馬鳴

《馬鳴菩薩傳》記其出家之緣，起於一場輸掉的論議。彼時中天竺有出家外道，世智聰辯善通論議，唱言諸比丘若不能與我論，即不得鳴犍椎受人供養；眾比丘遂不敢打。「時長老脇勤憂佛法入三昧觀」〔T50n2046 0183a26〕，自北天竺乘神力而至，令但鳴犍椎，設彼來者吾自對之。

The Life of the Bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa traces his going-forth to a debate he lost. In central India there was then a renunciant of an outsider path, worldly-wise and skilled in disputation, who proclaimed that unless the monks could debate him they might not strike the gong or receive offerings; and the monks did not dare strike it. "At that time the Elder Pārśva, grieving in his diligence for the Dharma, entered samādhi and contemplated" 〔T50n2046 0183a26〕, came by spiritual power from North India, and bade them strike the gong — if the man came, he himself would meet him.

論前立要：負者當如何？「外道言若負者當斷其舌」〔T50n2046 0183c02〕；長老脇不許，曰此不可也，「但作弟子足以允約」〔T50n2046 0183c03〕。輸的人不必失其舌，只須執弟子禮。此一句，決定了後來漢傳所奉之馬鳴——他不是被辯倒的敗者，是被一位不肯取人舌根的長老收作弟子的人。

Before the debate they fixed the stake: what shall the loser forfeit? "The outsider said: let the loser have his tongue cut out" 〔T50n2046 0183c02〕. Pārśva would not have it, saying this may not be — "to become a disciple is enough to satisfy the terms" 〔T50n2046 0183c03〕. The loser need not lose his tongue; he need only take the place of a student. That one sentence decided the Aśvaghoṣa the Chinese tradition afterwards received — not a man argued into defeat, but a man taken as disciple by an elder who would not take his tongue.

本編所譯《大乘起信論》歸於其名。智愷序記其造論之心：「深契大乘窮盡法性，大悲內融隨機應現，愍物長迷故作斯論」〔T32n1666 0575a11〕。生卒之年漢傳不出，序唯以如來滅後六百餘年紀之，故本編如實標不詳。

The Awakening of Faith in the Great Vehicle translated in this edition is assigned to his name. Zhikai's preface records the heart from which he composed it: "He accorded profoundly with the Great Vehicle and exhausted the nature of dharmas; great compassion fused within him, and he responded to beings as occasions arose. Grieving that beings were long astray, he composed this treatise" 〔T32n1666 0575a03〕. His dates the Chinese record does not give — the preface reckons only "more than six hundred years after the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa" — and so this edition marks them honestly as unknown.