傳法正宗記 5.52

5.52

In my youth, Qisong heard senior elders say they had seen an ancient patriarch chart citing the Xu faji by Baochang of Liang, which recorded that Bodhidharma's arrival in Liang occurred in the ninth month of the first year of Putong. But the Baolin zhuan states it was in the eighth year of Putong, dingwei, and that he crossed into Wei in that same year, corresponding to the tenth year of Taihe of Emperor Ming. Yet Taihe was not a reign title of Emperor Ming. It also says Bodhidharma passed away in the nineteenth year of Taihe of Emperor Ming; but Emperor Ming was on the throne for only twelve years, so there was no nineteenth year. Moreover, calculating by dingwei, that was the year of Shenshou at the end of Emperor Ming's reign, the year Emperor Ming had already died. If he truly crossed into Wei in the twelfth month of the eighth year of Putong, dingwei, then Bodhidharma's nine years of silent sitting at Shaolin in Wei would not fit the count of years. If calculated from the first year of Putong, gengzi, the events match fairly well. Now I take the first year, gengzi, as the standard. As for the eighth year, dingwei, seen by various schools, I do not dare to delete it immediately either, so I retain both for the discerning to examine in detail. Furthermore, calculating from the year the Chan sūtra was translated, Bodhidharma was exactly twenty-seven years old at that time. His preaching of the Chan sūtra must have been prior to this age of twenty-seven. Calculating from this to harmonize with the various biographies and records: Bodhidharma, having left household life and attained the Dharma, still attended upon his master for more than forty years; then, relying on his master's entrustment, he carried out transformation in South India for another sixty-seven years; he then came east, spending two years on the road, and after arriving in China stayed for nine years before passing away, which exactly equals an age of one hundred and fifty years. In this way, the deeds of Bodhidharma in both China and India recorded by various authors do not diverge much. If he arrived in China in the eighth year of Putong, dingwei, and according to the Baolin zhuan's record that Bodhidharma did not accept the royal throne for forty years awaiting Prajñātāra before leaving home, then adding the forty-odd years he followed his master in the west, he would already have been one hundred and fifty years old when arriving in China. Beginning his transformation in Wei for nine years, he would have reached more than one hundred and sixty years. Thus we know that the claims of forty years of not accepting the throne and arriving in Liang in the eighth year of Putong are great errors and cannot be taken as standard.