開元釋教錄 4.5.5

4.5.5

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