開元釋教錄 4.17.2

4.17.2

The śramaṇa Dharmakṣema was also called Tanmoxian or Tanmochen, which was merely due to differences in transliterating the Sanskrit sounds. In the Liang dialect, it means Fafeng ("Abundance of Dharma"). He was a native of Central India and of the brāhmaṇa caste. When Kṣema was six years old, his father died, and his mother supported Kṣema by working as a hired weaver. Seeing that the śramaṇa Dharmayaśas (which means Facheng ["Fame of Dharma"]) was revered by both clergy and laity and was showered with lavish offerings, his mother envied this, and so gave Kṣema [to him] as a disciple. At the age of ten, reading mantras together with several of his fellow students, his intelligence surpassed the crowd; in reading sūtras, he could master over ten thousand words a day. At first he studied the Hīnayāna, simultaneously perusing the various treatises on the five sciences. When expounding and discussing them, his eloquence was so precise and sharp that no one could counter or challenge him. Later, he met a white-haired meditation master with whom he engaged in doctrinal debate. As their learned traditions differed, they contested back and forth for a hundred days. Although Kṣema launched attacks with pointed acumen, the meditation master in the end refused to yield. Kṣema submitted to the subtlety of his principles and said to the meditation master, "Do you happen to have any scriptures that I might see?" The meditation master then handed him a birch-bark manuscript of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra. As Kṣema read through it, he was startled into awakening and filled with self-reproach, realizing that his frog-in-a-well understanding had long kept him blind to the great expanse. Thereupon, he assembled the congregation to repent of his transgressions, and subsequently dedicated himself exclusively to the Mahāyāna. By the age of twenty, the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna sūtras he had memorized amounted to over two million words. Kṣema's paternal cousin was skilled at training and riding elephants. He killed a large white-eared elephant ridden by the king. The king was enraged and executed him, issuing an edict that said: "Whoever dares to look upon [the corpse] shall have his clan executed to the third degree." None of the relatives dared go, but Kṣema wept and buried him. Enraged, the king wished to execute Kṣema. Kṣema said: "Your Majesty killed him according to the law; I buried him out of kinship. Neither violates great righteousness. Why should you be angry?" Those beside him shuddered in fear, but his expression remained calm and composed. The king, marveling at his resolve and spirit, kept him and made offerings to him. Kṣema clearly understood incantatory arts, and wherever he applied them, they proved efficacious; in the Western Regions, he was known as the Great Master of Divine Incantations. Later, he accompanied the king into the mountains. The king, parched with thirst, required water but could not find any. Kṣema then secretly muttered an incantation over a rock, and water gushed forth. He thereupon praised [the king], saying: "It is the influence of the Great King's benevolent grace that has caused a spring to arise from dry stone." Neighboring states that heard of this all extolled the king's virtue. At that time, the rains were extremely timely and the common people sang praises. The king was delighted with his arts and favored him with deep respect and generosity. After a while, the king's favor gradually waned and he treated him more coldly. Kṣema angrily said: "I will take a jar of water, go to the pond, and through incantations summon the dragon into the jar, causing a great drought under heaven. The king will surely beg for an incantation; if I only then release the dragon to bring down rain, how will I be treated?" He then took the jar and approached the dragon. Someone secretly informed [the king] of this. The king angrily sought to arrest Kṣema. Fearing execution, Kṣema took the first section of the original manuscript of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra in one bundle, along with the Bodhisattva-śīla-sūtra (which is the Bodhisattvabhūmi) and the Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa, and fled to Kucha. In the kingdom of Kucha, most followed Hīnayāna studies and did not believe in the Nirvāṇa[-sūtra]. He then arrived at Guzang and stayed at a post-house. Anxious about losing the manuscript of the sūtra, he used it as a pillow to sleep on. Someone dragged him to the ground. Kṣema was startled, thinking it was a thief. This happened for three nights. He heard a voice in the air say: "This is the treasury of the Tathāgata's liberation; why do you use it as a pillow?" Kṣema was ashamed and awakened to [his mistake], placing it separately in an elevated place. At night, a thief came to take it, but could not lift it. He tried lifting it several times, but was unable to move it at all. The next morning, Kṣema carried the sūtra away, not finding it heavy. When the thief saw this, he thought Kṣema was a sage, and came to bow in apology. The King of Hexi, Juqu Mengxun, heard of Kṣema's fame and summoned him to meet, treating him with great hospitality. Mengxun had long revered the Great Dharma and was intent on propagating it; he requested that