Uiyeon義淵
1Uiyeon goes to Ye (鄴) and asks Fashang about the years of the Buddha
釋義淵。句高麗人也。世系緣致咸莫聞也。自隷剃染。善守律儀。慧解淵深。見聞泓博。兼得儒玄。為一時道俗所歸。性愛傳法。意在宣通。以無上法寶．光顯實難。未辨所因。聞．前齊定國寺沙門法上。戒山慧海。肅物範人。歷跨齊世為都統。所部僧尼不減二百萬。而上綱紀將四十年。當文宣時盛弘釋典。內外闡揚。黑白咸允。景行既彰。逸響遐被。是時句高麗大聖相王高德。乃深懷正信。崇重大乘。欲以釋風被之海曲。然莫測其始末緣由．自西徂東年世帝代。故件錄事條。遣淵乘帆向鄴。啟發未聞。其略曰：釋迦文佛。入涅槃來。至今幾年。又在天竺。經歷幾年。方到漢地。初到何帝。年號是何。又齊陳佛法誰先從爾。至今歷幾年帝。請乞具注。其十地．智度．地持．金剛般若等諸論本。誰述作著論。緣起靈瑞所由有傳記不。謹錄諮審。請垂釋疑。上答云。佛以姬周昭王二十四年甲寅歲生。十九出家。三十成道。當穆王二十四年癸未。王聞西方有化人出。便即西入。至竟不還。以此為驗。四十九年在世。滅度至今齊世武平七年丙申。凡一千四百六十五年。後漢明帝永平。經法初來。魏晉相傳。吳孫權赤烏年。康僧會適吳。方弘教法。地持阿僧伽比丘從彌勒菩薩受得其本。至晉安帝隆安年。曇摩讖於姑藏為河西王沮渠蒙遜譯。摩訶衍論．是龍樹菩薩造。晉隆安年。鳩摩什波至長安為姚興譯。十地論金剛般若論。竝是僧佉弟波藪槃豆造。至魏宣武帝時。菩提留支始翻。上答指證。由緣甚廣。今略舉要。淵服膺善誘。博通幽奧。辯高灸輠。理究連環。曩日舊疑。煥然氷釋。今茲妙義。朗若霞開。西承慧日。東注法源。望懸金不刊。傳群玉而無朽。所謂苦海津濟。法門梁棟者。其惟吾師乎。既返國揄揚大慧。導誘群迷。義貫古今。英聲藉甚。自非天質火拔。世道相資。何以致如斯之極哉。史不敘所終。故不書
The monk Uiyeon (義淵) was a man of Goguryeo. Of his family line and how he came to this, nothing at all is heard. From the time he shaved his head and put on the dyed robe he kept the rules of discipline well; his wise understanding was deep and what he had seen and heard was wide. He took in the learning of the Confucians and the dark learning as well, and became the one to whom the men of the way and the men of the world of his day turned and leaned.
By nature he loved to pass the Law on, and his mind was set on spreading it through. But the jewel of the Law, which is above all, is truly hard to bring to light, and he could not make out what it rested upon. He heard that Fashang (法上), a monk of Dingguo Monastery (定國寺) in the Qi (齊) of an earlier day, was a mountain in discipline and a sea in wisdom, stern with things and a pattern to men; that across the whole age of Qi he was the Superintendent (都統), and the monks and nuns under him were not fewer than two million, and that Fashang held their reins for nearly forty years. In the time of Emperor Wenxuan he spread the Buddhist canon in full measure and made it shine within and without, and black robes and white robes alike looked up to him. His great conduct was plain already, and his outstanding echo reached far.
At this time Godeok (高德), the great chancellor-king (大丞相王) of Goguryeo, held right belief deep in him and honoured the Great Vehicle, and he wished to cover the corner of the sea with the wind of the Buddha. But he could not make out the beginning and the end of how it came, nor the years and the generations and the reigns of its passing from west to east. So he set the matters down item by item and put Uiyeon on a ship to Ye (鄴), to ask about what had not been heard.
The gist of it was this. "How many years is it now since Shakyamuni the Buddha entered nirvana? And how many years was he in India, and at what time did he reach the land of Han? Under which emperor did he first arrive, and what was the era name? Again, in Qi and in Chen, with whom did the Law of the Buddha first begin, and how many reigns have passed down to now? I beg you to set it down in full. As for the several treatises such as the Ten Stages, the Great Wisdom, the Holding of the Ground and the Diamond Perfection of Wisdom, who composed their originals, and is there any record of how the treatises came to be written and of the marvellous omens they came by? I set this down and ask with respect. I beg you to loosen my doubt."
Fashang answered, "The Buddha was born in the year gapin, the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou. At nineteen he left his home, and at thirty he attained the way, which falls in the twenty-fourth year of King Mu, the year gyemi. The king heard that a transformed man (化人) had appeared in the west, and went west at once and in the end did not return; this is taken as the proof of it. He was in the world forty-nine years. From his passing away to this seventh year of Wuping of Qi, the year byeongsin, is one thousand four hundred and sixty-five years in all.
"Under Emperor Ming of the Later Han, in Yongping, the scriptures and the Law first came, and Wei and Jin passed them on one to another. In the Chiwu year of Sun Quan of Wu, Kang Senghui went to Wu and there first spread the teaching of the Law. As for the Holding of the Ground, the monk Asanga received its original from the bodhisattva Maitreya, and in the Long'an years of Emperor An of Jin, Dharmaksema translated it at Guzang (姑臧) for Juqu Mengxun, the king of Hexi. The Treatise of the Great Vehicle was composed by the bodhisattva Nagarjuna, and in the Long'an years of Jin, Kumarajiva came to Chang'an and translated it for Yao Xing. The Treatise on the Ten Stages and the Treatise on the Diamond Perfection of Wisdom were both composed by Vasubandhu, the younger brother of Sengqie (僧佉), and it was when the time of Emperor Xuanwu of Wei came that Bodhiruci first translated them."
What Fashang answered and pointed to in proof was very wide in its grounds; here only the essential is taken up in brief.
Uiyeon set it in his breast and was well led on, and he came to understand widely even what is hidden and deep. His speech was high and ran as though oiled; he searched the reasons out and linked them like rings. The old doubts of former days melted clean away like ice, and the fine meanings of the present grew bright as when a mist lifts. He took over the sun of wisdom in the west and poured out the spring of the Law in the east; one may hope that, unworn as hanging metal, he handed on a company of jades that will not rot. What is called the ferry over the sea of suffering and the roof-beam of the gate of the Law — is that not our master alone? When he came back to his country he made his great wisdom shine out and drew on the many who were lost, and his meaning ran through old and new, and his outstanding name was on every tongue. Had his heaven-given stuff not been of the finest, and had the way of the age not helped it along, how could he have come to such a height as this? The histories do not tell how he ended, and so it is not written.
2In praise — what Fashang gave by word of mouth is taken as the compass
贊曰：佛生年月日傳記互出。理難一定。然淵親承法上口授而來。乃與唐法琳辨正論所據若合符節。當以此為指南。然鉅儒吳世文援引古文特啟異論。致有問對。雖辭旨煩麗。亦不足憑也。
In praise it is said:
The year and the month and the day of the Buddha's birth come out differently in each record, and it is hard to fix on one by reasoning. But what Uiyeon received by word of mouth from Fashang himself and brought back matches, as the two halves of a tally match, what the Treatise on Setting Things Right by Falin of Tang takes as its ground; and this should be made the compass. The great scholar O Semun (吳世文) drew in old writings and put forward a strangely different argument, and there was question and answer over it; but the words and the drift of them are many and showy, and it too is not to be leaned on.