出三藏記集 11.11

11.11

The Śata-śāstra is a ford that connects to the holy mind, an essential treatise that discloses the ultimate truth. More than eight hundred years after the Buddha's nirvāṇa, there was a renunciant great being whose name was Deva. His profound mind had solitary awakening; his remarkable talent was lofty and bright. His virtue shone upon his age; his spirit transcended the mundane realm. Thus he was able to throw open the double barrier of the tripiṭaka and level the dark paths of the twelvefold [canon]. He walked supreme in Kapilavastu, serving as a moat and citadel for the Dharma. At that time, heterodox paths were rampant and divergent teachings competed to arise; their perverted eloquence approximated truth, almost throwing the right path into disorder. Looking up, he lamented the decline of the holy teachings; looking down, he pitied the abandoned delusion of the confused multitudes. Wishing to rescue the drowning afar, he composed this treatise, whereby he guarded the orthodox and checked the heterodox, making the ancestral ultimate brilliantly clear. In this way, orthodox transformation flourished through it, and heterodox ways declined through it. Were he not one who comprehended all subtleties, who could have produced such a work? As the treatise has one hundred verses, it takes "One Hundred" as its name. Its principles are deep and profound, gathering the essentials of the multitude of scriptures; its phrasing is gentle and concise, exhausting the beauty of composition. Yet its ultimate import is subtle and simple, so that few find its gate. There was the Bodhisattva Vasu, whose brilliant wisdom was internally harmonious and whose marvelous thought was extraordinarily penetrating; according from afar with the profound trace, he made an explanatory commentary for it, causing the submerged and hidden meanings to be revealed in splendid brushwork, recited, savored, spread, and extended to future generations. Its literary elegance is radiant, and its ancestral path easily understood. As a treatise, its words are without fixity; it refutes without clinging. At ease without any base, yet facts do not lose their truth; detached without reliance, yet principle naturally and profoundly accords. The way of returning to the source is manifest herein! There was the Indian śramaṇa Kumārajīva, whose capacity was profound and vast, whose exceptional spirit was transcendent and remote. Even after years of drilling and aspiring, he remained increasingly immeasurable. He constantly savored and chanted this treatise, taking it as an essential of the mind. Although he had personally translated it earlier, the local dialects were not yet harmonious, causing those who reflected on it to hesitate over erroneous phrasing, and those who determined positions to run counter to the ultimate goal. Yao Song, the Colonel of the Retainers and Marquess of Ancheng of the Great Qin, was of clear and relaxed charm, with an empty mind and refined excellence. Widely conversant in both inner and outer learning, he thoroughly understood both principle and thought. In his youth he was fond of the Great Way, and as he grew older became all the more devoted. Though bodily bound by current affairs, his discourse on the Dharma never ceased. Whenever he stroked this text, he felt deep regret. In the sixth year of the Hongshi era, the cyclical year being Shouxing, he gathered śramaṇas who appreciated the taste of principle to examine and rectify the original text together with Kumārajīva. Refining it and checking the commentary, they strived to preserve the treatise's purport, making it plain without being rustic, concise yet surely hitting the mark. The ancestral intent became distinctly clear, leaving no defect. The treatise has twenty chapters in all, each with five verses. As for the last ten chapters, that person considered them of no benefit to this land, and therefore omitted and did not transmit them. It is hoped that gentlemen of clear understanding will examine and peruse it.