普光

「釋普光，未知何許人也」〔T50n2061 0727a05〕——本傳第一句便把出身之事交代完了：不知道。所記者唯其行：「明敏為性，爰擇其木，請事三藏奘師」〔T50n2061 0727a05〕，而「勤恪之心，同列靡及」〔T50n2061 0727a06〕。一個不知從哪裡來的人，在奘師門下以勤恪見稱於同列。

"Puguang: no one knows where he came from" 〔T50n2061 0727a05〕 — the biography settles the question of his origin in its first line by saying there is no answer. What it records is what he did: "quick and clear by nature, he chose his tree well and served the Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang" 〔T50n2061 0727a05〕, and "in diligence none of his fellows matched him" 〔T50n2061 0727a06〕. A man out of nowhere, known among his fellows at Xuanzang's gate for diligence.

本編所取其《俱舍論記》〔T41n1821〕之來歷，本傳說得很具體：「奘嫌古翻《俱舍》，義多缺然」〔T50n2061 0727a09〕，乃「躬得梵本再譯真文，乃密授光」〔T50n2061 0727a09〕，所授者「多是記憶西印薩婆多師口義」〔T50n2061 0727a10〕——不是文字，是奘師記在心裡的西印度薩婆多師口傳之義。「光因著疏解判」〔T50n2061 0727a11〕。故《光記》之為本編俱舍首鏡，其據不在其人之名位，而在此一口義之所從來。

Where the Kośa Record 〔T41n1821〕 that this edition draws on came from, the biography states exactly: "Xuanzang, dissatisfied with the old translation of the Kośa as doctrinally deficient" 〔T50n2061 0727a09〕, "obtained the Sanskrit himself and translated the true text anew, and passed it privately to Puguang" 〔T50n2061 0727a09〕, and what he passed on was "much of it the oral teaching of the Sarvāstivāda masters of western India as he remembered it" 〔T50n2061 0727a10〕 — not a written text but the oral sense Xuanzang carried in memory. "From this Puguang wrote his commentary, explaining and adjudicating" 〔T50n2061 0727a11〕. That the Record stands first among this edition's Kośa mirrors rests not on his standing but on where that oral sense came from.

奘師譯業二十載，出經律論七十五部一千三百三十五卷，而本傳記其中「十分七八是光筆受」〔T50n2061 0727a16〕。生卒之年本傳不著一字，本編如實標不詳，不代為補。

Xuanzang's twenty years of translation brought out seventy-five works of sūtra, vinaya and śāstra in 1,335 fascicles, of which the biography says "seven or eight parts in ten were taken down by Puguang's brush" 〔T50n2061 0727a16〕. Of his dates the life says nothing at all, and this edition marks them honestly as unknown rather than supplying them.