鳩摩羅什

《高僧傳》卷二立其全傳，起處不在羅什而在其母。母為龜茲王妹，懷什之時，往雀梨大寺設供聽法，「什母忽自通天竺語，難問之辭，必窮淵致，眾咸歎之」〔T50n2059 0330a21〕，羅漢達摩瞿沙曰「此必懷智子」〔T50n2059 0330a23〕。既生之後，母欲出家而夫不許：「後因出城遊觀，見塚間枯骨異處縱橫，於是深惟苦本，定誓出家，若不落髮，不咽飲食」〔T50n2059 0330a26〕，「至六日夜，氣力綿乏，疑不達旦，夫乃懼而許焉」〔T50n2059 0330a28〕。母既剃髮受戒，專精禪法而學得初果。「什年七歲，亦俱出家，從師受經，日誦千偈」〔T50n2059 0330b02〕。漢地譯經史上最大的一場譯業，其源頭是一位母親六日不食換來的一次落髮。

The Lives of Eminent Monks, fascicle two, gives him a full life which begins not with him but with his mother. She was sister to the king of Kucha; while carrying him she went to the great monastery of Cakri to set out offerings and hear the Dharma, and "his mother suddenly found herself speaking the language of India, and in her questioning of hard points she reached without fail to the depths, so that all marvelled" 〔T50n2059 0330a21〕; the arhat Dharmaghoṣa said, "she must be carrying a child of wisdom" 〔T50n2059 0330a23〕. After the birth she wished to go forth, and her husband would not consent: "Later, going out of the city on an excursion, she saw dry bones scattered every which way among the graves, and thereupon pondered deeply on the root of suffering and vowed firmly to go forth — if her head were not shaved she would swallow neither food nor drink" 〔T50n2059 0330a26〕; "by the sixth night her strength was spent and it was doubted she would last till dawn, and her husband, taking fright, consented" 〔T50n2059 0330a28〕. Once shaved and ordained she took up meditation with unremitting care and attained the first fruit. "Kumārajīva, being seven, went forth along with her, received the scriptures from a teacher, and recited a thousand verses a day" 〔T50n2059 0330b02〕. The greatest single body of translation in the history of the Chinese canon has its source in one shaving of the head, bought by a mother's six days without food.

其東來非其所求。符堅建元十八年九月遣呂光西伐，臨發之囑但為一人：「若剋龜茲，即馳驛送什」〔T50n2059 0331b28〕。什先語龜茲王白純曰「國運衰矣，當有勍敵」〔T50n2059 0331b29〕，勸勿抗其鋒；「純不從而戰，光遂破龜茲，殺純」〔T50n2059 0331c01〕。光既獲什而未測其量，見其年少，強妻以龜茲王女，又令騎牛乘惡馬欲使墮落，「什常懷忍辱，曾無異色，光慚愧而止」〔T50n2059 0331c08〕。此後涼土之停甚久，傳但云「什停涼積年，呂光父子既不弘道，故蘊其深解，無所宣化」〔T50n2059 0332a16〕——年數不繫，此處亦不代為推。

His coming east was not of his own seeking. In the ninth month of the eighteenth year of Jianyuan, Fu Jian dispatched Lü Guang on a western campaign, and his parting charge concerned one man only: "If you take Kucha, send Kumārajīva by post-relay at once" 〔T50n2059 0331b28〕. Kumārajīva had said beforehand to Bai Chun, king of Kucha, "the fortune of the kingdom is spent; a strong enemy is coming" 〔T50n2059 0331b29〕, and urged him not to meet its edge; "Chun would not follow him but gave battle, and Guang thereupon broke Kucha and killed Chun" 〔T50n2059 0331c01〕. Having got him, Guang could not gauge his measure and, seeing him young in years, forced the daughter of the king of Kucha upon him as wife, and had him mounted on oxen and vicious horses to make him fall; "Kumārajīva bore it always in patience and never changed countenance, and Guang, shamed, desisted" 〔T50n2059 0331c08〕. His stay in Liang was long, and the life says only, "Kumārajīva stayed in Liang for years on end; since neither Lü Guang nor his son spread the Way, he kept his deep understanding stored and had nothing to set forth" 〔T50n2059 0332a16〕 — the number of years is not given, and none is inferred here in its place.

