清辨

清辨杖錫東行以求論議，至波吒釐城，而護法方在菩提樹下，乃遣門人致辭；護法謝之曰：「人世如幻，身命若浮，渴日勤誠，未遑談議」〔T51n2087 0931a06〕。使者往還數四，「人信往復，竟不會見」〔T51n2087 0931a07〕。所求之論既不可得，論師還其本土，靜坐自問：「非慈氏成佛，誰決我疑？」〔T51n2087 0931a09〕——疑不肯放，亦不肯以他人之言為決。

Bhāviveka took up his staff and went east seeking debate, and came to Pāṭaliputra; but Dharmapāla was then beneath the tree of awakening, and so he sent a disciple with his message. Dharmapāla declined: "The world of men is as an illusion, body and life are as things afloat; my days are thirsty with earnest effort and I have no leisure for discussion" 〔T51n2087 0931a06〕. Messengers went back and forth several times, and "though word passed to and fro, in the end they never met" 〔T51n2087 0931a07〕. The debate he sought being unobtainable, the treatise master returned to his own country, sat still, and asked himself: "If not Maitreya come to awakening, who shall settle my doubt?" 〔T51n2087 0931a09〕 — he would not let the doubt go, and he would not let another man's word settle it either.

於是「於觀自在菩薩像前誦《隨心陀羅尼》，絕粒飲水，時歷三歲」〔T51n2087 0931a09〕。菩薩現妙色身而問其所志，答曰：「願留此身，待見慈氏」〔T51n2087 0931a12〕。菩薩勸以生天而速見：「人命危脆，世間浮幻，宜修勝善願，生覩史多天」〔T51n2087 0931a13〕；論師不改其請：「志不可奪，心不可貳」〔T51n2087 0931a15〕。菩薩乃指其所往：「宜往馱那羯磔迦國城南山巖執金剛神所」〔T51n2087 0931a16〕。復誦三歲，神問所願，論師慮久居巖中而不知佛出，問曰：「幽居無覩，詎知佛興？」〔T51n2087 0931a23〕執金剛許之：「慈氏出世，我當相報」〔T51n2087 0931a24〕。

So then "before an image of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara he recited the Dhāraṇī That Accords with the Mind, cutting off grain and drinking water, and the time ran to three years" 〔T51n2087 0931a09〕. The bodhisattva showed a body of subtle form and asked what he was set upon; he answered: "I would keep this body and wait to see Maitreya" 〔T51n2087 0931a12〕. The bodhisattva urged birth in a heaven as the quicker way to that sight: "Human life is frail and perilous, the world is a floating illusion; better to cultivate the vow of surpassing good and be born in the Tuṣita heaven" 〔T51n2087 0931a13〕. The treatise master did not alter his request: "The resolve cannot be taken from me; the mind cannot be made two" 〔T51n2087 0931a15〕. The bodhisattva then pointed him where to go: "You should go to the country of Dhānyakaṭaka, to the rock cliff south of the city, to the place of the Vajra-bearing spirit" 〔T51n2087 0931a16〕. Three more years he recited, and the spirit asked what he wished; and he, fearing that dwelling long inside the rock he might not know when the Buddha came, asked: "Hidden away and seeing nothing, how shall I know that the Buddha has arisen?" 〔T51n2087 0931a23〕 The Vajra-bearer granted it: "When Maitreya comes forth into the world, I shall report it to you" 〔T51n2087 0931a24〕.

又三歲，「呪芥子以擊石，巖壁豁而洞開」〔T51n2087 0931a25〕。論師跨其戶而告觀者：「吾久祈請，待見慈氏，聖靈警祐，大願斯遂」〔T51n2087 0931a27〕，勸眾同入。然「聞者怖駭，莫敢履戶」〔T51n2087 0931a29〕，再三告語，「唯有六人從入」〔T51n2087 0931b01〕。末乃「論師顧謝時眾，從容而入，入之既已，石壁還合」〔T51n2087 0931b02〕。藏中所記此人之事，止於此壁之合。他所待者不在論場之勝負，在慈氏之出世；本檔〈事略〉所引「外示僧佉之服，內弘龍猛之學」一語，於此可見其終始一貫。

Three years more, and "he charged mustard seeds with the spell and struck the rock, and the cliff wall opened wide" 〔T51n2087 0931a25〕. The treatise master stood astride the opening and told those looking on: "Long have I made my prayer, waiting to see Maitreya; the holy powers have watched and helped, and this great vow is now fulfilled" 〔T51n2087 0931a27〕, urging the crowd to enter with him. But "those who heard were struck with fear and none dared set foot on the threshold" 〔T51n2087 0931a29〕; he told them again and yet again, and "only six men followed him in" 〔T51n2087 0931b01〕. At the last, "the treatise master looked back and took his leave of the assembly of that hour, and unhurried he entered; and when he had entered, the stone wall closed again" 〔T51n2087 0931b02〕. What the canon records of this man ends at the closing of that wall. What he was waiting for was not a victory in the debating ground but the coming forth of Maitreya; and the line quoted in the 事略 above — "outwardly he showed the garb of the Sāṃkhya; inwardly he propagated the learning of Nāgārjuna" — shows the same man from beginning to end.