Kumārajīva

Kumārajīva
The Statue of Kumārajīva in front of the Kizil Caves in Kuqa County, Xinjiang, China
Born	344 CE Kucha Kingdom (now Kuqa, China)
Died	413 CE Chang'an, (Later) Qin (now Xi'an, China)
Occupation(s)	Buddhist monk, scholar, translator, and philosopher
Known for	Translation of Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit to Chinese, founder of the Sanlun school of Mahayana Buddhism

Kumārajīva (Sanskrit, simplified Chinese: 鸠摩罗什; traditional Chinese: 鳩摩羅什; pinyin: Jiūmóluóshí; Wade–Giles: Chiu¹ mo² lo² shih², 344–413 CE) was a Buddhist monk, scholar, missionary and translator from the Kingdom of Kucha (present-day Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China). Kumārajīva is seen as one of the greatest translators of Chinese Buddhism. According to Lu Cheng, Kumarajiva's translations are "unparalleled either in terms of translation technique or degree of fidelity".

Kumārajīva first studied teachings of the Sarvastivadin schools, later studied under Buddhasvāmin, and finally became an adherent of Mahayana Buddhism, studying the Mādhyamaka doctrine of Nāgārjuna. After mastering the Chinese language, Kumārajīva settled as a translator and scholar in Chang'an (c. 401 CE). He was the head of a team of translators which included his amanuensis Sengrui. This team was responsible for the translation of many Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese.

Kumārajīva also introduced the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy into China which would later be called Sanlun (the "Three Treatise school").

Life

Family and background

Kumārajīva's father Kumārāyana was from ancient India, probably from present-day Kashmir, and his mother was a Kuchan princess and devout Buddhist who significantly influenced his early studies. His grandfather Ta-to is supposed to have had a great reputation. His father became a monk, left Kashmir, crossed the Pamir Mountains and arrived in Kucha, where he became the royal priest. The sister of the king, Jīva, also known as Jīvaka, married him and they produced Kumārajīva. Jīvaka joined the Tsio-li nunnery, north of Kucha, when Kumārajīva was just seven.

Childhood and education

When his mother Jīvaka joined the Tsio-li nunnery, Kumārajīva was just seven but is said to have already committed many texts and sutras to memory. He proceeded to learn Sarvastivada Abhidharma, and after two years, at the age of nine, he was taken to Kashmir by his mother to be better educated under Bandhudatta. There he studied Dīrgha Āgama, Madhyama Āgama and the Kṣudraka, before returning with his mother three years later. On his return via Tokharestan and Kashgar, an arhat predicted that he had a bright future and would introduce many people to Buddhism. Kumārajīva stayed in Kashgar for a year, ordaining the two princely sons of Tsan-kiun (himself the son of the king of Yarkand) and studying the Abhidharma Piṭaka of the Sarvastivada under the Kashmirian Buddhayaśa, as well as the four Vedas, five sciences, Brahmanical sacred texts, astronomy. He studied mainly Āgama and Sarvastivada doctrines at this time.

Kumārajīva left Kashgar with his mother Jīvaka at age 12, and traveled to Turpan, the north-eastern limit of the kingdom of Kucha, which was home to more than 10,000 monks. Somewhere around this time, he encountered the master Suryasoma, who instructed him in early Mahayana texts. Kumārajīva soon converted, and began studying Madhyamaka texts such as the works of Nagarjuna.

Early fame in Kucha

In Turpan his fame spread after beating a non-Buddhist (tirthika) teacher in debate, and King Po-Shui of Kucha came to Turpan to ask Kumārajīva personally to return with him to Kucha city. Kumārajīva obliged and returned to instruct the king's daughter A-kie-ye-mo-ti, who had become a nun, in the Mahāsannipāta and Avatamsaka Sutras.

