘露飯王之後。少時出家。本國度為沙彌。受業於大禪師佛大先。極聰明隸。業習誦凡一日敵眾人一月所為。尤以禪業自任。嘗與僧伽達多共游罽賓國。達多始未測其人。一日達多禪坐於密室。忽睹跋陀在前。驚而問曰。何來。跋陀曰。暫往兜率致敬彌勒。即隱不見達多異之。他日以是問之。乃知其已得不還果。會秦僧智嚴同在罽賓。嚴因懇請跋陀偕來諸夏。傳授禪法。其師佛大先。時亦在罽賓。因謂智嚴曰。弘持禪法跋陀其人也。遂與智嚴東來。初至長安與羅什相遇甚善。嘗謂什公曰。君所釋不出人意。而特致高名何耶。什曰。吾年老故爾。何必能稱美談。跋陀議論多高簡。頗為什之徒所忌。其後因自言。玄見五舶自其國來。其弟子復言。自得阿那含果。跋陀不即驗問。以此致謗。秦僧以跋陀為誑。眾遂擯之不容同處。跋陀即日與其弟子慧觀等出關南適廬山。而慧遠法師素聞其名。見跋陀至待之甚善。因致書秦王。為其解擯。遂請跋陀出其禪經同譯。譯成遠為之序。因問跋陀曰。天竺傳法諸祖凡有幾何。跋陀曰。西土傳法祖師。自大迦葉直下相承。凡有二十七人。其二十六祖近世滅度。號不如密多者。所出其繼世弟子曰般若多羅者。方在南天竺盛行教化。吾嘗遇之（般若尚在達磨多羅未繼世作祖故未稱之。寶林傳所稱跋陀說其祖事與此並同）會其西之江陵。遠公未及以之為書。跋陀後會劉太尉裕罷鎮荊州。相將同還都下。住道場寺。卒於本寺。當元嘉六年春秋七十有一。

Buddhabhadra was a man of Tianzhu. Here [in Chinese] this means "Awakened Virtue." His original surname was Śākya, being a descendant of King Amṛtodana. He left household life at a young age, was ordained as a śrāmaṇera in his native country, and studied under the great dhyāna master Buddhasena. He was extremely intelligent and skilled; his study and recitation in a single day matched what others did in a month. He took upon himself especially the enterprise of dhyāna. He once traveled to the country of Jibin with Saṅghadatta. At first, Datta could not fathom what kind of person he was. One day, while Datta was sitting in dhyāna in a secluded chamber, he suddenly saw Bhadra in front of him; startled, he asked: "Where did you come from?" Bhadra said: "I temporarily went to Tuṣita to pay respects to Maitreya." He then vanished and became invisible. Datta marveled at him. On another day, he questioned him about this, and thereby learned that he had already attained the fruit of non-returning (anāgāmin). It happened that the Qin monk Zhiyan was also in Jibin; Yan then earnestly requested Bhadra to come with him to the Chinese lands to transmit and teach the dhyāna method. His teacher Buddhasena was also in Jibin at the time, and therefore said to Zhiyan: "The person to propagate and uphold the dhyāna method is Bhadra." He then came east with Zhiyan. When he first arrived in Chang'an, he met with Kumārajīva on very good terms. He once said to Master Jīva: "Your explanations do not surpass the expectations of men, yet you attain such high renown—why is this?" Jīva said: "It is only because of my advanced age; why must it be worthy of praise?" Bhadra's discourses were mostly lofty and concise, and were rather envied by Jīva's followers. Later, because he himself stated that he had clairvoyantly seen five ships arriving from his home country, and his disciple furthermore declared that he had attained the fruit of anāgāmin on his own, Bhadra did not immediately examine and question it, and thereby invited slander. The Qin monks regarded Bhadra as deceitful; the assembly then ostracized him and would not allow him to dwell with them. That very day, Bhadra went south past the passes with his disciple Huiguan and others to Mount Lu. Dharma Master Huiyuan, who had long heard of his renown, treated Bhadra with great hospitality when he saw him arrive. He then sent a letter to the King of Qin to have his ostracism lifted. He then requested Bhadra to produce his dhyāna sūtra and translated it together; when the translation was completed, Yuan composed a preface for it. He then asked Bhadra: "How many patriarchs in all have transmitted the Dharma in Tianzhu?" Bhadra said: "The patriarchal masters who transmitted the Dharma in the Western lands, directly inherited from Mahākāśyapa down to the present, total twenty-seven persons. The twenty-sixth patriarch passed into extinction in recent times, named Punyamitra; his disciple who succeeded to his generation is named Prajñātāra, who is currently propagating teachings extensively in Southern India. I once met him (because Prajñā was still alive and Dharmatrāta had not yet succeeded to the generation as patriarch, he was not mentioned; what the Baolin zhuan states about Bhadra speaking of the patriarchal matters is entirely identical to this)." It happened that he went west to Jiangling, so Master Yuan did not have time to put it into writing. Later, when Grand Defender Liu Yu concluded his garrison post in Jingzhou, Bhadra accompanied him back to the capital. He resided at Daochang Monastery, and passed away at that monastery in the sixth year of the Yuanjia era at the age of seventy-one.