支謙

僧祐《出三藏記集》卷十三為支謙立傳，起首云「支謙。字恭明。一名越。大月支人也」〔T55n2145 0097b14〕，「祖父法度。以漢靈帝世。率國人數百歸化」〔T55n2145 0097b14〕——則其人生於漢地，非自西域來者。傳中先記一事：年七歲騎竹馬戲於鄰家，為狗所嚙，脛骨傷碎，鄰人欲殺狗取肝以傅其瘡，越止之曰「天生此物為人守吠。若不往君舍狗終不見嚙」〔T55n2145 0097b17〕，罪在己不在狗，殺之於己無益而空招大罪。「由是村人數十家感其言。悉不復殺生」〔T55n2145 0097b21〕。次記其學：「十歲學書。同時學者皆伏其聰敏。十三學胡書。備通六國語」〔T55n2145 0097b22〕。

Sengyou's Collected Records on the Making of the Tripiṭaka, fascicle thirteen, gives Zhi Qian a life which opens: "Zhi Qian, styled Gongming, also named Yue, was a man of the Greater Yuezhi" 〔T55n2145 0097b14〕; "his grandfather Fadu, in the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han, led several hundred of his countrymen to submit" 〔T55n2145 0097b14〕 — so he was born in the Chinese lands and did not come from the Western Regions. The life records one incident first. At seven, riding a bamboo horse at play in a neighbour's house, he was bitten by a dog and the bone of his shin was broken; the neighbours wished to kill the dog and take its liver to dress the wound, but Yue stopped them, saying, "Heaven made this creature to keep watch and bark for men. Had I not gone to your house the dog would never have bitten me" 〔T55n2145 0097b17〕 — the fault was his own and not the dog's; to kill it would bring him no benefit and would draw down a great offence for nothing. "At this some tens of households in the village were moved by his words, and none of them killed living things again" 〔T55n2145 0097b21〕. Then his learning: "At ten he studied writing, and those who studied beside him all yielded to his quickness. At thirteen he studied foreign script, and came to command the languages of six nations" 〔T55n2145 0097b22〕.

其學脈所承，二錄之文有異。祐錄底本作「初桓靈世。支謙譯出法典。有支亮紀明資學於讖。謙又受業於亮」〔T55n2145 0097b23〕（底本此字作謙，宋、元、明三本作讖，照錄不改）；高僧傳卷一同處則作「初，漢桓、靈之世，有支讖譯出眾經」〔T50n2059 0325a19〕。時人稱其形貌之語，二錄亦一字之差：祐錄「支郎眼中黃。形體雖細是智囊」〔T55n2145 0097b27〕，僧傳「支郎眼中黃，形軀雖細是智囊」〔T50n2059 0325a24〕。獻帝末漢室大亂，謙與鄉人數十奔吳；初發之夜，有客同宿而奪其被去，同侶問之，答曰「豈宜以一被而殺一人乎」〔T55n2145 0097c04〕——與七歲時不殺狗者，同一心也。

On the line of his learning the two records differ in their text. The Records read, in the Taishō base text, "In the early years of Huan and Ling, Zhi Qian brought out and translated the canonical texts. There was Zhi Liang, styled Jiming, who took his learning from Chen, and Qian in turn received instruction from Liang" 〔T55n2145 0097b23〕 (the base text has 謙, Qian, here; the Song, Yuan and Ming editions read 讖, Chen — set down as it stands, unaltered). The Lives, fascicle one, at the same place read, "In the early days, in the age of Huan and Ling of the Han, there was Zhi Chen, who brought out and translated many scriptures" 〔T50n2059 0325a19〕. The saying of his contemporaries about his looks likewise differs by a single character: the Records, "Master Zhi has yellow in his eyes; his frame is slight but he is a bag of wits" 〔T55n2145 0097b27〕; the Lives, "Master Zhi has yellow in his eyes; his body is slight but he is a bag of wits" 〔T50n2059 0325a24〕. At the end of Emperor Xian's reign, when the Han house fell into disorder, Qian fled to Wu with some tens of his countrymen. On the first night out a fellow traveller who shared his blanket carried it off; when his companions asked after it, he answered, "How should one man be killed over a single blanket?" 〔T55n2145 0097c04〕 — the same heart that at seven would not have the dog killed.

