The Publication and Distribution Context of
the First Chinese Translations of the Lotus SËtra
Sylvie Hureau

The Sūtra Stirred the Passion of the ChineseI

t is an honour to be invited to talk about the Lotus SËtra because thisjewel of literature is not only one of the most important texts of Far
Eastern Buddhism, but also its diversity of content and its complexity
make it one of the most interesting. It is well known that from themoment it was published, this sËtra stirred the passion of Chinese
believers, and that, century after century, it was widely read, copied,commented on and engraved in part or in full on cliff-faces. More than
4,000 copies of this sËtra were counted among the manuscripts found in
the Dunhuang oasis. It also inspired painters and poets.
The esteem in which this text is held by believers is certainly due tothe beauty and depth of its content—such as the parable of the burning
house, of the pearl, of the medicinal herbs—but also due to the unprecedented nature of certain passages that go against H¥nayåna thoughts—
the Buddha’s cousin is seen promising to become enlightened, despite
his attempts to murder him—or it could also be due to the presence ofthe chapter describing the protection that Bodhisattva Guanyin can bringto those who invoke his name, but these are perhaps not the only factors.
The text has the distinction, in fact, of promoting itself and encouraging its own cult, as do many other Mahåyåna sËtras. It encourages
believers to receive, uphold, read, recite and copy it. It promises protection for those that preserve and propagate it and that they will acquire
benefits and rewards.
This perhaps explains why the Lotus SËtra was the favourite text of
Buddhist monks and nuns who chose to dedicate their lives to the recitation of the scriptures. One of these monks, who lived in the second halfof the 5th century, spent thirty years in seclusion in a temple near present-day Nanjing, reciting the sËtra in full each day. In the 4th century,
there was a nun who recited it three thousand times during her life.
It is even said that the first monk who specialised in the practice ofintensively reciting the scriptures used to recite the Lotus SËtra, and that
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one night he was secretly invited to go and recite it to a local spirit, thegod of the soil. The monk did so for three months and to thank him, thegod of the soil generously rewarded him with pieces of silk, a whitehorse, and some sheep. I will address the question of translations andtranslators through this story about the monk reciting the first version of
the Lotus SËtra of the true law to the god of the soil.

Translation Activity of Dharmarak sa.
From the biography of the first translator, Dharmarak∑a (Zhu Fahu 竺法護), we learn that he was born during the first half of the 3rd century in a
family of Indo-Scythian origin, who had settled for generations in Dunhuang oasis (in today’s Gansu province), a stop-off point on the Silk
Road. So he was a native Chinese speaker. Entering the novitiate at eight
years old, one year after the minimum age for doing so, he undertook astudy trip to Central Asia, as was customary for Buddhist novices in thisarea at the time, studying with a teacher in one centre and then withanother master at another location. His biographer says that he returned
from this trip a polyglot, mastering all the languages that were spoken
there, and their writings.
As Jean-Noël Robert points out, the biographer mentions thirty-six
different languages, but in reality the number was lower. The Chinese ofthat era considered that there were thirty-six different kingdoms inCentral Asia, and the biographer attributed a different language to eachone. All have since disappeared, and are only very partially known
through the discovery of manuscripts or inscriptions on Buddhistarchaeological artefacts in China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The languages were Kuchean, Gåndhår¥, Sogdian, and Khotanese.
Back in China, Dharmarak∑a first reached Dunhuang, then Chang’an(now Xi’an), and Luoyang, where from the year 267, he set to work,translating almost continuously for nearly forty years, his final work dating from 308. We note, however, a break of eleven years in histranslation work, during which we don’t know what he did; someresearchers point to a sentence in his biography saying he had gone tothe mountains, others say he was improving his Chinese.
The number of his translations is considerable since he is creditedwith more than 150 texts, from a volume of more than 300 scrolls—bothMahåyåna and H¥nayåna—that he had brought back with him or had
been brought to him for translation. Many of the texts he translated were
hitherto unseen and their content enriched the knowledge of the life andprevious lives of the Buddha, of his practice and his teachings and of histhe first chinese translation of the lotus s utraˉ129

