開元釋教錄 4.5.5

4.5.5

其藻蔚。雖得大意殊隔文體。有似嚼飯與人
非徒失味。乃令人歐噦也。什嘗作頌贈沙門
法和云。心山育德薰。流芳萬由旬。哀鸞鳴
孤桐。清響徹九天。凡為十偈辭喻皆爾。什
雅好大乘志存敷演。嘗歎曰。吾若著筆作
大乘阿毘曇。非迦旃延子比也。今在秦地深
識者寡。折翮於此將何所論。乃悽然而止。唯
為姚興著實相論二卷。出言成章無所刪改。
辭喻婉約莫非淵奧。什為人神情映徹傲岸
出群。應機領會鮮有其匹。且篤性仁厚汎愛
為心。虛己善誘終日無勌。時有沙門僧叡。興
甚嘉焉。什所譯經叡並參正。昔竺法護出正
法華受決品云。天見人人見天。什譯經至此。
乃言曰。此語與梵本義同。但在言過質。叡應
聲曰。將非人天交接兩得相見乎。什大喜曰。
實然。而叡與什共相開發皆此類也。嘗聽秦
僧道融講新法華。什乃歎曰。佛法之興融其
人也。俄而師子國有一婆羅門。聰辯多學。西
土俗書罕不披誦。而為彼國外道之宗。聞什
在關大行佛法。乃即慨然謂其徒曰。寧可偏
使釋氏之風獨傳震旦。而令吾等正化之典
不洽東國。因遂乘駝負書遠涉來入常安。姚
興見其口眼便僻。頗亦惑之。而婆羅門乃啟
興曰。至道無方各尊其事。今故遠來。請與秦
僧捔其辯力。隨有優者即傳其化。興即許焉。
于時關中四方僧眾相視缺然。莫敢當者。什
謂融曰。此之外道聰明殊人。捔言必勝。豈可
得使無上大道。在於吾徒為彼而屈。良可悲
矣。若使外道肆情得志。則是我等法輪摧軸。
豈可然乎。如吾所覩在君一人。道融自顧才
力不減。而彼西域外道經書未盡披讀。乃密
令人寫婆羅門所讀經目。一披即誦。其後剋
日將就論義。姚興自出公卿皆會。關中僧眾
四遠必集。爾時道融與婆羅門擬相詶抗。鋒
辯飛玄彼所不逮。時婆羅門雖自覺知辭理
已屈。然意猶以廣讀為誇。道融乃列其所讀
書。并更通論秦地經史名目。卷部三倍多之。
什仍乘勢因嘲之曰。君可不聞大秦廣學。那
忽輕爾遠來。婆羅門心生愧伏頂禮融足。旬
日之中無何而去。像運再顯鳩摩羅什道融
力焉。又杯度比丘在彭城。聞什在常安。乃歎
曰。吾與此子戲別三百餘年。杳然未期。遲有
遇於來生耳。什臨終力疾與眾僧告別曰。因
法相遇殊未盡伊心。方復異世惻愴何言。自
以闇昧謬充傳譯。若所傳無謬。使焚身之後
舌不燋爛。以秦弘始中卒。即於逍遙園依外
國法焚尸。薪滅形化唯舌不變。信弘法之有
徵也（什公卒時諸記不定。高僧傳云。弘始十一年八月二十日卒於常安。或云七年。或云八年。傳取十一為正。
此不然也。准成實論後記云。大秦弘始十三年歲次豕韋九月八日尚書令姚顯請出此論。至來年九月十五日訖。准此
十四年末。什仍未卒。又准僧肇上秦主姚興涅槃無名論表云。肇在什公門下十有餘載。若什四年出經十一年卒始經
八載。未滿十年。云何乃言十有餘載。故知但卒弘始年中。不可定其年月也）然什出經部卷。
眾說多少不同。長房錄中其數彌廣。今細參
驗多是別生。或有一本數名。或是錄家錯上。
具件如左。今悉刪之。
十誦律六十一卷（僧祐錄云是什譯出今以前五十八卷是什度語非什正翻後之三卷
卑摩羅叉續出置之於後已備餘錄此不存之）
放光般若波羅蜜經二十卷（房云第二出見別錄今以放光梵本與大品同
譯大品時興執舊經什出新本若言放光什譯舊經何者是耶故知大品為新放光為舊重載二本誤之甚也）
般若經論集二十卷（房云見吳錄今謂此集乃是廬山遠法師以大智度論文句繁積初
學難尋乃刪煩剪亂令質文有體撰為二十卷亦云大智論要略亦云釋論要抄此乃遠公撮略前論非什別翻也）
禪法要三卷（下注云先譯弘始元年重校正叡製序既云先譯重校不合存其二名准僧叡經序即坐
禪三昧經是也）
阿蘭若習禪法經二卷（房云見別錄或無經字與坐禪三昧同本異出今謂不然

their elegance. Though they convey the general meaning, they are quite removed from the literary style. It is like chewing rice to feed to someone: not only is the flavor lost, it even makes them vomit." Kumārajīva once composed a hymn presented to the śramaṇa Fahe, saying: "The mountain of the mind nurtures the fragrance of virtue, / its scent wafting across ten thousand yojanas. / The sorrowful luan-bird calls on an isolated wutong tree, / its clear note reaching the nine heavens." He composed ten gāthās in all, and their diction and metaphors were all of this kind. Kumārajīva was deeply fond of the Mahāyāna and his aspiration lay in its propagation. He once sighed and said: "Were I to put brush to paper and compose a Mahāyāna abhidharma, Kātyāyanīputra would be no match for me. Now that I am in the Qin land, those of profound discernment are few. With my wings clipped here, what is there to expound?" And so he desisted in sorrow. He only composed the two-fascicle Treatise on the True Nature of Reality (Shixiang lun) for Yao Xing. His words became literature as soon as uttered, with nothing deleted or altered; its phrasing and metaphors were delicate and concise, and none were not profound and abstruse. In person, Kumārajīva possessed a radiant and penetrating spirit, lofty and surpassing the crowd. His intuitive grasp of circumstances had few rivals. Moreover, he was earnest and kind by nature, taking universal love as his mind; humble and skilled at guiding others, he never tired all day long. At that time there was the śramaṇa Sengrui, whom [Yao] Xing greatly praised. Sengrui assisted in revising all the sūtras translated by Kumārajīva. Formerly, when Dharmarakṣa translated the chapter on Receiving Predictions in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, it read: "Gods see humans; humans see gods." When Kumārajīva reached this point in translating the sūtra, he said: "This phrase agrees in meaning with the Sanskrit text, but in phrasing it is overly plain." Sengrui immediately responded: "Could it be, 'Humans and gods mingle together, and both behold one another'?" Kumārajīva was overjoyed and said: "Indeed it is so!" Sengrui's mutual enlightenment with Kumārajīva was invariably of this kind. Once, listening to the Qin monk Daorong lecture on the new Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, Kumārajīva sighed and said: "The revival of the Buddha's