出三藏記集 12.26

12.26

I have heard that bodhi is the ultimate: spiritually wondrous and quietly pervasive, its perfect wisdom limpidly illuminates. The Way transcends the confines of form and consciousness; principle finishes with the realm of birth and death. Form and consciousness having long been transcended, could he truly have been born in a royal palace? Birth and death having already ended, would he truly pass away beneath the robust trees? Yet the multitudes have long slumbered, destined to return together to the Great Awakening. When conditions arrive, transformation occurs; when resonance reaches him, he must respond. If he were to respond without taking birth, who would arouse the worldly to awakening? If he transformed without a name, how could he guide the world? Therefore he took the designation Śākyamuni and was born into the noble kṣatriya clan, embodying the highest honor within the realm and standing foremost among humans and devas. Thereafter, he cast off his slippers in the eastern palace and went directly to gaze upon the Tree of Awakening, abandoning the golden wheel to govern the trichiliocosm, illuminating his jade urnā to command the dharmadhātu. This is how he manifested his traces. From his descent into the womb to the distribution of relics for the stūpas, his magnificent transformations numbered a thousand kinds, and his numinous portents changed in myriad ways. All these are brilliantly clear in the sūtras and abundantly recorded in the chronicles. Yet the various accounts differ, appearing scattered from beginning to end; their narratives are conflicting, and their agreements and disagreements are inconsistent. When they are scattered from beginning to end, there must be a unified arrangement; when their agreements and disagreements are inconsistent, one must rely on harmonizing synthesis. Thus, searching through scattered traditions is difficult to encompass, whereas a comprehensive collection is easy to peruse. Sengyou, being uninsightful, falls far short of being widely learned. Taking advantage of intervals during illness, I indulged in searching and studying. Thereupon I opened the sūtras, verified the records, investigated origins and traced them to their ends, and reverently narrated the Genealogy of Śākyamuni, arranging the records into five fascicles. As for the origins of his lineage and birth, the essentials of his attaining the Way and delivering beings, the portents of his nirvāṇa, stūpas, and images, and the portents of the future extinction of his bequeathed Dharma—I gathered the various sūtras to establish the roots, and appended worldly records to supplement the branches, so that holy words and secular accounts are classified into distinct sections, and ancient accounts and present traces corroborate one another. Though ten thousand miles away, it is as if trodden in person; though a thousand years distant, there is no separation from seeing it face to face. Now I have excerpted and compiled the various sūtras, transmitting without inventing, hoping that those who investigate will expend half the effort to achieve twice the result. Reverently leading with a sincere heart, I briefly set forth my vows.