北山錄 2.2.4

2.2.4

自謂一切智人。 方立為大師。 阿耨達龍引入于宮。 示以塵沙祕藏。 愧所負罪九旬假誦於龍宮。 而特悔其所稱者也（龍樹本南天竺國梵志也。 誦四韋陀因入王宮。 厭欲出家。 經論誦盡嫌佛所說經不多。 後龍王請入宮經九十日。 點經題不盡。 深悔言失。 通解造智度論十萬偈。 天竺立廟敬奉如佛）其所誦習人間或得之。 由是廣製諸論丕守先教（丕大也。 謂大能弘守先聖之教也）洎千年。 世親初學小乘。 常欲不利於大乘。 其兄無著愍之。 假疾召使至。 具以微言誨。 天親退而省其咎矍然。 將自援刀斷舌。 無著聿來其前止之曰。 罪自汝心匪舌之咎。 昔既以毀。 今盍以讚（盍何不也）斷之何補焉。 遂乃制論千部。 或宗或釋翊贊于五乘也（天親菩薩北天竺留婁沙富羅國人。 兄弟三人俱在有部出家。 兄無著先悟大乘。 常往兜率請彌勒說瑜伽。 天親在有部日。 先造小乘論五百部廣非大乘。 後因無著化之既悟大乘。 乃却造五百本大乘論廣贊大乘。 故號千部論主也）秦正世（秦始皇。 姓嬴。 名正。 字祖龍。 秦襄王之子。 收六國築萬里長城。 令方士入海往蓬萊求仙藥也）有十八沙門自西域至（謂室利房等十八人也）彼暴嬴方有事于天下。 不遑大道（遑及也不及行於大道）醜我有德獄沙門於重垣。 為力士神奮威擊垣（始皇惟降服禮謝。 道人却反西國）夫秦之於吾道也如石不濡於水焉。 膏肓之門不足以發藥其在此也（秦方無道。 以善化之故不相投也。 晉景公有疾求醫于秦。 夢疾化為二竪子曰。 彼良醫也。 懼傷我焉。 其一曰居肓之上膏之下。 若我何醫至曰疾不可為也。 今秦暴惡不足以善化。 若疾之膏肓也）雖當時沙門不見申於秦而鞠之亦頗得其由矣（室利房等雖不蒙秦之見遇而又禁之。 蓋以秦暴而不納於善。 亦為騰蘭之因也）夫人心險易間于山川。 爾後所來實幸。 失利房等先甞之。 不求之不至也（嘗試也。 以失利房等先試來。 秦雖不納。 後來三藏幸此事而知之。 故若無蔡愔使人求請即不至於此也）漢永平七年辛卯（以年曆推之。 合是甲子。 今作辛卯誤）顯宗夢金人（顯宗。 謂後漢第二主明帝。 名莊。 光武之子。 陰皇后所生）項佩日光。 在殿庭而飛。 乃宵衣俟旦（俟待也。 夜夢金人。 身有光明。 遂坐以待明）召群臣以問。 傅毅對曰。 是佛神也（時王遵傅毅等奏。 周昭王二十四年。 大史蘇由云。 西國佛生。 一千年後聲教流此。 今千載餘合是佛神來至也）俾蔡愔秦景將命求諸夢（遂使蔡愔等一十八人往西國求之也）及大月氏。 與攝摩騰竺法蘭遇焉（至月氏國。 見二三藏。 一姓迦攝名摩騰。 一姓竺名法蘭也）彼二士宿蘊遐遊濟俗之志獲秦蔡而合矣（秦景等見二三藏於月氏求請。 以歸漢國）十年甲午（本作丁卯甲午誤）漢使至自西域。 二沙門入于洛（時後漢都洛陽）獻釋迦圖像并諸經。 於是肇有寺于洛城（三藏初至館于鴻臚寺。 以白馬馱經而來。 遂呼為白馬寺。 若就梵語為僧伽藍。 此為眾園。 謂行道處也）為像於南宮清涼臺及關陽門顯節陵上也（皆於此等處圖像也）其經始命翻譯以四十二章載其首（摩騰二三藏最初譯經一卷。 號四十二章經）緘于蘭臺石室。 俟可聞者聞焉於穆哉（蘭臺石室漢藏書閟閣也。 於嗟歎之辭。 穆敬也）夫聖教之於時。 其可順也不可強也。 順則渥物（渥霑也。 謂若漢明之代而來）強則疵物（若秦代而來疪病也）故推引之道非至智不能見之矣。 人亦有言曰。 夫永平何世漢明何德。 蓋元淳漸澆仁義漸廢。 道德與五經將墜于地（自永平時。 道德既薄。 文籍將墜。 言世澆漓之甚也）而慈運遠構。 釋教彌布。 使此方黷先所習者。 忻新所聞（佛法於澆薄之代而來。 使厭仁義禮樂者忻其新教。

he proclaimed himself an omniscient person and was just about to establish himself as a grand master when the dragon Anavatapta led him into his palace and showed him the secret treasuries [vast as] sands of dust. Ashamed of the offense he had incurred, he temporarily recited them in the dragon palace for ninety days, deeply regretting what he had claimed. (Nāgārjuna was originally a brahmin from Southern Tianzhu. He recited the four Vedas and thereupon entered the royal palace. Disgusted with desire, he went forth from the household. Having recited all the scriptures and treatises, he resented that the scriptures spoken by the Buddha were not numerous. Later, the dragon king invited him into his palace, where he spent ninety days; yet he could not finish marking the scripture titles. Deeply regretting his mistaken words, he attained comprehensive understanding and composed the *Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom* in one hundred thousand gāthās. In Tianzhu, shrines were erected to revere him like a Buddha.) What he had memorized and practiced was partly obtained by the human realm; from this he broadly composed various treatises, greatly upholding the earlier teachings. (Greatly means vastly; it means he was greatly able to propagate and maintain the teachings of the ancient sages.) Down to one thousand years [after the nirvāṇa], Vasubandhu initially studied the Hīnayāna and frequently wished to disparage the Mahāyāna. His elder brother Asaṅga pitied him; feigning illness, he sent for him to come, and instructed him thoroughly with subtle words. Vasubandhu withdrew, examined his fault, and was startled. Taking up a knife himself, he was about to cut off his tongue. Asaṅga quickly came before him, stopped him, and said, "The offense comes from your mind, not from the fault of your tongue. Formerly you used it to defame [the Mahāyāna]; now why not use it to praise it? (Why not means why don't you.) What would cutting it off make up for?" Thereupon he composed a thousand treatises, either establishing doctrines or explaining texts, to assist and support the five vehicles. (Bodhisattva Vasubandhu was a native of