he produce [a translation of] his manuscript of the sūtra. Because Kṣema had not yet mastered the local language and lacked interpreters, he feared that his words would deviate from the principles, and would not agree to translate it immediately. Thereupon, he studied the language for three years before translating the initial section of ten fascicles. At that time, the śramaṇas Huisong and Daolang were peerless in Hexi. Encountering his propagation of the Dharma treasury, they held him in deep esteem and helped translate the Sanskrit text, with Master Song taking it down with his brush. With hundreds of clergy and laity raising difficult points from all angles, Kṣema resolved their perplexities on the spot without ever being stumped. Song, Lang, and others further requested him to translate extensively the other sūtras—namely the Mahāsaṃnipāta, Mahāmegha, Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka, Bodhisattvabhūmi, and others, together with the Nirvāṇa-sūtra, totaling nineteen works. Because the chapters in the manuscript of the Nirvāṇa-sūtra were incomplete, Kṣema returned to his native country to seek [the rest]. Finding that his mother had died, he stayed for over a year. Later, he obtained further manuscripts of the sūtra in Khotan, and returned to Guzang to continue translating, completing it into four cases. Kṣema began the translation in the third year of Xuanshi (jiayin) [414 CE], and concluded everything in the fifteenth year (bingyin) [426 CE] (Fei Changfang says that it was concluded in the tenth year of Xuanshi, but that was only when the Nirvāṇa[-sūtra] was finished, not the other sūtras; according to the postscript to the Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra, it was produced in the bingyin year, which shows that he was still translating sūtras during the fifteenth year. Kṣema died only in the third month of the third year of Yihe (guiyou) [433 CE]; during the six years in between, he must have translated more sūtras, but as the catalogues do not record them, the details remain unclear). Kṣema once told Mengxun: "Ghosts have entered the settlement; there will surely be many pestilences." Mengxun did not believe it and wished to see it for himself as proof. Kṣema then applied his arts to Mengxun; Mengxun saw them and was terrified. Kṣema said: "You should purify your sincerity through fasting, and expel them with divine mantras." He then chanted mantras for three days and said to Mengxun: "The ghosts have gone north." Soon afterward, beyond the northern border, those dying of pestilence numbered in the tens of thousands. Mengxun feared and respected him all the more, and treated him with even greater courtesy. It happened that Emperor Taiwu of the Wei heard of his esoteric arts and sent an envoy to invite him, notifying Mengxun: "If you do not send Kṣema, we will immediately launch military forces." Mengxun considered his own state too weak to resist the order, yet feared that Kṣema possessed many arts and might plot against him on behalf of the Wei. Anxious and undecided between advancing and retreating, he secretly plotted to eliminate him. Earlier, when Kṣema translated the Nirvāṇa-sūtra, the number of fascicles had already been fixed, but the foreign śramaṇa Dharmavṛddhi said that the chapters of this sūtra were not yet complete. Kṣema had lamented this and vowed that he would seek them out again. Mengxun took advantage of his intention to travel and falsely provided travel funds to send him off, lavishly gifting him precious goods. A few days before departing, [Kṣema] wept and said to the assembly: "My karmic retribution is about to arrive; even all the sages cannot save me. Yet because of my original heartfelt vow, duty does not permit me to halt." When he had traveled forty li, Mengxun secretly sent assassins to murder him. He was forty-nine years old at the time. The assembly all wept and mourned him. Soon afterward, those in Mengxun's entourage constantly saw ghosts and spirits striking him with swords in broad daylight. In the fourth month, Mengxun fell ill in bed and died (Mengxun murdered Kṣema in the third month of the third year of Yihe, and in the fourth month of that same year fell ill and died; truly, retribution is never in vain, following just as a shadow follows the form! Fei Changfang's statement that Kṣema died in the fourth year of Chenghe during [Mengxun's son's] reign is incorrect; that third year of Yihe corresponds to the second year of Yanhe of the Wei, the year guiyou). Earlier, while Kṣema was in Guzang, the śramaṇa Daojin of Zhangye wished to receive the bodhisattva precepts from Kṣema. Kṣema said, "Repent your transgressions first." [Daojin] then devoted himself with utmost sincerity for seven days and seven nights. On the morning of the eighth day, he went to Kṣema to ask to receive them, but Kṣema suddenly flew into a great rage. Daojin reflected further: "It is only that my karmic hindrances have not yet been extinguished." He then strove vigorously for three years, simultaneously meditating and repenting. Thereupon, in the midst of concentration, he saw Śākyamuni Buddha, together with the various Great Beings, transmitting the precepts to him. That night, over ten people staying in the same quarters all had dreams matching what Daojin had seen. Daojin was about to go to Kṣema