孫權聞其博學有才慧，召見而拜為博士，使輔導東宮。其所以起而譯經之故，祐錄記之甚明：「越以大教雖行而經多胡文莫有解者。既善華戎之語。乃收集眾本。譯為漢言」〔T55n2145 0097c08〕。所出之數，二錄不同：祐錄云「從黃武元年。至建興中。所出維摩詰大般泥洹法句瑞應本起等二十七經曲得聖義辭旨文雅」〔T55n2145 0097c10〕；僧傳云「所出《維摩》、《大般泥洹》、《法句》、《瑞應本起》等四十九經，曲得聖義，辭旨文雅」〔T50n2059 0325b01〕。二十七與四十九，並錄不判。本編所譯《佛說維摩詰經》即在其列。支慜度〈合首楞嚴經記〉評其譯風曰：「越才學深徹內外備通。以季世尚文時好簡略。故其出經頗從文麗」〔T55n2145 0049a25〕，然又曰：「然其屬辭析理。文而不越。約而義顯真可謂深入者也」〔T55n2145 0049a26〕。文麗而不越其實，簡約而義自顯——此即支謙一系譯本之體。

Sun Quan, hearing of his wide learning and his wit, summoned him, appointed him Erudite, and set him to tutor the heir apparent. Why he took up translation the Records state plainly: "Yue considered that although the great teaching was current, the scriptures were mostly in foreign script and none could construe them. Being himself skilled in both the Chinese and the foreign tongue, he gathered the various texts and rendered them into Chinese speech" 〔T55n2145 0097c08〕. The count of what he brought out differs between the two records: the Records say, "From the first year of Huangwu to the middle of the Jianxing years he brought out the Vimalakīrti, the Great Parinirvāṇa, the Dharmapada, the Auspicious Response and the rest, twenty-seven scriptures in all, catching the holy meaning in its turnings, elegant in diction and sense" 〔T55n2145 0097c10〕; the Lives say, "he brought out the Vimalakīrti, the Great Parinirvāṇa, the Dharmapada, the Auspicious Response and the rest, forty-nine scriptures in all, catching the holy meaning in its turnings, elegant in diction and sense" 〔T50n2059 0325b01〕. Twenty-seven and forty-nine: both are recorded, neither adjudicated. The Vimalakīrti Sūtra rendered in this edition stands among them. Zhi Mindu, in his Note on the Combined Heroic March, judged his manner thus: "Yue's talent and learning ran deep, and he was versed both within and without. Because the age was late and prized letters, and the taste of the time ran to concision, the scriptures he brought out inclined rather to literary grace" 〔T55n2145 0049a25〕; yet he added, "still, in his ordering of words and his parsing of sense he is literary without overstepping, terse and yet the meaning stands out — he may truly be called one who entered deeply" 〔T55n2145 0049a26〕. Graceful without overstepping the substance, spare and yet the sense plain: this is the style of the Zhi Qian line of translations.

「後太子登位。遂隱於穹隘山。不交世務」〔T55n2145 0097c13〕，從竺法蘭道人更練五戒，所與遊者皆沙門而已。「後卒於山中。春秋六十」〔T55n2145 0097c15〕。吳主孫亮與眾僧書曰：「支恭明不救所疾。其業履冲素始終可高」〔T55n2145 0097c17〕，為之惻愴不能已已。傳唯記其春秋六十，而不繫生卒之年，故本編如實標不詳，不代為補。

After the heir apparent took the throne: "When the crown prince ascended, he withdrew to Mount Qiong'ai and had no dealings with the affairs of the age" 〔T55n2145 0097c13〕, taking up again the five precepts under the monk Zhu Falan, and keeping company with none but śramaṇas. "Afterwards he died in the mountains, in his sixtieth year" 〔T55n2145 0097c15〕. Sun Liang, lord of Wu, wrote to the assembly of monks: "Zhi Gongming was not saved from his illness. His conduct and practice were pure and unassuming, and from first to last may be held high" 〔T55n2145 0097c17〕, and grieved for him without ceasing. The life gives only his sixtieth year and fixes no dates of birth or death; this edition therefore marks them honestly as unknown and does not supply them.