護法

護法本生之城，藏中二書並記而字不同：《大唐西域記》繫之達羅毘荼國，作「逮志補羅城者，即達磨波羅〔唐言護法〕菩薩本生之城」〔T51n2087 0931c07〕；《大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》記同一事而作「國大都城號建志補羅，建志城即達磨波羅〔唐言護法〕菩薩本生之處」〔T50n2053 0241c13〕。二名並錄，不強為一。所記其出身則同：「菩薩，此國大臣之長子也」〔T51n2087 0931c08〕，「幼懷雅量，長而弘遠。年方弱冠，王姬下降」〔T51n2087 0931c09〕。婚事既定而其心不在此——「禮筵之夕，憂心慘悽，對佛像前殷懃祈請」〔T51n2087 0931c09〕，遂「至誠所感，神負遠遁，去此數百里，至山伽藍，坐佛堂中」〔T51n2087 0931c10〕。既得出家，「自染衣已，篤學精勤」〔T51n2087 0931c16〕。

Of the city where Dharmapāla was born the canon keeps two records that do not spell the name alike. The Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang places it in the country of Draviḍa: "the city of Daizhibuluo is the city where the bodhisattva Dharmapāla 〔Hufa in the Tang tongue〕 was born" 〔T51n2087 0931c07〕; the Life of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery records the same matter as "the great capital of the country is called Jianzhibuluo, and the city of Jianzhi is where the bodhisattva Dharmapāla 〔Hufa in the Tang tongue〕 was born" 〔T50n2053 0241c13〕. Both names are set down here; neither is forced into the other. On his origin they agree: "The bodhisattva was the eldest son of a chief minister of that country" 〔T51n2087 0931c08〕; "From childhood he bore a fine capacity, and growing up he was far-reaching. In the very year of his coming of age a royal princess was given down to him" 〔T51n2087 0931c09〕. The marriage was settled and his heart was not in it — "On the evening of the wedding rite, grieving and sore at heart, he made earnest supplication before an image of the Buddha" 〔T51n2087 0931c09〕; whereupon "his utter sincerity moved a response, and a spirit bore him far away, some hundreds of miles from that place, to a mountain monastery, and set him down in the Buddha hall" 〔T51n2087 0931c10〕. Once he had gained the going-forth, "having put on the dyed robe he studied deeply and worked without slackening" 〔T51n2087 0931c16〕.

《西域記》又記迦奢布羅城故伽藍，云「是昔護法菩薩伏外道處」〔T51n2087 0898b12〕。其時外道作偽書非毀佛法，王復黨之，僧眾集議而無人竪議。應命者是最年少的那一個：「護法菩薩年在幼稚，辯慧多聞，風範弘遠」〔T51n2087 0898b20〕，於大眾中自請曰「愚雖不敏，請陳其略」〔T51n2087 0898b22〕。及論，「外道乃提頓綱網，抑揚辭義，誦其所執，待彼異論」〔T51n2087 0898b26〕，而「護法乃隨其聲調，述其文義，辭理不謬，氣韻無差」〔T51n2087 0898c01〕——先能盡受其說，然後乃破。外道辭窮欲自斷舌，護法止之曰：「斷舌非謝，改執是悔」〔T51n2087 0898c03〕，「即為說法，心信意悟。王捨邪道，遵崇正法」〔T51n2087 0898c04〕。所轉者在執，不在人。

The Records also notes an old monastery by the city of Kāśapura, saying it is "the place where in former times the bodhisattva Dharmapāla subdued the outsider paths" 〔T51n2087 0898b12〕. An outsider had at that time composed a false book reviling the Buddha's Dharma, and the king took his side; the assembly of monks met in council and none would stand up to argue. The one who answered the summons was the youngest of them: "The bodhisattva Dharmapāla was still of tender years, keen in argument and wide in learning, and his bearing was ample and far-reaching" 〔T51n2087 0898b20〕; in the midst of the assembly he asked for the task himself — "Foolish I am and far from quick, but let me set out the substance of it" 〔T51n2087 0898b22〕. When the debate came, "the outsider then took up the whole net of his argument, raising and lowering the sense of his words, and recited what he held, waiting for the opposing view" 〔T51n2087 0898b26〕; and "Dharmapāla thereupon followed his very intonation and set forth his text and its meaning, with no fault in word or in reason and no discrepancy in breath or cadence" 〔T51n2087 0898c01〕 — able first to receive the whole of a position, and only then to break it. The outsider, argument exhausted, would have cut out his own tongue, but Dharmapāla stopped him: "Cutting out the tongue is not apology; changing what you hold is repentance" 〔T51n2087 0898c03〕; and "he thereupon taught him the Dharma, and his mind believed and his thought awoke. The king abandoned the wrong path and honored the true Dharma" 〔T51n2087 0898c04〕. What was turned was the grasping, not the man.