liturgical practices. In addition to the Lotus SËtra, it is to him that we
owe the first translation of a sËtra prescribing the practice of confession,another dealing with Buddhist cosmology, another still on the future
Buddha Maitreya, another on the layman Vimalak¥rti, that is to say texts
around which Chinese Buddhist thought and practice would take shapein the following centuries.
Some prefaces and colophons in his translations shed light on how heworked, including the fact that he surrounded himself with a team ofassociates. Indeed, although the translations were attributed solely to
Dharmarak∑a, it was customary for several translators to take part, eachone being assigned a specific task.
Dharmarak∑a’s role was to read, orally translate and explain the
Indian texts to his colleagues, who listened to him and asked questions,as the need arose. One or more scribes were responsible for taking notesof his explanations, then drafting the Chinese translation. Finally, agroup of proofreaders reviewed the first draft before finalising a version
which would then be copied and circulated. Sometimes this final version
was resubmitted for corrections, as was the case with the Lotus SËtra.
We therefore know the names of seventeen of the team members,
mostly of foreign origin (Indian, Kashmiri, Khotanese, Parthian,Sogdian, and Kuchean), which reflects the cosmopolitan nature of thecities where he did his translations: Dunhuang was an average-sizedoasis on The Silk Road; Xi’an was an ancient capital, Luoyang was thecapital of that time. His main colleague and scribe was a layman.
The colophon of the Lotus SËtra mentions the names of ten people
who participated in the translation of the Lotus SËtra: three official
scribes, five other people who seem to have helped the scribes and two
proofreaders. Only one of the proofreaders was a monk; all the otherparticipants were lay people.
The colophon also states that it took him three weeks to complete hisoral translation project (from 15 September to 6 October, 286), which isa very short time, given the length of the text, and that the first proof
was then subjected to review, which ended a year and a half later (25March, 288). Another colophon informs us that Dharmarak∑a corrected
the text again two years later, on a day when he was preaching it to an
audience of lay people gathered for a fast and sermon.

Translation Activity of Kumārajı̄vaDespite all the care that Dharmarak∑a brought to the publication of the
Lotus SËtra of the True Law, his version was eclipsed as soon as the130

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No Image

Chinese manuscript of the Avalokiteßvara-sËtra (Chapter 25, theLotus SËtra), copied by Monk Yidao in 559 CE, only 153 years
after Kumåraj¥va’s translation. Turfan Museum, Turfan (Replica)

history-making version by Kumåraj¥va (Jiumoluoshi 鳩摩羅什)
appeared—the SËtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law. Occasional mentions are found of Dharmarak∑a’s version being used, as in
the story of the monk who preached to the god of the soil, or the nun
who recited the sËtra three thousand times during her lifetime, but there
is no comparison with the frequency of references to Kumåraj¥va’s
translation.
Kumåraj¥va, who is considered the foremost of the four great translators of Buddhism into Chinese, was born around the middle of the 4th
century in Kucha, an oasis in the current autonomous region of
Xinjiang, but which at that time was a kingdom independent of China,
where they spoke an Indo-European language known as Tocharian.
Unlike his predecessor Dharmarak∑a, Kumåraj¥va was not a native
Chinese speaker. His father was of Indian descent, and his mother was ayounger sister of the King. He entered the novitiate at the age of seven,and two years later set off with his mother to study alongside reputable
masters of the time in great Buddhist centers in Kashmir, possibly in
Gandhåra, and in Kashgar.
He returned to Kucha after five or six years and continued his apprenticeship, but in 384, the small kingdom was besieged by its Chinese
neighbour and fell under its rule. The invaders departed again a year
later, after pillaging the royal palace. Historical sources say that it tookthe first chinese translation of the lotus s utraˉ131twenty thousand camels to transport these spoils of war, which consistedof animals, musical instruments, objects of worship, embroideries andstatues.
They also captured members of the kingdom’s artistic and cultural
elite, including Kumåraj¥va. He never saw his native land again. A legend grew up around the conquest of Kucha. Some Buddhist sources,
including the biography of Kumåraj¥va, say that in fact the ultimate
intention of the Chinese ruler was to bring Kumåraj¥va to the capital
Chang’an. But historical sources, which on this point are more reliable,
say that it was to extend his territorial hold that the sovereign had decided to attack this rich kingdom, with its clear strategic importance at the
gateway of Central Asia.
However, the meeting between Kumåraj¥va and the Chinese kingnever took place, because while his troops were on the way back, he wasmurdered and his kingdom overthrown. Kumåraj¥va remained confinedfor sixteen years in Liangzhou (in present Gansu province), where theconquering general of Kucha had settled. It is not clear what he did during those sixteen years, other than learning Chinese. The general who
had captured him had no interest in Buddhism, only interacting with
him to call on his talents as an advisor and occasionally as soothsayer.
His disciples said evasively that he had kept his light under a bushel. So
he arrived in Chang’an sixteen years later, during the winter of 401–402,
after the Liangzhou region was in turn conquered by another Chinese
ruler.
In Chang’an, Kumåraj¥va found not only a new ruling family who
encouraged and sponsored Buddhist activities—there were several temples and other translators; some members of the ruling family actively
took part in the translations—but above all there were also monks who,
fifteen or twenty years earlier, had already worked on translation activities. This environment allowed him to embark immediately on a largetranslation enterprise, for the next ten years, until his death.
He set to work a week after arriving, translating a sËtra that contained
several meditation techniques, a type of text that was lacking in China.
Kumåraj¥va therefore published around thirty works, mostly Mahåyåna
texts, from nearly 300 scrolls—around the same number as
Dharmarak∑a, but comparison must be done with careful consideration
because the length of scrolls and number of sheets could vary. This
mostly consisted of new works, though others were already known.
Unlike the works of Dharmarak∑a, very few have been lost. In the 5th
century alone, when sixty of Dharmarak∑a’s works disappeared, only
two of Kumåraj¥va’s were missing.

