Spreading the Law, part one — the discourse and the roll of names流通一之一
1Gakhun, a monk of Yeongtongsa, composed this by royal command
〔京北五冠山靈通寺住持教學賜紫沙門〔臣〕覺訓奉宣撰〕
〔The abbot of Yeongtongsa on Mount Ogwan north of the capital, teacher of the doctrine (教學), a monk granted the purple robe, 〔the subject〕 Gakhun, composed this by royal command.〕
2Discourse — how the teaching born in the west reached the eastern end
論曰：夫佛陀之為教也。性相常住。悲願洪深。窮三際。遍十方。雨露以潤之。雷霆以鼓之。不行而至。不疾而速。五目不能覩其容。四辯莫能談其狀。其體也無去無來。其用也有生有滅。故我釋迦如來。從兜率天。乘栴檀樓閣。入摩耶胎。以周昭王甲寅四月初八日。遂開右脇。生於淨飯王宮。其夜五色光氣入貫大微。通於西方。昭王問太史蘇由。曰。有大聖人。生於西方。問利害。曰。此時無他。一千年後。聲教被此土焉。始處宮中。亦同世俗。粵四十二年甲申四月八日。佛年三十。踰城出家。遂坐樹成道。轉法利生。如優曇花時一現耳。初說華嚴。次說小乘。或般若．深密。或法華．涅槃。隨機普被。任器方圓。其猶一風而萬竅齊號。孤月而千江皆現。四十九年度脫群品。列子所謂西方有聖人者是也。是時文殊與目連為化人亦𫐨子震旦。佛年七十九。以穆王壬申二月十五日入滅於瓊林。白虹十二道。連夜不滅。王問太史扈多。曰。西方大聖人方滅度耳。於是阿難等結集金言。具載貝牒。經律論戒定慧。爰方啟行。然雜華恒常之說。隱入于虬宮。邪宗蚢肆。異部蛙鳴。既而馬鳴屹起挺生。及陳那護法唱之和之。推邪現正。演義申宗。廣大悉備乎西域。將有待而東驅矣。自佛滅一百十六年。東天竺國阿育王收佛舍利。役使鬼兵。散起八萬四千寶塔。遍閻浮提。時當周敬王二十六年丁未也。塔興周世。經二十二王。至秦始皇三十四年。焚燒典籍。育王寶塔由是隱亡。當是時。沙門利方。十八賢者。賚持佛經。來化咸陽。秦始皇不從而囚之。夜有金剛丈人。破獄出之而去。蓋機緣未熟故也及後漢永平十二年。摩騰．竺法蘭．來儀漢庭。慈雲布於九州。法雨灑於四海。然按霍去病傳云。得休屠王祭天金人。則像設似先入於沙漠矣。又前漢哀帝時。秦景使月氏國。來傳浮屠經教。乃知前漢已行。六十三年而後明帝方感金人夢耳。若我海東。則高句麗解味留王時。順道至平壤城。繼有摩羅難陀。從晉來千百濟國。則枕流王代也。後於新羅第二十三法興王踐祚．梁大通元年丁未三月十一日。阿道來止一善縣。因信士毛禮隱焉。屬有吳使者。香道指其焚點之儀。由是延致王宮。然其教未闡。舍人厭髑。赤心面內勇決國人之疑。噫微夫子吾當從何教也。自爾圓光慈藏之徒。西入傳法。上下信敬。內外奉行。先呼而後應。日益而月增。遂使於三韓及我聖祖葦舊鼎尤尊佛教。凡制度多用佛教。守文繼體之君。傳而不失。惟大祖四代孫大覺國師。於宣王三年乙丑四月。航海求法。東至于洋。導其百派大小始終頓圓之五教。各得其所。復歸于正。然源乎周．派乎漢。汪洋於晉魏。汗漫於隋唐。波之於宋。而淵沄於海東也。都算．佛入滅至今乙亥。二千一百六十四年。滅後第一千一十四年。入後漢至今一千一百五十一年。自順道入句高麗至今八百四十四年矣。且道不自弘。弘之由人。故著流通篇以示于後。按古梁唐宋三高僧傳皆有譯經。以我本朝無翻譯之事故。不存此科也。
A discourse says:
Now this is what the teaching of the Buddha is. Its nature (性) and its form (相) abide forever. Its pitying vow (願) is broad and deep. It fills out the three times (三際) and reaches through the ten directions. It moistens them with rain and dew and stirs them with thunder. It does not go, yet it arrives; it does not hurry, yet it is swift. The five eyes cannot see its face, and the four kinds of eloquence cannot tell its shape. In its body there is no going and no coming; in its working there is arising and there is passing away.
Therefore our Shakyamuni Tathagata came from the Tushita Heaven, rode a sandalwood pavilion, and entered the womb of Lady Maya. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the year gapin, under King Zhao of Zhou, he opened his right side at last and was born in the palace of King Suddhodana. That night a light of five colours (光氣) pierced the Taiwei constellation and reached through to the west. King Zhao asked his grand scribe Su You (蘇由), who said, "A great holy man has been born in the west." He asked whether it was for good or for ill, and the answer was, "At this time there is nothing else. A thousand years hence his voice and his teaching will reach this land."
At first he stayed in the palace and was like the people of the world. In the forty-second year of King Zhao, the year gapsin, on the eighth day of the fourth month, when the Buddha was thirty, he crossed the wall and left his home. Then he sat beneath a tree and attained the way, and he turned the wheel of the Law and brought profit to living beings, as the udumbara flower opens once when its time has come. First he spoke the Flower Garland, next he spoke the Lesser Vehicle; at times he spoke the Perfection of Wisdom and the Profound Secrets, at times the Lotus and the Nirvana. He clothed them all alike according to their root capacity, and took shape square or round according to the vessel. It was as when one wind sets ten thousand hollows crying at once, and as when a lone moon shows itself in a thousand rivers. For forty-nine years he carried the many kinds across. This is what the Liezi means when it says, "In the west there is a holy man." At this time Manjushri and Maudgalyayana took the shape of men and went to Zhendan (震旦) as well.