其後住摩揭陀，講席在那爛陀。《西域記》敘寺中諸德，以其名居首：「至如護法、護月，振芳塵於遺教」〔T51n2087 0924a01〕。戒賢之入其門即在此：「至此國那爛陀僧伽藍，遇護法菩薩，聞法信悟」〔T51n2087 0914c06〕。南印度外道擊鼓求論，護法攝衣將往，戒賢前請代行，護法語其所以：「自慧日潛暉，傳燈寂照，外道蟻聚，異學蜂飛，故我今者，將摧彼論」〔T51n2087 0914c17〕。「是時戒賢年甫三十，眾輕其少，恐難獨任」〔T51n2087 0914c20〕，護法解眾之疑曰：「有貴高明，無云齒歲，以今觀之，破彼必矣」〔T51n2087 0914c22〕。後玄奘西行所師事之戒賢，即出此門。

Afterward he dwelt in Magadha, and his seat of teaching was at Nālandā. Where the Records names the masters of that monastery, his name comes first: "As for such as Dharmapāla and Candrapāla, they raised fragrant dust upon the teaching left to us" 〔T51n2087 0924a01〕. It was here that Śīlabhadra entered his gate: "Coming to the Nālandā monastery of this country, he met the bodhisattva Dharmapāla, heard the Dharma, and believing, awoke" 〔T51n2087 0914c06〕. When an outsider from South India beat the drum to call for debate and Dharmapāla gathered his robe to go, Śīlabhadra came forward asking to go in his stead, and Dharmapāla told him why he had meant to go: "Since the sun of wisdom hid its light and the transmitted lamp burns in silence, the outsider paths swarm like ants and the alien learnings fly like bees; therefore I now would break down their argument" 〔T51n2087 0914c17〕. "At that time Śīlabhadra was but thirty years of age; the assembly made light of his youth and feared he could not bear it alone" 〔T51n2087 0914c20〕, and Dharmapāla resolved their doubt: "What is to be prized is high clarity — say nothing of years and teeth. Judging by what I now see, he will assuredly break the man" 〔T51n2087 0914c22〕. The Śīlabhadra whom Xuanzang, journeying west, took for his master came out of this gate.

清辨遣使求論，護法辭之曰：「人世如幻，身命若浮，渴日勤誠，未遑談議」〔T51n2087 0931a06〕——其時他已在菩提樹下。窺基《成唯識論掌中樞要》敘《唯識三十頌》諸家之釋，云「後有護法等菩薩賞翫頌文，各為義釋」〔T43n1831 0608a24〕，而於諸家之中獨推一人：「雖分峯崐岫，疏幹瓊枝，而獨擅光輝穎，標芳馥者，其惟護法一人乎」〔T43n1831 0608a25〕。其年壽與其書同記於一處：「春秋二十有九，知息化之有期，厭無常以禪習，誓不離於菩提樹」〔T43n1831 0608a28〕，「以終三載之年，禪禮之暇，注裁斯釋」〔T43n1831 0608a29〕。本編《成唯識論》所宗之主幹，即出此三年。生卒之年漢傳不出，此處如實標不詳，不代為補；《西域記》所記師弟之次與《樞要》所記之年壽，藏中不相接續，並錄而不強為一。

When Bhāviveka sent a messenger asking for debate, 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〕 — by then he was already beneath the tree of awakening. Kuiji, in the Essentials Held in the Palm on the Treatise Establishing Consciousness-Only, tells of the several masters' commentaries on the Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only: "Afterward the bodhisattva Dharmapāla and others took delight in the verses and each made an exposition of the sense" 〔T43n1831 0608a24〕; and among them all he raises one alone: "Though they divided the peaks of the Kunlun range and set out branches from a jasper tree, the one who alone commanded the shining crest and bore the fragrant bloom — was he not Dharmapāla, and he only?" 〔T43n1831 0608a25〕. His span of years and his book are recorded in one and the same place: "In his twenty-ninth year he knew that the time of his teaching had a term; wearied of impermanence he took to meditative practice, and vowed not to leave the tree of awakening" 〔T43n1831 0608a28〕; "and in the three years that closed his life, in the intervals of meditation and reverence, he composed and settled this exposition" 〔T43n1831 0608a29〕. The trunk on which the Treatise Establishing Consciousness-Only rendered in this edition depends came out of those three years. His dates the Chinese record does not give, and so they are marked honestly here as unknown rather than supplied. The order of master and disciple recorded in the Records and the span of years recorded in the Essentials are not joined to each other anywhere in the canon; both are set down, and neither is forced into the other.