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In addition to the Lotus SËtra, the most famous of his works and thosethat have most influenced the course of Buddhism not only in China but
throughout East Asia are the sËtras of the family of the perfection of
wisdom, particularly the Diamond SËtra, the SËtra of Buddha Amitåbha,the SËtra of Vimalak¥rti’s Teaching and treaties of the Mådhyamika philosophical school. Less known but no less important are his presentationof different methods of meditation, as well as two sËtras dealing withthe coming of the future Buddha, Maitreya.
Moreover, Kumåraj¥va helped translate two essential works of
Buddhist monasticism, which had never been translated into Chinese.
One was the list of rules for monastic discipline, recited twice a monthby devotees, combined with confession and repentance in case of contravention. The second was the code of Buddhist discipline, which aswell as explaining what discipline is, how followers should observe it,
how they should live and practise their liturgy and how communities are
structured, also explains the circumstances that led the Buddha to definesuch rules.
Shortly before Kumåraj¥va arrived in Chang’an, a group of fifteen
Chinese monks had gone on pilgrimage to India in order to seek thesewritings; only three of them came back alive, but unfortunately forthem, they arrived a decade after Kumåraj¥va had translated the discipline texts, and the samples that these pilgrims had risked their lives toobtain and translate never had the same impact as those of Kumåraj¥va.
Throughout his work, which consists mainly of Mahåyåna texts,Kumåraj¥va sought to revive interest in writings from this branch of
Buddhism, which had lost its appeal at that time. Indeed, fifteen years
before his arrival, a wave of missionary monks, mainly from Kashmir,
had come to Chang’an and translated a whole series of writings of classical H¥nayåna Buddhist writings. One of them even described theMahåyåna texts as demonic. Kumåraj¥va therefore breathed new life intoMahåyåna.
However, while history has mostly recorded Kumåraj¥va’s role as atranslator, other aspects of his life and personality also influenced thefuture of Buddhism in China. Kumåraj¥va laboured skillfully to bring
Buddhist clergy closer to the secular authorities while also defending
their independence. He was the first monk to share a real passion for
Buddhist scriptures with the sovereign, in fact we can imagine there wasa sincere friendship between the two men.
At the same time, he was also the first monk to write to the sovereign
requesting that he leave with the clergy two monks whom he had wantedby his side to work on worldly affairs. The circumstances of his deaththe first chinese translation of the lotus s utraˉ133