姚興弘始三年破呂隆，方得迎什入關，「以其年十二月二十日至于長安」〔T50n2059 0332a24〕，待以國師之禮。「什既至止，仍請入西明閣及逍遙園譯出眾經」〔T50n2059 0332a29〕。其所以重譯舊經者，非好新也：「既覽舊經，義多紕僻，皆由先度失旨，不與梵本相應」〔T50n2059 0332b02〕；譯《大品》之時，「什持梵本，興執舊經，以相讎校，其新文異舊者，義皆圓通」〔T50n2059 0332b06〕。其後於長安大寺「續出《小品》、《金剛波若》、《十住》、《法華》、《維摩》」〔T50n2059 0332b13〕以下諸經，至於「《釋論》、《成實》、《十住》、《中》、《百》、《十二門論》，凡三百餘卷」〔T50n2059 0332b17〕——本編所譯之經論皆在此目之中。而其自知譯事之限，嘗為僧叡論西方辭體曰：「但改梵為秦，失其藻蔚。雖得大意，殊隔文體。有似嚼飯與人，非徒失味，乃令嘔噦也」〔T50n2059 0332b27〕。譯之一事，得其大意而失其文體，古今同此一嘆。

In the third year of Hongshi Yao Xing broke Lü Long, and only then could Kumārajīva be fetched through the pass: "in the twelfth month of that year, on the twentieth day, he reached Chang'an" 〔T50n2059 0332a24〕, and was received with the honours due a teacher of the state. "Once he had come and settled, he was asked to enter the Ximing Pavilion and the Xiaoyao Park and bring out the scriptures" 〔T50n2059 0332a29〕. That he retranslated the older versions was not from love of novelty: "having looked over the old scriptures, he found the sense often awry, all of it because the earlier renderings had missed the intent and did not answer to the Sanskrit originals" 〔T50n2059 0332b02〕; and in translating the Larger Perfection of Wisdom, "Kumārajīva held the Sanskrit text and Xing held the old version, and they collated the one against the other; where the new wording differed from the old, the sense in every case came round whole" 〔T50n2059 0332b06〕. Afterwards, at the great monastery in Chang'an, "he went on to bring out the Smaller Perfection of Wisdom, the Diamond Perfection of Wisdom, the Ten Stages, the Lotus, the Vimalakīrti" 〔T50n2059 0332b13〕 and the rest, down to "the Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom, the Tattvasiddhi, the Ten Stages, the Middle, the Hundred, and the Twelve Gate Treatise — three hundred fascicles and more" 〔T50n2059 0332b17〕: the scriptures and treatises rendered in this edition all stand within that list. Yet he knew the limit of the work, and once said to Sengrui, discussing the diction of the West: "But turn Sanskrit into Qin speech and the flowering is lost. One gets the broad sense, but the body of the writing is another thing entirely. It is like chewing rice and giving it to someone: not only is the taste gone, it makes him retch" 〔T50n2059 0332b27〕. To catch the sense and lose the form — this is one sigh shared by translators ancient and modern.

其在長安，被逼受妾媵，故「自爾以來，不住僧坊，別立廨舍」〔T50n2059 0332c12〕；「每至講說，常先自說譬喻」〔T50n2059 0332c13〕，其喻曰：「臭泥中生蓮花，但採蓮花，勿取臭泥也」〔T50n2059 0332c14〕。臨終力疾與眾僧告別，曰「因法相遇，殊未盡伊心，方復後世，惻愴何言」〔T50n2059 0332c27〕，自校所出，唯《十誦》一部未及刪煩，「唯《十誦》一部，未及刪煩，存其本旨，必無差失」〔T50n2059 0332c29〕，乃於眾前發誠實誓——誓辭與焚後之驗，已見上〈事略〉。焚後之相，僧祐《出三藏記集》卷十四所記字異：「薪滅形化唯舌不變」〔T55n2145 0102a09〕；卒年亦但云「以晉義熙中卒于長安」〔T55n2145 0102a08〕而不繫月日，與《高僧傳》所繫者並存，慧皎自云無以正之，見上〈年代依據〉。後有外國沙門來云：「羅什所諳，十不出一」〔T50n2059 0333a06〕。

At Chang'an, having been forced to take concubines, "from that time on he did not live in the monks' quarters but had a separate lodging set up" 〔T50n2059 0332c12〕; "whenever he preached, he would always first offer a parable about himself" 〔T50n2059 0332c13〕, and the parable was this: "A lotus grows out of foul mud; take only the lotus, do not take the foul mud" 〔T50n2059 0332c14〕. At the end, rousing himself in illness to take leave of the assembly, he said, "It was through the Dharma that we met, and my heart in it is far from spent; to meet again only in a later age — what is there to say for the grief of it?" 〔T50n2059 0332c27〕. Reckoning up what he had brought out, he found only the Ten Recitations Vinaya still unpruned: "only the Ten Recitations, one work, I have not had time to prune of its excess; but its root intent is preserved and there can be no error in it" 〔T50n2059 0332c29〕. Then before the assembly he made his true vow — the words of the vow, and the sign after the burning, are given above under "Notices." Of that sign Sengyou's Collected Records, fascicle fourteen, has different wording: "the wood burnt away and the form was transmuted; the tongue alone was unchanged" 〔T55n2145 0102a09〕; and for the year of his death it says only "he died at Chang'an in the Yixi years of the Jin" 〔T55n2145 0102a08〕, without month or day. This stands beside the date given in the Lives; Huijiao himself said he could not settle the matter, as noted above under "Basis of dating." Afterwards a foreign monk came and said, "Of what Kumārajīva knew by heart, not one part in ten came out" 〔T50n2059 0333a06〕.