the kingdom of Puruṣapura in Northern Tianzhu. The three brothers all went forth from the household under the Sarvāstivāda school. The elder brother Asaṅga first awoke to the Mahāyāna; he frequently went to Tuṣita to request Maitreya to explain the *Yogācārabhūmi*. When Vasubandhu was in the Sarvāstivāda school, he first composed five hundred Hīnayāna treatises broadly refuting the Mahāyāna. Later, due to Asaṅga converting him, having awakened to the Mahāyāna, he then conversely composed five hundred Mahāyāna treatises broadly praising the Mahāyāna; therefore he is called the master of a thousand treatises.) In the generation of Zheng of Qin, (The First Emperor of Qin. Surnamed Ying, named Zheng, courtesy name Zulong. Son of King Zhuangxiang of Qin. He absorbed the six states, built the Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li, and ordered fangshi practitioners to enter the sea and go to Penglai to seek the elixir of immortality.) eighteen śramaṇas arrived from the Western Regions. (Refers to eighteen people including Śrīmitra and others.) That violent Ying was just then occupied with all under heaven and had no leisure for the Great Way. (Had no leisure means having no time to practice the Great Way.) Resenting our virtuous ones, he imprisoned the śramaṇas within multi-layered walls, whereupon a vajrapāṇi spirit exerted his might and struck the walls. (The First Emperor merely submitted, bowed, and apologized, and the men of the Way returned back to the western countries.) Indeed, Qin's relation to our Way was like a stone not being soaked by water. That the gate of the incurable allows no medicine to take effect lies precisely here! (Qin was just then without the Way. Converting them with goodness thus did not accord. Duke Jing of Jin was ill and sought a physician from Qin. He dreamed that the disease transformed into two young boys, who said, "He is a good physician; I fear he will harm us." One said, "If we dwell above the huang and below the gao, what can he do to us?" When the physician arrived, he said, "The disease cannot be cured." Now the violent wickedness of Qin could not be converted with goodness, like an incurable disease.) Although the śramaṇas of that time were not appreciated in Qin and were even interrogated, they truly provided a basis for what followed. (Although Śrīmitra and the others did not meet with recognition in Qin and were moreover imprisoned, it was because Qin was violent and would not receive goodness; it also served as the cause for [She] Moteng and [Zhu] Falan.) The perilous and easy dispositions of the human mind are separated by mountains and rivers; that later arrivals were truly fortunate was because Śrīmitra and the others had tasted it first. Had they not sought them, they would not have arrived. (Tasted means tried out. Because Śrīmitra and the others first tried coming, although Qin did not accept them, later Tripiṭaka masters fortunately came to know of this matter; thus if Cai Yin had not sent men to seek and invite them, they would not have reached here.) In the seventh year of the Yongping reign of the Han, a xinmao year, (Calculating by the calendar, it should be jiazi; the present xinmao is an error.) Xianzong dreamed of a golden man (Xianzong refers to the second ruler of the Later Han, Emperor Ming. Named Zhuang, son of Guangwu, born of Empress Yin.) wearing sunlight at the nape of his neck, flying in the palace courtyard. Thereupon he put on his robes at night to wait for dawn. (To wait means to await. Dreaming at night of a golden man with light on his body, he thereupon sat to await dawn.) He summoned the assembly of ministers to inquire