are uncertain. We only know that he fell ill and died soon afterwards;
Professor Tsukamoto surmises that he may have succumbed to a brain
haemorrhage. Biographers have reported that amongst his crematedashes, relics were recovered, including his tongue which had miraculously remained intact. This was one of the first times a relic had been
recovered from a monk on Chinese soil.
The astute readers of his biography will in all likelihood have recognised a prophecy from the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom(Dazhi dulun), which Kumåraj¥va had himself translated, saying that
reciting this and other texts from the perfection of wisdom family, madethe tongue indestructible and protected it from the flames of cremation.
As it is not Kumåraj¥va whom we are honouring today, I will not dwellfurther on his overall contribution to Chinese Buddhism, but will return
to his activities as a translator, with a special focus on the Lotus SËtra.
Kumåraj¥va’s situation was quite different to that of Dharmarak∑a in
the sense that when he arrived and began working at Chang’an, he could
certainly express himself in Chinese but his knowledge was still imperfect. In addition, he was inexperienced in the art of translation, did notknow what his associates expected and tended to simplify texts rather
than faithfully translating them. In any case, his writing skills wereinsufficient. So his role was limited to reading the texts and explaining
them as he went along to monks who would record his explanations anddraw up the text, in accordance with the traditional translation method.
The prefaces and colophons of his works mention the names of fouror five scribes, all of them monks, two of whom appear to have been
more important than others. The fact that this number was significantly
lower than the number of Dharmarak∑a’s scribes is explained by the factthat he did his translations in the same city, Chang’an, and in just ten
years, whereas Dharmarak∑a’s work spanned forty years across different
places.
It is certain however that some of his activity took place in public in
the form of commentated translation and reading sessions to an audience of sometimes several hundred people of all ages and status, fromyoung novices to monk-scholars through to members of the ruling family. This was the case with the Lotus SËtra, which he translated to a
crowd of eight hundred people during the summer of 406, three and ahalf years after his arrival in Chang’an. His fluency in Chinese had
improved considerably, to the point that his eloquence drew admirationfrom the crowd. He translated while correcting, modifying, and revising
Dharmarak∑a’s version.

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the first chinese translation of the lotus s utraˉMiracles Resulting from Devotion to the Lotus Sūtra
As I said in the introduction, the success of the Lotus SËtra is due to its
beauty, depth, and the recommendation that it be recited aloud. But thismay not be the whole story. Soon after its translation, we see the appearance of stories published by Chinese believers which recounted cases of
miracles produced as a result of devotion to the Lotus SËtra.
These stories, from a genre which the Chinese call ‘strange tales’(zhiguai xiaoshuo), show for example how a particular person was curedof a serious illness by reciting the sËtra and how another was saved fromdanger thanks to the intervention of Bodhisattva Guanyin. This included
all sorts of dangers such as drowning, shipwreck or the death-penalty,
and the person is saved through having a vision, and meeting a particular bodhisattva from the sËtra, then being reborn among the gods, all of
this thanks to reading, reciting, copying, and venerating the sËtra.
The stories of monks’ biographies also relate tales of this kind, where
we see monks who recite the sËtra subduing wild animals, ghosts, andspirits, and where, on the nights when they recite the sËtra, their neighbours witness the arrival of gods who have come to listen.
These types of stories appeared soon after the circulation of the sËtra,and for century after century were enriched with new examples, whichwere transmitted orally as well as in writing. We therefore have somecollections of ‘strange tales’ and stories of miracles, either strictly relating to the sËtra and its protagonists, including Guanyin, or in which thesËtra and its protagonists are mentioned, among other examples. Theyshow how a particular monk or a secular believer in distress prayed toGuanyin and was saved; or they show how a certain act that had contributed to circulation of the sËtra resulted in a cure from disease.
I would like to end with one such story, reported in a collection of
biographies of monks. During the 5th century, a forty-year-old manfrom present-day Nanjing became a monk. He was a vegetarian, dressed
plainly, and applied himself to reciting the Lotus SËtra with all his heart,to the point of exhaustion. But being of fragile constitution, he often fell
sick. Realising that his condition was the result of bad karma, he took a
vow to copy out the sËtra one hundred times, to expiate his past sins.
But once finished, he only had a remission. He then understood that hehad to recite the entire sËtra in full and, as a result, was immediately
cured.

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Author Biography
Sylvie Hureau has a doctorate from INALCO (Institut National des langues et civilisations orientales) and is a lecturer in Chinese Buddhism at the École Pratique des Hautes
Études. She works on the history of texts, rites, and practices as well as the biographiesof monks.