傳法正宗定祖圖 1.72

1.72

Buddhabhadra was a man from India, originally belonging to the Śākya clan, a descendant of King Amṛtodana. He first met the Qin monk Zhiyan in Kashmir, who earnestly invited Bhadra to come along with him to China to transmit the Chan method. He first arrived in Chang'an, and later went to Mount Lu, where he brought forth his Chan scripture and translated it together with the Venerable [Hui]yuan. When the translation was completed, the Venerable Yuan wrote a preface for it. [Buddhabhadra] once said to the Venerable Yuan: "As for the patriarchs who transmitted the Dharma in the Western Lands, descending in direct succession from Mahākāśyapa, there were twenty-seven persons in all. The twenty-sixth patriarch, who passed into extinction in recent times, was named Puṇyamitra; the successor disciple whom he produced is named Prajñātāra, who is currently carrying out his teaching and transforming in the realm of Southern India (Bodhidharma had not yet succeeded to the lineage as patriarch, and hence he was not yet mentioned)." Therefore his Chan scripture says: "After the Buddha passed into extinction, the Venerable Mahākāśyapa, the Venerable Ānanda (and so forth), down to Puṇyamitra—all these holders of the Dharma successively transmitted this lamp of wisdom. Now, according to what they made clear, I explain this meaning." The one from whom this was heard was Dharmatrāta. He later became the twenty-eighth patriarch. Hence the Venerable Yuan's preface says: "Dharmatrāta was the paragon of the Western Regions, the chief of Chan instruction." As for what the Baolin zhuan mentions concerning Bhadra once speaking to the Venerable Yuan about the number of generations of the various patriarchs who transmitted the Dharma, it is indeed verified by the Chan scripture. When I examine the time when this Chan scripture was translated, it was sixty-two years earlier than the Fufazang zhuan. That there were twenty-eight patriarchs in the transmitted lineage was already recorded, yet the Fufazang zhuan rashly appeared after the Northern Wei's suppression of the teaching and merely listed twenty-four generations, falsely asserting that the persons who successively received the transmission of the Dharma were completely cut off at this point. Since it contradicts the Chan scripture, how could it not have intended to deceive? In my Zhengzong lun I have already pointed out that this account was not detailed. Indeed, that erroneous book may well be burned!