teaching lies in this man!" Shortly thereafter, there was a brāhmaṇa in the Lion Country (Siṃhala) who was clever, eloquent, and erudite; there were few worldly texts of the Western Lands that he had not read, and he was the leader of the non-Buddhists in that country. Hearing that Kumārajīva was extensively promoting the Buddha's teaching in Guanzhong, he indignantly said to his disciples: "How can we allow the tradition of the Śākyan only to spread in China, while the scriptures of our own correct teachings do not reach the Eastern Lands?" Thereupon, mounting a camel and bearing his texts, he traveled afar to enter Chang'an. Yao Xing, seeing his glib speech and lively gaze, was also somewhat swayed by him. The brāhmaṇa then addressed Yao Xing, saying: "The ultimate Way is limitless, each honoring its own practice. Now I have come from afar, requesting to contest debating power with the Qin monks. Whichever is superior, their teaching shall be transmitted." Yao Xing granted this. At that time, the monastic assembly from the four directions in Guanzhong looked at each other in bewilderment, none daring to face him. Kumārajīva said to [Dao]rong: "This non-Buddhist's intelligence is extraordinary; in a contest of words he is certain to triumph. How can we let the unsurpassed great Way bend before him on account of our fellows? This would be truly lamentable! If this non-Buddhist is allowed to have his way, the axle of our wheel of Dharma will be broken. How could we let this happen? As I see it, the task rests on you alone." Daorong considered his own talent and strength to be no less, but he had not thoroughly read the scriptures and texts of those Western non-Buddhists. He secretly sent someone to copy the catalogue of scriptures read by the brāhmaṇa, and memorized them as soon as he opened them. Later, when the appointed day for the debate arrived, Yao Xing attended in person, and the high officials all assembled; the monastic assembly of Guanzhong and from the four quarters gathered completely. At that time, Daorong prepared to confront the brāhmaṇa: his sharp eloquence and flying profundity were beyond what the other could match. Though the brāhmaṇa realized that his reasoning and phrasing were already bested, he still took pride in his extensive reading. Daorong then listed the texts he had read, and furthermore comprehensively discussed the titles of the classics and histories of the Qin land, which were three times greater in fascicles and works. Kumārajīva took advantage of the momentum to mock him, saying: "Have you not heard of the extensive learning of the Great Qin? Why have you come from afar so rashly?" The brāhmaṇa was filled with shame and bowed down to Daorong's feet; within ten days he left without doing anything more. That the image-teaching was manifested anew was due to the efforts of Kumārajīva and Daorong. Furthermore, when the monk Beidu was in Pengcheng, hearing that Kumārajīva was in Chang'an, he sighed and said: "It has been over three hundred years since I parted in jest with this fellow. The time has grown remote without an appointed meeting; I can only look forward to meeting him in a future life." When Kumārajīva was near death, he struggled against his illness to bid farewell to the assembly of monks, saying: "Meeting through the Dharma, my heart's wishes have not yet been fully realized. As I am about to pass to another world, what words can express my grief? Deeming myself ignorant, I have erroneously served as a translator. If what I transmitted is without error, let my tongue not be burned and decayed after my body is cremated." He died during the Hongshi era of the Qin. In the Xiaoyao Garden, his corpse was cremated according to foreign custom; when the firewood was consumed and his form transformed, only his tongue remained unchanged. Truly, this was a sign of his propagation of the Dharma! (The various records concerning