菩提流支

《續高僧傳》卷一本傳起首即記其所自與所能：「菩提流支。魏言道希。北天竺人也。遍通三藏。妙入總持」〔T50n2060 0428a22〕；「志在弘法廣流視聽。遂挾道宵征遠蒞葱左。以魏永平之初。來遊東夏」〔T50n2060 0428a23〕。宣武皇帝下勅引勞，「處之永寧大寺。四事將給七百梵僧」〔T50n2060 0428a25〕，且「勅以留支為譯經之元匠也」〔T50n2060 0428a26〕。七百梵僧共處一寺，而元匠之任在他一人。

The Continued Lives of Eminent Monks, in its first scroll, opens his life with where he came from and what he could do: "Bodhiruci — in the Wei tongue Daoxi — was a man of North India; he penetrated the whole Tripiṭaka and entered wondrously into dhāraṇī" 〔T50n2060 0428a22〕; "His resolve was to spread the Dharma and make it widely seen and heard; so, bearing the Way, he travelled by night, came far to the east of the Onion Range, and in the first years of the Wei Yongping era journeyed into the eastern land" 〔T50n2060 0428a23〕. Emperor Xuanwu issued an edict of welcome and "housed him in the great monastery Yongning, where the four requisites were supplied to seven hundred Indian monks" 〔T50n2060 0428a25〕, and "by edict Liuzhi was made the prime artificer for the translating of scriptures" 〔T50n2060 0428a26〕. Seven hundred Indian monks lodged in one monastery, and the office of prime artificer rested on him alone.

其譯不自小處始。「先時流支奉勅。創翻十地。宣武皇帝命章一日親對筆受。然後方付沙門僧辯等」〔T50n2060 0428c15〕——開章之日帝親筆受，然後乃付譯眾。李廓所撰眾經錄記其一生之量：「三藏流支自洛及鄴。爰至天平二十餘年。凡所出經。三十九部。一百二十七卷」〔T50n2060 0428c19〕；又云「三藏法師流支房內經論梵本。可有萬甲」〔T50n2060 0428c24〕。已出者一百二十七卷，未出之梵本猶以萬計。

His translating did not begin from small things. "Earlier, Liuzhi had by edict first translated the Ten Grounds; Emperor Xuanwu, on the day the text was opened, himself took down the words in person, and only afterwards handed it over to the monk Sengbian and the others" 〔T50n2060 0428c15〕 — the emperor served as scribe for the opening day, and the translation team took it up after that. The catalogue of scriptures compiled by Li Kuo records the measure of his whole life: "The Tripiṭaka master Liuzhi, from Luoyang through to Ye, and on to the Tianping era — more than twenty years — brought out in all thirty-nine works in one hundred twenty-seven scrolls" 〔T50n2060 0428c19〕; and further, "In the Tripiṭaka master Liuzhi's own room the Sanskrit originals of scriptures and treatises may have numbered ten thousand bundles" 〔T50n2060 0428c24〕. One hundred twenty-seven scrolls had come out; the Sanskrit that had not yet come out was still counted in the ten thousands.

本傳復記一事以見其人。嘗坐井口，澡罐內空，弟子未來無人汲水，「流支乃操柳枝聊撝井中。密加誦呪纔始數遍。泉水上涌平及井欄」〔T50n2060 0428c29〕。傍僧莫測其神，共嘆為大聖人；流支止之曰：「勿妄褒賞。斯乃術法。外國共行此方不習。謂為聖耳」〔T50n2060 0429a03〕，此後遂祕不宣。能為而不許人以此稱之——本傳所記其人如此。

The Life records one incident to show the man. He was once sitting at a wellhead; his water jar was empty, his disciple had not come, and there was no one to draw water. "Liuzhi then took up a willow branch and waved it lightly into the well; quietly he added an incantation, and when he had recited it only a few times over, the spring water welled up level with the well-curb" 〔T50n2060 0428c29〕. The monks standing by could not fathom it and exclaimed together that he was a great sage; Liuzhi stopped them: "Do not praise rashly. This is a technique. Abroad it is commonly practised; here it is not, and so it is called holy" 〔T50n2060 0429a03〕 — and thereafter he kept it hidden and did not display it. He could do the thing, and would not let it be the ground of his repute: so the Life records the man.

名之一事，本傳自陳其難：「當時有沙門菩提流支與般若流支前後出經。而眾錄傳寫率多輕略。各去上字但云流支。而不知是何流支。迄今群錄譯目相涉難得詳定」〔T50n2060 0429b04〕。而同一本傳之內，「流支」「留支」二形亦並用，即上所引兩處。本檔於「留」「流」之辨仍誌不判，錄其相涉而不代藏本斷之。

As to the name, the Life states the difficulty itself: "At that time there were the monk Bodhiruci and Prajñāruci, who brought out scriptures one after the other. But the catalogues in copying were mostly careless: each dropped the upper part of the name and said only 'Ruci', so that one cannot tell which Ruci is meant. To this day the translation entries in the several catalogues cross over one another and are hard to settle in detail" 〔T50n2060 0429b04〕. And within this one Life the two written forms 流支 and 留支 are themselves both used — the two passages quoted above. On the distinction between 留 and 流 this entry still records without deciding: it sets down the crossing and does not decide it on the canon's behalf.