無性

無性在漢傳藏中沒有傳。八帙僧傳與目錄逐一搜過，無一條記其鄉里、師承、生卒。他之所以在本籍有一檔，唯因一部書：《攝大乘論釋》〔T31n1598〕——卷端署「無性菩薩造」，譯者署「三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯」。

Asvabhāva has no life in the Chinese canon. The eight biographies and catalogues were searched one by one in this session, and not a line records his native place, his teachers or his dates. He has a file in this registry for one reason only: a single book, the Exposition of the Compendium of the Great Vehicle 〔T31n1598〕 — headed "composed by the bodhisattva Asvabhāva," with the translator given as "translated by the Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang, on imperial command."

其書譯出之工期，《開元釋教錄》記得比其人詳細：貞觀二十一年三月一日於弘福寺翻經院起，至二十三年六月十七日於大慈恩寺翻經院畢，沙門大乘巍、大乘林等筆受〔T55n2154 0556c02〕——兩年三個月，起於一寺而畢於另一寺，而經手之人有名有姓。一部書之工序歷歷可考，而造論者之一生無可考：漢傳所傳之印度論師，多是這樣到我們手上的。

The catalogue records the making of the book in more detail than the man: begun on the first day of the third month of the twenty-first year of Zhenguan in the translation cloister of Hongfu monastery, finished on the seventeenth day of the sixth month of the twenty-third year in the translation cloister of Great Ci'en, with the śramaṇas Dashengwei and Dashenglin and others taking it down 〔T55n2154 0556c02〕 — two years and three months, begun in one monastery and finished in another, and the men who handled it named. The making of the book can be traced step by step; the life of the man who composed it cannot. That is how most of the Indian masters reach us in the Chinese transmission.

本編以其釋為《攝大乘論》之一鏡，與世親釋並列。所繫者是書，不是人之行狀——本編於此如實：生卒不詳，師承不記，藏中無傳。

This edition sets his exposition beside Vasubandhu's as one of the mirrors on the Compendium. What is attached to his name is a book, not a record of a life — and this edition says so plainly: dates unknown, teachers unrecorded, no biography in the canon.