翻譯名義集 1.17

1.17

Now I shall attempt to explain: between the states of Qin and Chu, the words for 'writing-brush' differed; in the times of the Yin and the Xia, literary embellishment and plain substance had different styles. How much more so is this the case when the Five Indias are distinct and a thousand years have rolled by! As times shift and customs change, speech alters and names move, so that the new transmissions of the Liang and Tang dynasties indeed differ from the old translations of the Qin and Jin dynasties. If one can grasp the meaning, why must one cling to the words? Though the fish-traps set are different, how does the fish caught differ? At the age of ten I, Fayun, was ignorant, yet presumptuously donned the three robes; later, when studying the sacred teachings, I was utterly ignorant of the Sanskrit language. Therefore, contemplating their meanings and considering their categories, I recorded them as I encountered them. However, since the passages in the sūtras and treatises were scattered, and the meanings in the commentaries and subcommentaries were vast, my additions and deletions across time took nearly two decades, finally compiled into seven fascicles and sixty-four chapters. The ten epithets and the three bodies are clearly arrayed in order; the four continents and the seven destinies are set forth as plainly as if in the palm of one's hand, sparing the toil of searching and providing the beauty of reliable testimony. Yet I feel ashamed that the heaven of meaning is so vast that my narrow tube-view cannot encompass it, and the ocean of teaching is so profound that measuring it with a snail shell cannot plumb its depths. For its various deficiencies and doubtful points, I earnestly await the broadly learned. Written in the Great Song dynasty, the thirteenth year of the Shaoxing reign era, the year guihai, on the final day of the second month of autumn, while residing at the Amitābha Cloister, supported through illness.