At age 20, Kumārajīva was fully ordained at the king's palace, and lived in a new monastery built by king Po-Shun. Notably, he received Vimalākṣa who was his preceptor, a Sarvāstivādin monk from Kashmir, and was instructed by him in the Sarvāstivādin Vinaya Piṭaka. Kumārajīva proceeded to study the Pañcaviṁśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, one of the longer Prajñāpāramitā texts. He is known to have engaged in debates, and to have encouraged dialogue with foreign monks. Jīvaka is thought to have moved to Kashmir.

Capture, Imprisonment and Release

White Horse Pagoda, Dunhuang, commemorating Kumarajiva's white horse which carried the scriptures to China, c. 384 CE.

In 379 CE, Kumārajīva's fame reached China when a Chinese Buddhist monk named Seng Jun visited Kucha and described Kumārajīva's abilities. Efforts were then made by Emperor Fu Jian (苻堅) of the Former Qin Dynasty to bring Kumārajīva to Qin capital of Chang'an. To do this, his general Lü Guang was dispatched with an army in order to conquer Kucha and return with Kumārajīva. Fu Jian is recorded as telling his general, "Send me Kumārajīva as soon as you conquer Kucha." However, when Fu Jian's main army at the capital was defeated, his general Lü Guang declared his own state and became a warlord in 386 CE, and had Kumārajīva captured when he was around 40 years old. Being a non-Buddhist, Lü Guang had Kumārajīva imprisoned for many years, essentially as booty. During this time, it is thought that Kumārajīva became familiar with the Chinese language. Kumarajiva was also coerced by Lü into marrying the Kucha King's daughter, which resulted in his chastity vow being negated.

After the Yao family of Former Qin overthrew the previous ruler Fu Jian, the emperor Yao Xing made repeated pleas to the warlords of the Lü family to free Kumārajīva and send him east to Chang'an. When the Lü family would not free Kumārajīva from their hostage, an exasperated Yao Xing had armies dispatched to Liangzhou in order to defeat the warlords of the Lü family and to have Kumārajīva brought back to them. Finally the armies of Emperor Yao succeeded in defeating the Lü family, and Kumārajīva was brought east to the capital of Chang'an in 401 CE.

Chang'an and Translation work

At Chang'an, Kumārajīva was immediately introduced to the emperor Yao Xing, the court, and the Buddhist leaders. He was hailed as a great master from the Western regions, and immediately took up a very high position in Chinese Buddhist circles of the time, being given the title of National Teacher. Yao Xing looked upon him as his own teacher, and many young and old Chinese Buddhists flocked to him, learning both from his direct teachings and through his translation bureau activities. At Chang'an, Kumārajīva led a court sponsored translation team of scholars who worked on translating numerous Sanskrit Buddhist texts into the Chinese language. Within a dozen years, Kumārajīva's translation bureau had translated about thirty five sutras in 294 scrolls. His translations are still in use today in Chinese Buddhism. Kumarajiva had four main disciples who worked on his team: Daosheng (竺道生), Sengzhao (僧肇), Daorong (道融), and Sengrui (僧睿).

Translation

Section of the Diamond Sutra, a handwritten copy by Zhang Jizhi, based on Kumarajiva's translation from Sanskrit to Chinese.

Kumārajīva revolutionized Chinese Buddhism, in clarity and overcoming the previous "geyi" (concept-matching) system of translation through use of Daoist and Confucian terms. His translation style was distinctive, possessing a flowing smoothness that reflects his prioritization on conveying the meaning as opposed to precise literal rendering. Because of this, his renderings of seminal Mahayana texts have often remained more popular than later, more literal translations, e.g. those of Xuanzang. Sengrui had some influence on this final polished style, as the final editor of his translation works. Kumārajīva's translations were very influential on the development of Buddhist Chinese and they introduced much commonly used terminology, such as 大乘 ''dasheng'', or "greater vehicle," for the Sanskrit term Mahayana.