of it, and Fu Yi replied, "This is the Buddha spirit." (At that time Wang Zun, Fu Yi, and others memorialized: "In the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of the Zhou, Grand Scribe Su You said: 'The Buddha will be born in the western countries; after one thousand years his voice and teachings will flow here.' Now over a thousand years have passed, and it must be that the Buddha spirit has arrived.") He ordered Cai Yin and Qin Jing to bear the command and seek the subject of his dream. (Thereupon he dispatched Cai Yin and others, eighteen men in all, to go to the western countries to seek it.) Reaching the Da Yuezhi, they met with She Moteng and Zhu Falan. (Reaching the kingdom of Yuezhi, they met two Tripiṭaka masters: one surnamed Kasyapa named Moteng, and one surnamed Zhu named Falan.) Those two gentlemen had long harbored the aspiration for distant travels to rescue the world; having obtained Qin and Cai, their purposes joined. (Qin Jing and the others met the two Tripiṭaka masters in Yuezhi, sought and invited them, and returned to the Han state.) In the tenth year, a jiawu year, (The original text had dingmao; jiawu is an error.) the Han envoys arrived from the Western Regions, and the two śramaṇas entered Luoyang. (At that time the Later Han had its capital in Luoyang.) They presented images of Śākyamuni and various scriptures; thereupon a monastery was first founded in the city of Luoyang (When the Tripiṭaka masters first arrived, they lodged at the Honglu Court. Because they came with scriptures packed on white horses, it was thereupon called the White Horse Monastery. In Sanskrit it is saṅghārāma, rendered here as 'community park', meaning a place where the Way is practiced.) and images were made at the Qingliang Terrace of the Southern Palace and above the Kaiguang Gate at the Xianjie Tomb. (They made painted images in all these places.) The translation of the scriptures was first commanded, with the *Scripture in Forty-Two Sections* placed at their head. (The two Tripiṭaka masters, Moteng and the other, first translated one fascicle of scripture, entitled the *Scripture in Forty-Two Sections*.) They were sealed in the Orchid Terrace and the Stone Chamber, awaiting those who could hear to hear them. How august! (The Orchid Terrace and Stone Chamber were the secret imperial archives for storing books in the Han. 'Yu' is an exclamation of sighing; 'mu' means reverent.) When the sacred teaching relates to the times, it may be accorded with, but not forced: when accorded with, it enriches things; (Enriches means soaks; refers to coming in the era of Emperor Ming of the Han.) when forced, it harms things. (Like coming in the Qin era, harming and sickening them.) Therefore, without supreme wisdom, one cannot perceive the way of drawing and leading. As people have also said: What era was Yongping, and what virtue had Emperor Ming of the Han? For the primordial simplicity was gradually deteriorating, and benevolence and righteousness were gradually falling into disuse; the Way, its virtue, and the Five Classics were about to fall to the ground. (From the time of Yongping, morality had already worn thin and written records were about to fall into ruin; this speaks of the extreme deterioration of the world.) Yet compassionate operations were devised from afar, and the teaching of the Śākya broadly spread, causing those of this land who had grown weary of what they had previously practiced to rejoice in what they newly heard. (The Buddha-dharma came in a declining and shallow age, causing those who were tired of benevolence, righteousness, rites, and music to rejoice in its new teaching.)