慧達

此人在藏中只留下一篇文字，就是《肇論》卷首那篇序；他的名字、寺名與身分，全在題署的九個字裡：「小招提寺沙門　慧達　作」〔T45n1858 0150a24〕。序一開口便交代所序何書：「慧達率愚，通序長安釋僧肇法師所作《宗本》《物不遷》等四論。」〔T45n1858 0150a25〕——「通序」二字要緊：他序的不是一篇，是一組；今日所見《肇論》以〈宗本義〉冠四論的合集面貌，最早的藏內見證即落在這一句上。

This man leaves a single piece of writing in the canon — the preface at the head of the Zhaolun; and his name, his monastery and his standing are all contained in the nine graphs of its byline: "Written by Śramaṇa Huida of the Xiaozhaoti Monastery" 〔T45n1858 0150a24〕. The preface states its object at the first word: "Huida, following his own poor lights, writes a general preface to the Fundamental Thesis, On the Immutability of Things, and the rest of the four treatises composed by Dharma Master Sengzhao of Chang'an" 〔T45n1858 0150a25〕. The phrase "general preface" carries weight: what he prefaces is not one piece but a set. The collected shape in which the Zhaolun is read today — the Fundamental Thesis set at the head of four treatises — has its earliest witness within the canon in this one sentence.

他自道與這部書相遇的情形，語氣近於歡喜而非考訂：「達猥生天幸，逢此正音，忻躍弗已，饗讌無疲。」〔T45n1858 0150b11〕又記其願：「誓願生生盡命弘述。」〔T45n1858 0150b13〕遇書之晚，他也不諱：「達留連講肆二十餘年，頗逢重席，末覩斯論。聊寄一序，託悟在中。」〔T45n1858 0150b20〕聽了二十多年講，坐過不少重席，最後才看見這幾篇——這是全序唯一透露他自身時分的一句，也是本檔所以不敢繫其生卒的緣故。

He tells how he came upon the book in a tone nearer to gladness than to scholarship: "I, Da, was born to an undeserved good fortune, meeting with this right voice; my joy would not be still, and at the feast I did not tire" 〔T45n1858 0150b11〕. And he records his vow: "I vow that life after life I will spend my life expounding it" 〔T45n1858 0150b13〕. Nor does he hide how late the meeting came: "I, Da, have lingered in the lecture halls more than twenty years and have sat at many a weighty seat, but only at the last did I see these treatises. I offer this slight preface, entrusting to it what understanding I have" 〔T45n1858 0150b20〕. More than twenty years of lectures, many a weighty seat, and only then did he see these few pieces. This is the one sentence in the whole preface that lets any measure of his own time show, and it is why this file does not venture his dates.

序的後半替僧肇擋了一句世諺，其言曰：「肇之所作，故是《成實》真諦，《地論》通宗，《莊》、《老》所資猛浪之說。」〔T45n1858 0150b15〕慧達判之曰：「此實巨蠱之言，欺誣亡沒，街巷陋音，未之足拾。」〔T45n1858 0150b16〕隨後又保存了一句後世傳誦不絕的評語，序記童壽之歎：「解空第一，肇公其人。」〔T45n1858 0150c05〕此語現存僧肇本傳未核得同一連文，故本編只依此序與宋曉月序注兩處誌錄，不強繫更早出處〔《肇論》卷首譯者說明〕。末了他分判宗本與四論之體：「但宗本蕭然，莫能致詰。」〔T45n1858 0150c06〕——一篇序，替一部合集立了門，也替一個人的名字留了唯一的落腳處。

The latter half of the preface turns aside a common saying about Sengzhao, which ran: "What Zhao wrote is really the ultimate truth of the Satyasiddhi, the pervading thesis of the Daśabhūmi treatise, a reckless doctrine drawing on Zhuangzi and Laozi" 〔T45n1858 0150b15〕. Huida's judgment on it: "This is truly the word of a great blight, a slander upon the dead, the mean noise of the streets, not worth the picking up" 〔T45n1858 0150b16〕. He then preserves a verdict that later ages never stopped repeating, recording Kumārajīva's sigh: "First in the understanding of emptiness — Master Zhao is the man" 〔T45n1858 0150c05〕. This same continuous wording has not been located in the surviving biography of Sengzhao, and so this edition records it from the two places that carry it — this preface and Xiaoyue's Song annotation of it — without forcing an earlier source 〔Zhaolun, front matter, translator's note〕. At the last he distinguishes the Fundamental Thesis from the four treatises in kind: "But the Fundamental Thesis stands bare and still; there is no putting a question to it" 〔T45n1858 0150c06〕. One preface: it set the gate for a collection, and it left the only foothold there is for a man's name.