出三藏記集 8.6

8.6

The Indian śramaṇa Dharmapriya held the original text, and Buddhapāla translated it. Comparing and collating against it, Huijin served as scribal recorder. Where it was identical with the Fangguang and the Guangzan, nothing new was produced. Where the translators of those two sūtras had made omissions, the passages were emended and corrected accordingly at the points of error. Where the meanings differed and it was not known which was correct, both were retained together, often with explanatory notes provided below. In all there are four fascicles; one sūtra makes five fascicles. In translating from Hu into Qin, there are five losses of the original. First, the Hu syntax is completely inverted, yet it is made to conform to Qin: this is the first loss of the original. Second, Hu sūtras value unadorned substance, while the people of Qin favor literary refinement; to convey them so as to please the minds of the multitude, unless they are refined they will not suit: this is the second loss of the original. Third, Hu sūtras are minute and detailed; when coming to praises and eulogies, they are deliberate and repetitive, [saying things] three or four times without minding the tediousness, but these are now trimmed and removed: this is the third loss of the original. Fourth, Hu texts have expository notes that seem just like disorderly phrases; when one examines what has just been said, the text does not differ, yet sometimes a thousand or five hundred [words] are pruned away and not retained: this is the fourth loss of the original. Fifth, after an account is fully completed, when it is about to touch on something else collateral, it recurs back over the previous phrasing before stating the subsequent, but all of this is eliminated: this is the fifth loss of the original. Yet as for the Prajñā Sūtra, it was expounded by the three-fold attained mind and the face-covering tongue [of the Buddha]. The Sage invariably accorded with the times, but the customs of the times change; to prune the elegant antiquity to suit the present day is the first difficulty. Fools and the wise are separated as heaven from earth, and the Sage is impossible to scale; yet wanting to take the subtle words from over a thousand years ago and convey them so as to suit the debased customs under a hundred kings is the second difficulty. When Ānanda brought forth the sūtras, it was not long after the Buddha had passed; the Venerable Mahākāśyapa had five hundred [arhats] with the six supernatural knowledges examine them in turn and record them in turn. Now, separated by a thousand years, we measure and sever them with our immediate notions; those arhats were so cautious and apprehensive, yet these men of birth and death are so casual and complacent—is it not that those ignorant of the Dharma are daring? This is the third difficulty. Venturing into these five losses and undergoing the three difficulties, in translating Hu into Qin, how could one not be prudent? One should merely aim to prevent foreign words from remaining uncomprehended, conveying them so that their common sense is known, that is all. Why further criticize the merits and defects of the great masters? This is something I would never dare to claim to understand. Among earlier men who brought forth sūtras, Zhi Qian and Shigao accurately grasped the Hu originals, which are difficult to equal; Mokṣala and Zhi Qian were skilled at shaping and carving. Skilled they were indeed, yet I fear that once the openings were bored, Chaos met his end. As for considering the Odes redundant and the Book of Documents crude, and pruning them to suit the present day—this is what Ma [Rong] and Zheng [Xuan] deeply lamented. Recently, in bringing forth this excerpt, I wished to keep it unmixed and to fathom the doctrinal purport of the sūtra, fearing only to lose the truth. Where there were dialect words or archaic phrasing, I provided explanations below on my own. Where previously the beginning and end were mutually contradictory and the sentences did not make sense, now they matched silently like two halves of a tally, fitting together as if rejoined after being broken. Thereupon one saw the deep errors of the predecessors and rejoiced at the auspicious encounter of communicating with the foreign realms. In the ninety chapters, there is vastness with no place left for doubt; down to the finest hair's tip, all is obliterated without the slightest flaw. That is all.