In Wei,[89] during the period Hwang-khu (220-226) the Chinese first observed the Buddhist precepts, shaved their heads, and became Sang—i. e. monks.
Even before this, a Shâman of the Western regions had come here and translated the Hsiâo-pin Sûtra—i. e. the Sûtra of Smaller Matters (Khudda-kanikâya?)—but the head and tail of it were contradictory, so that it could not be understood.
In the period Kan-lû (256-259), Kû-shi-hsing (Chu-shuh-lan, in Beal's “Catalogue”) went to the West as far as Khoten, and obtained a Sûtra in ninety sections, with which he came back to Yéh, in the Tsin period of Yüen-khang (291-299), and translated it (with Dharmaraksha) under the title of “Light-emitting Pragnâ-pâramitâ Sûtra.”[90]
In the period Thai-shi (265-274), under the Western Tsin (265-316), Kû-fâ-hu[91] (Dharmaraksha), a Shâman of the Yüeh-ki, travelled through the various kingdoms of the West, and brought a large collection of books home to Lo, where he translated them. It is stated in the Catalogue of the Great Kau, an interlude [pg 197] in the dynasty of Thang (690-705 A. D.), that in the seventh year of the period Thai-khang (286) he translated King-fa-hwa—i. e. the Saddharma-pundarîka (Beal, “Catalogue,” p. 14).[92]
About 300 A. D. Ki-kung-ming translated the Wei-ma (Vimala-kîrtti) and Fa-hwa (Saddharma-pundarîka).[93]
In 335 the prince of the Khau kingdom (during the Tsin dynasty) permitted his subjects to become Shâmans, influenced chiefly by Buddhasimha.[94]
In the time of the rebel Shih-leh, 330-333, during the Tsin dynasty, a Shâman Wei-tao-an, or Tao-an, of Khang-shan, studied Buddhist literature under Buddhasimha. He produced a more correct translation of the Vimala-kîrtti-sûtra (and Saddharma-pundarîka), and taught it widely; but as he was not an original translator, his name is not mentioned in the K'ai-yuen-lu. On account of political troubles, Tâo-an led his disciples southward, to Hsin-ye, and dispatched them to different quarters—Fâ-shang to Yang-kâu, Fâ-hwa to Shû—while he himself, with Wei-yüan, went to Hsiang-yang and Khang-an. Here Fu-khien, the sovereign of the Fûs, who about 350 had got possession of Khang-an, resisting the authority of the Tsin, and establishing the dynasty of the Former Khin, received him with distinction. It was at the wish of Tâo-an that Fu-khien invited Kumâragîva to Khang-an; but when, after a long delay, Kumâragîva arrived there, in the second year of the [pg 198] period Hung-shi (400 A. D.), under Yâo-hsing, who, in 394, had succeeded Yâo-khang,[95] the founder of the After Khin dynasty, Tâo-an had been dead already twenty years. His corrected translations, however, were approved by Kumâragîva.
This Kumâragîva marks a new period of great activity in the translation of Buddhist texts. He is said to have come from Ku-tsi, in Tibet, where the Emperor Yâo-hsing (397-415) sent for him. Among his translations are mentioned the Wei-ma or Vima-la-kîrtti-sûtra (Beal's “Catalogue,” p. 17); the Saddharma-pundarîka (Beal's “Catalogue,” p. 15); the Satyasiddha-vyâkarana sâstra (Beal's “Catalogue,” p. 80). He was a contemporary of the great traveller, Fa-hian, who went from Khang-an to India, travelled through more than thirty states, and came back to Nanking in 414, to find the Emperor Yâo-hsing overturned by the Eastern Tsin dynasty. He was accompanied by the Indian contemplationist, Buddha-bhadra.[96] Buddhabhadra translated the Fa-yan-king, the Buddhâvatamsaka-vaipulya-sûtra (Beal's “Catalogue,” p. 9), and he and Fa-hian together, the Mo-ho-sang-ki-liu—i. e. the Vinaya of the Mahâsaṅghika school (Beal, “Catalogue,” p. 68).
Another Shâman who travelled to India about the same time was Ki-mang, of Hsin-fang, a district city [pg 199] of Kâo-khang. In 419, in the period Yüan-hsi, he went as far as Pâtali-putra, where he obtained the Nirvana-sûtra, and the Saṅghika, a book of discipline.[97] After his return to Kâo-khang he translated the Nirvâna-sûtra in twenty sections.
Afterwards the Indian Shâman Dharmaraksha II.[98] brought other copies of the foreign MSS. to the West of the Ho. And Tsü-khü Mung-sun, the king of North Liang, sent messengers to Kâo-khang for the copy which Ki-mang had brought, wishing to compare the two.[99]