When the Buddha was seventy-nine, on the fifteenth day of the second month of the year imsin, under King Mu, he entered nirvana at Qionglin (瓊林). Twelve bands of white rainbow did not fade all the night through. The king asked his grand scribe Hu Duo (扈多), who said, "A great holy man of the west has just now passed away." Then Ananda and the rest gathered the golden words and set them down in full on palm leaves; and the sutras (經), the rules (律) and the treatises (論), precept (戒), stillness (定) and wisdom (慧) opened their road for the first time.
But the ever-abiding word of the Mixed Flowers (雜華) hid itself away in the dragon's palace (虬宮), and false schools (宗) ran wild and split sects (部) croaked like frogs. Then Ashvaghosha (馬鳴) rose up alone, and Dignaga (陳那) and Dharmapala (護法) called and answered each other, pushing the false away and showing forth the true, unfolding the meaning and setting up the doctrine. Broad and great, it was all complete in the Western Regions, and it waited only for its time to run eastward.
In the one hundred and sixteenth year after the Buddha passed away, King Ashoka of the country of East India gathered up the Buddha's relics, set the armies of spirits to work, and raised eighty-four thousand jewelled stupas scattered everywhere through Jambudvipa. The time was the year jeongmi, the twenty-sixth year of King Jing of Zhou. The stupas arose in the age of Zhou and passed through twenty-two kings. When it came to the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shi Huang, he burned the books, and from this the jewelled stupas of King Ashoka were hidden away and lost. At that time the monk Lifang (利方) and eighteen worthy men carried the sutras of the Buddha and came to Xianyang to teach; but Qin Shi Huang would not follow them and shut them up. In the night there was a diamond giant who broke the prison, brought them out and went away. It was because the occasion was not yet ripe.
When it came to the twelfth year of Yongping under the Later Han, Moteng (摩騰) and Zhu Falan (竺法蘭) came in state to the court of Han. The cloud of pity spread over the nine provinces and the rain of the Law was sprinkled over the four seas. Yet the life of Huo Qubing says that he took the golden man (金人) to whom the king of Xiutu used to sacrifice to heaven; so it seems that images of the Buddha entered the desert first. Again, in the time of Emperor Ai of the Former Han, Qin Jing (秦景) went as envoy to the country of Yuezhi and brought back and passed on the scriptures and teaching (經教) of the Buddha (浮屠). From this we know that it was already practised under the Former Han, and that only sixty-three years later did Emperor Ming dream of the golden man.
As for our Haedong: in the time of King Haemiryu of Goguryeo, Sundo came to Pyeongyangseong; then Malananta came from Jin to the country of Baekje, and that was in the reign of King Chimnyu. Later, after King Beopheung, the twenty-third of Silla, ascended the throne, on the eleventh day of the third month of the first year of Datong of Liang, the year jeongmi, Ado came and stayed in Ilseon county and hid in the house of Morye, a believer. There happened to be an envoy of Wu, and he told them of the incense and of the way (道), of how to burn it and how to mark with it; and by this he was brought into the royal palace. Yet his teaching was not yet made plain when Yeomchok (厭髑), who held the office of sain (舍人), turned his red heart inward and cut off the doubt of the people of the country with courage. Ah, had it not been for that man, what should I have followed?
From then on Wongwang, Jajang and their like went west and passed the Law on. High and low believed and revered it, and within and without upheld and practised it; when one called in front another answered behind, and it grew day by day and swelled month by month. At last it came to the Three Han and to our Sagely Ancestor (聖祖), who carried on the old ways and honoured the teaching of the Buddha still more. In most of the institutions the teaching of the Buddha was much used, and the kings who kept the writings and carried on the line handed it down and did not lose it. The State Preceptor Daegak, a descendant of Taejo in the fourth generation, in the fourth month of the third year of King Seon, the year eulchuk, crossed the sea to seek the Law and came east to the great ocean. He led the five teachings — the hundred streams, the great and the small, the first and the last, the sudden (頓) and the round (圓) — so that each found its own place and all came back again to what is right.
So it had its source in Zhou and branched in Han, spread wide in Jin (晉) and Wei (魏), ran far in Sui and Tang, made waves in Song, and then swirled deep in Haedong.
Counting it all up: from the Buddha's entering nirvana to this present year eulhae is two thousand one hundred and sixty-four years. In the one thousand and fourteenth year after he passed away it entered the Later Han, and from then to now is one thousand one hundred and fifty-one years. From Sundo's entering Goguryeo to now is eight hundred and forty-four years.
Again, the way does not spread itself; its spreading comes by men. Therefore I have made the chapter on Spreading the Law, to show it to those who come after. I note that the three old Lives of Eminent Monks, of Liang (梁), Tang (唐) and Song (宋), all have the heading Translating the Sutras (譯經); but in our own dynasty there has been no work of translating, and so I do not keep that heading.
3Those set down in book one
順道 亡名 義淵 昙始 摩羅難陀 阿道〔黑胡子元表〕 玄彰 法空 法雲
Sundo (順道) Mangmyeong (亡名) Uiyeon (義淵) Damsi (曇始) Malananta (摩羅難陀) Ado (阿道)〔Heukhoja·Wonpyo〕 Hyeonchang (玄彰) Beopgong (法空) Beopun (法雲)