出三藏記集 7.11

7.11

惟昔大魏頴川朱士行。以甘露五年出家學道為沙門。出塞西至于闐國。寫得正品梵書。胡本九十章。六十萬餘言。以太康三年。遣弟子弗如檀晉字法饒送經胡本至洛陽。住三年。復至許昌二年。後至陳留界倉垣水南寺。以元康元年五月十五日。眾賢者皆集議。晉書正寫。時執胡本者于闐沙門無叉羅優婆塞竺叔蘭口傳。祝太玄周玄明共筆受。正書九十章。凡二十萬七千六百二十一言。時倉垣諸賢者等。大小皆勸助供養。至其年十二月二十四日。寫都訖。經義深奧。又前後寫者。參挍不能善悉。至太安二年十一月十五日沙門竺法寂來至倉垣水北寺。求經本寫時撿取現品五部并胡本。與竺叔蘭更共考挍書寫。永安元年四月二日訖。於前後所寫挍最為差定。其前所寫可更取挍。晉胡音訓暢義難通。諸開士大學文生書寫供養諷誦讀者。願留三思。恕其不逮也。

Recalling the past: in the fifth year of Ganlu of the Great Wei, Zhu Shixing of Yingchuan left home to study the Way as a monk. Crossing the frontier, he traveled west to the kingdom of Khotan and copied the Fan script of the authentic text: ninety chapters in the Hu original, containing over six hundred thousand words. In the third year of Taikang, he sent his disciple Furutana (whose Jin name was Farao) to convey the Hu text of the sūtra to Luoyang, where it remained for three years; it then went to Xuchang for two years, and later reached the Shuinan Monastery in Cangyuan within the borders of Chenliu.

On the fifteenth day of the fifth month in the first year of Yuankang, the assembly of worthy ones gathered to deliberate and make a definitive transcription in the Jin script. At that time, holding the Hu text was the Khotanese monk Mokṣala; the upāsaka Zhu Shulan transmitted it orally; and Zhu Taixuan together with Zhou Xuanming acted as scribal recorders. The ninety chapters were written out in proper text, totaling 207,621 words. At that time, all the worthy ones in Cangyuan, great and small, offered encouragement, assistance, and offerings. On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month of that year, the copying was entirely completed.

The sūtra's meaning was profound and obscure; moreover, those who copied it earlier and later could not collate it thoroughly. On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month in the second year of Tai'an, the monk Zhu Faji came to the Shuibei Monastery in Cangyuan seeking a copy of the sūtra. Examining and obtaining five versions of the extant chapters along with the Hu text, he re-collated and copied it together with Zhu Shulan. It was completed on the second day of the fourth month in the first year of Yong'an. Compared with what was copied before and after, this collation was the most settled. Earlier copies may be taken again to be collated [against it].

Translating between the phonetic glosses of Jin and Hu, expressing the meaning clearly is difficult. May all bodhisattvas, great scholars, and students of literature who copy, make offerings to, chant, and read it be willing to ponder it deeply and forgive its inadequacies.