僧叡

「釋僧叡，魏郡長樂人也。少樂出家，至年十八，始獲從志」〔T50n2059 0364a14〕，依投僧賢法師為弟子。「什後至關，因請出《禪法要》三卷」〔T50n2059 0364a22〕——請譯者是他。姚興勅見之時公卿皆集欲觀其才器，「興大賞悅，即勅給俸䘏吏力人輿」〔T50n2059 0364a28〕；其後「姚興命肇與僧叡等入逍遙園，助詳定經論」〔T50n2059 0365a21〕。

"Sengrui was a man of Changle in Wei commandery. From his youth he delighted in leaving the household life, and at eighteen he was at last able to follow that resolve" 〔T50n2059 0364a14〕, taking refuge with the Dharma master Sengxian as his disciple. "Kumārajīva came into the pass later, and Sengrui thereupon asked him to bring out the Essentials of the Method of Meditation in three fascicles" 〔T50n2059 0364a22〕 — the request was his. When Yao Xing summoned him by edict the ministers all assembled to see the measure of his gifts, and "Yao Xing was greatly pleased and at once ordered him a stipend, an allowance, clerks, attendants and a sedan" 〔T50n2059 0364a28〕; afterwards "Yao Xing ordered Zhao and Sengrui and the others into the Xiaoyao Park to help settle the scriptures and treatises in detail" 〔T50n2059 0365a21〕.

他在羅什譯場之役，本傳一語括之：「什所翻經，叡並參正」〔T50n2059 0364b02〕。什亦有一語相酬：「吾傳譯經論，得與子相值，真無所恨矣」〔T50n2059 0364b10〕。其所著者不是論而是序：「著《大智論》、《十二門論》、《中論》等諸序」〔T50n2059 0364b11〕，并大小《品》、《法華》、《維摩》諸序，皆傳於世。本編所取者即其中二篇——《中論》卷首之序與〈十二門論序〉；三論二帙之讀者，先讀到的是他的字。

His part in Kumārajīva's bureau the life sums in a phrase: "in all the scriptures Kumārajīva translated, Sengrui took part in the correcting" 〔T50n2059 0364b02〕. Kumārajīva had a phrase in return: "in all my transmitting and translating of scriptures and treatises, to have met with you leaves me truly with nothing to regret" 〔T50n2059 0364b10〕. What he wrote was not treatises but prefaces: "he wrote the prefaces to the Great Treatise on Wisdom, the Twelve Gate Treatise, the Treatise on the Middle and others" 〔T50n2059 0364b11〕, and to the larger and smaller Prajñā recensions, the Lotus and the Vimalakīrti besides, all transmitted in the world. Two of them are taken up in this edition — the preface standing at the head of the Middle Treatise and the preface to the Twelve Gate Treatise; a reader of those two editions meets his words first.

「是日同寺咸見五色香烟從叡房出，春秋六十七矣」〔T50n2059 0364b20〕——有世壽而無卒年。無卒年則無從逆推，故本編於其生卒如實標不詳，不代為補；era 欄以其在譯場之位繫之。

"That day the whole monastery saw five-coloured fragrant smoke issuing from Sengrui's cell. He was in his sixty-seventh year" 〔T50n2059 0364b20〕 — an age at death but no year of death. Without the year there is nothing to reckon back from, so this edition marks his dates honestly as unknown rather than supplying them, and fixes his era by his place in the translation bureau instead.