Kumārajīva has sometimes been regarded by both the Chinese and by western scholars as abbreviating his translations, with later translators such as Xuanzang being regarded as being more "precise." According to Jan Nattier, this is actually an erroneous and mistaken view, and the main difference was due to the earlier versions of Kumarajiva's source texts:

[W]here Kumarajiva's work can be compared with an extant Indic manuscript – that is, in those rare cases where part or all of a text he translated has survived in a Sanskrit or Prakrit version – a somewhat surprising result emerges. While his translations are indeed shorter in many instances than their extant (and much later) Sanskrit counterparts, when earlier Indic-language manuscript fragments are available they often provide exact parallels of Kumarajiva's supposed "abbreviations." What seems likely to have happened, in sum, is that Kumarajiva was working from earlier Indian versions in which these expansions had not yet taken place.

Translated texts

Among the most important sutras translated by Kumārajīva and his team are:

• Diamond Sutra,
• Amitabha Sutra,
• Lotus Sutra,
• Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra,
• Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra,

They also translated several key treatises of the Madhyamaka school, which became the central works of East Asian Madhyamaka Buddhism. These are:

• The Middle Treatise (Ch. 中論, pinyin: Zhonglun, T. 1564; Skt. Madhyamakaśāstra), comprising Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way") alongside a commentary by *Vimalākṣa / *Piṅgala (Ch. 青目, pinyin: Qingmu).

• The Treatise on the Twelve Gates (Ch. 十二門論, pinyin: Shiermenlun, T. 1568), allegedly Nāgārjuna's *Dvādaśadvāraśāstra, also reconstructed as *Dvādaśamukhaśāstra or as *Dvādaśanikāyaśāstra.

• The Hundred(-Verse) Treatise (Ch. 百論, pinyin: Bailun, T. 1569; Skt. Śatakaśāstra, or Śataśāstra), consisting of a commentary by a certain master Vasu on some verses by Āryadeva.

• "Commentary on the Great Perfection of Wisdom" (Ch. 大智度論, pinyin: Dazhidulun, T. 1509; Skt. Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa). A commentary on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra attributed to Nāgārjuna, but this attribution is disputed by some modern scholars.

See also

• Chinese Translation Theory
• Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Sources

• Chandra, Moti (1977), Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India, Abhinav Publications, ISBN 9788170170556
• Eitel, E.J.; Edkins, Joseph (1871), "Handbook for the Student of Chinese Buddhism", The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, 3, FOOCHOW.: American Presbyterian Mission Press: 217
• Kumar, Yukteshwar (2005), A History of Sino-Indian Relations, APH Publishing Corporation, ISBN 978-8176487986
• Lu, Yang (2004), "Narrative and Historicity in the Buddhist Biographies of Early Medieval China: The Case of Kumārajīva", Asia Major, Third Series, 17 (2): 1–43
• Nan, Huai-Chin (1998), Basic Buddhism: Exploring Buddhism and Zen, ISBN 978-1578630202
• Nattier, Jan (1992), "The Heart Sutra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?", Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 15 (2): 153–223
• Nattier, Jan (2005), A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā), University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0824830038
• Pollard, Elizabeth (2015), Worlds Together Worlds Apart, 500 Fifth Ave New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company Inc, p. 287, ISBN 978-0-393-91847-2{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
• Puri, B. N. (1987), Buddhism in Central Asia, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, ISBN 978-8120803725
• Singh, Upinder (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Education India, ISBN 978-8131716779
• Smith, David Howard (1971), Chinese Religions From 1000 B.C. to the Present Day, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Wu, Ching-hsing (1938), "Some Notes on Kao Seng Chuan", T'ien Hsia Monthly, 7, Kelly and Walsh, ltd.
•  This article incorporates text from The Chinese recorder and missionary journal, Volume 3, a publication from 1871, now in the public domain in the United States.

External links

• Works by Kumārajīva at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Kumārajīva at Internet Archive