the time of master Kumārajīva's death are inconsistent. The Gaoseng zhuan states: "He died in Chang'an on the twentieth day of the eighth month of the eleventh year of Hongshi." Others say the seventh year, or the eighth year; the biography takes the eleventh year as correct. This is not so. According to the postscript to the Satyasiddhi-śāstra: "On the eighth day of the ninth month of the thirteenth year of Hongshi of the Great Qin, the year being Shiwei, the Minister of the Department of State Affairs Yao Xian requested the translation of this treatise, which was completed on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the following year." According to this, Kumārajīva had still not passed away at the end of the fourteenth year. Furthermore, according to Sengzhao's memorial presenting the Treatise on the Namelessness of Nirvāṇa to the Qin ruler Yao Xing: "Sengzhao has studied under master Kumārajīva for more than ten years." If Kumārajīva began translating sūtras in the fourth year and died in the eleventh year, it would only have been eight years, less than ten years; how then could he say "more than ten years"? Therefore, we know only that he died during the Hongshi era, and the year and month cannot be definitively fixed.) However, regarding the number of works and fascicles of sūtras translated by Kumārajīva, various accounts differ in number; in Changfang's catalogue the figure is even larger. Having closely checked and verified them now, many are extracts from texts, or multiple titles for a single work, or erroneous inclusions by cataloguers. These are detailed as follows, and are now all deleted: / The Ten Recitation Vinaya (Sarvāstivāda-vinaya), sixty-one fascicles (Sengyou's catalogue says this was translated by Kumārajīva. Now, since the first fifty-eight fascicles were Kumārajīva's oral rendering rather than his formal translation, and the remaining three fascicles were continued by Vimalākṣa, they are placed later and are already fully accounted for in other catalogues; they are not retained here). / Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Fangguang bore boluomi jing), twenty fascicles (Fang says it is a second translation, seen in the Bielu. Now, as the Sanskrit text of the Fangguang is identical to that of the Dapin: when translating the Dapin, [Yao] Xing held the old sūtra while Kumārajīva produced the new text. If it is said that the Fangguang was Kumārajīva's translation, which one would the old sūtra be? Therefore, we know that the Dapin is the new and the Fangguang is the old; to list two texts redundantly is a great error). / Compilation of Prajñā Sūtras and Treatises (Bore jinglun ji), twenty fascicles (Fang says it is seen in the Wu lu. We now consider that this compilation was made by Master [Hui]yuan of Mount Lu because the phrasing of the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa was voluminous and difficult for beginners to navigate; he therefore pruned the redundancies and clarified the confusions to give substance and style to the text, compiling it into twenty fascicles, also called Summarised Essentials of the Dazhidu lun or Selected Extracts of the Commentary. This was Master Yuan's condensation of the earlier treatise, not an independent translation by Kumārajīva). / Essentials of Dhyāna Methods (Chanfa yao), three fascicles (A lower note says: "Previously translated; re-collated in the first year of Hongshi, with a preface composed by [Seng]rui." Since it says "previously translated and re-collated," it is improper to retain both titles. According to Sengrui's preface to the sūtra, this is identical to the Zuochan sanmei jing). / Sūtra on the Method of Practicing Dhyāna in an Āraṇya (Aranruo xichan fa jing), two fascicles (Fang says it is seen in the Bielu; some lack the character jing; it is a different translation of the same text as the Zuochan sanmei. We now consider this not to be so