傳法正宗記 9.69

9.69

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.