In Buddhist Modernism, there are strong currents of Romanticism and Protestantism, which leads to an emphasis on the "heroic" individual practitioner liberating themselves (and perhaps hanging around afterwards to help other people). A major emphasis in Buddhism is on traditional texts, which outside of India are presented in translation. For this reason, translators have long been important characters in Buddhist myth and legend.
The image of the translator follows a similar pattern. When we think of how we come to have translations of Buddhist texts we tend to think of "the translator" who toils away in isolation. This is reinforced by the practices of modern scholarship in the humanities. However, as the new book by Siu Sai-Yau (2024) shows, translation in China was almost always a group effort. The first translation groups were small and ad hoc. Over time, such groups blossomed into a special kind of pageantry, sometimes involving dozens of monks, each with well-defined roles within government-endowed translation bureaus.
Taking an example from my recent reading, the preface of Dàshèng lǐqù liù bōluómìduō jīng «大乘理趣六波羅蜜多經» (T 261), for example, lists the translation team and their roles:
The Tripiṭaka master Prajñā from Kashmir clarified the Sanskrit original; sramana Lìyán, from Guangzhai Temple and official in the Hanlin Academy, interpreted; sramana Yuánzhào, of Ximing Temple, recorded in writing; Dàoyè from Zisheng Temple, Liángxiù from Ximing Temple, Yìngzhēn from Zhuangyan Temple, Chāowù from Liquan Temple, Dào'àn, and Biànkōng all contributed to verifying the meaning.
有勅令京城諸寺大德名業殊眾者同譯，得罽賓三藏般若開釋梵本，翰林待詔光宅寺沙門利言度語，西明寺沙門圓照筆受，資聖寺道液、西明寺良秀、莊嚴寺應真、醴泉寺超悟、道岸、辯空，並充證義。(T2061: 50.716b16-20)
Note this preface shows that Liyan was responsible for translating Prajñā's commentary into Chinese.
Siu (2024) shows how this collective approach evolved over time. It's a very useful addition to our knowledge of Chinese Buddhist culture. However, despite the collective nature of translation in China, when we read about classic Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, they are almost invariably attributed to one man. Even in China, even amongst Buddhists, and even amongst scholars of Buddhism.
This is driven partly by anxiety over authenticity (one of the principal motivations underpinning religious Buddhism). One of the ways of asserting the authenticity of a Buddhist text in China was to link the text and/or translation to India. Ideally, the leader of the translation project would be an Indian monk commenting either on a memorised text or reading from a manuscript. If no Indian monk was available, the leader should be someone who visited India. Failing that, some effort might be made to assert that the manuscript they translated arrived from India. While Kumārajīva was a Kuchan, his facility with Sanskrit and his possession of Indian manuscripts made him authoritative.
And yet, as hinted at in the preface to T261, it was often the case that the translator of record could not communicate effectively in Chinese. The classic case is Kumārajīva, widely considered to be the most influential translator of Buddhist texts in Chinese history. A few of Kumārajīva's early 5th-century translations are still in use today. Notably, for my project, his Prajñāpāramitā translations are still the standard texts in present-day China (and the sphere of Chinese cultural influence).
However, his collaborator Sēngruì 僧睿 (352?–436? CE), noted that Kumārajīva could barely be understood when he tried to speak in Chinese (Chou 2004: 293) and his suggested translations were sometimes so garbled as to make no sense at all. Nor was this unusual in foreign (i.e. non-Han) monks. In such cases, the task of actually translating the text into Chinese fell to a Chinese colleague, such as Liyan. In the case of translations attributed to Kumārajīva, for example, Sengrui and others were largely, if not wholly, responsible for the Chinese texts. In modern terms, Sengrui was the actual translator since he made the choice of how to express the text in Chinese, although he didn't work alone either. In the final analysis, all Kumājīva did was read out the Sanskrit and comment on it in broken Chinese. It was Sengrui et al who composed the Chinese text.
In this post, I will explore the identity and history of the Chinese translator Lìyán 利言 "Beneficial Speech". His name crops up in relation to two different Heart Sutra texts, which are typically treated as translations and attributed to other men: T252 and T253. Respectively the attributions in the Taishō Ed. read:
Pǔbiàn zhì cáng bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» (T252)
摩竭提國三藏沙門法月重譯
Re-translated (重譯) ca. 741 CE by the Tripiṭaka monk Fǎyuè 法月 from Magadha.
Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T253)
罽賓國三藏般若共利言等譯
Translated (譯) ca. 788 CE by the Tripiṭaka monk Bānrě 般若, from Kashmir, together with Lìyán 利言, and others.
The Zhēnyuán lù «貞元錄» (T 2157), a catalogue of Buddhist texts composed in 800 CE, records that a monk called Lìyán 利言 also helped Fǎyuè to translate T252. At first, it seemed to me that this must have been two different people, but the records suggest that Lìyán did indeed contribute the Chinese text of both T252 and T253. As Siu (2024: 61) puts it:
Liyan possessed prior experience in translating another version of the Longer Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya during the Kaiyuan 開元 period of Emperor Xuanzong, making him an excellent candidate to apply his previous translation expertise to this new project (T55, no. 2156, vol. 1, 748).
The Lìyán 禮言 ("courteous speech") who compiled the Fànyǔ zá míng «梵語雜名» T2135, a Chinese-Sanskrit dictionary with a focus on ritual, is probably an alternate spelling of the same name.
Lìyán was too late to be found in the earlier compilation of biographies of monks: Xù gāosēng chuán «續高僧傳»; compiled by Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667 CE), with a cutoff date at about ~645 CE. We do get some biographical details from the biography of Fǎyuè 法月 in the Revised Zhenyuan Catalogue:
Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mù lù «貞元新定釋教目錄» "Zhenyuan Revised List of Canonical Buddhist Texts" (T 2157: 55.878.b12-c10). Composed by the śramaṇa Yuánzhào 圓照 of Xīmíng Temple in the Western Capital" (西京西明寺沙門圓照撰), ca 800 CE.
The Tripiṭaka śramaṇa /Dat mâ tsiᴇn net lâ/ 達摩戰涅羅 (in Tang language, Fǎyuè 法月 "Dharma Moon" *Dharmacandra) was a native of Eastern India. He travelled in Central India and is also known as a native of the Mathura Region. He mastered the Tripiṭaka and was skilled in medicine.
Through various circumstances, he arrived in Kucha (Qūzhīguó 屈支國: erroneously referred to as Qiūcí 丘慈 in the Hànshū «漢書»), where he taught his disciples. His student /Tsiᴇn ʂɨp lâ/ 戰濕羅 (in Tang language, Zhēnyuè 真月 *Candraśīla[?], personal name Bù Nàxiàn 布那羨, also called Lìyán 利言) was entrusted with memorizing the Sanskrit original of the Yuè dēng sānmódì jīng «月燈三摩地經» Candrapradīpa Samādhi Sūtra, which contained over seven thousand verses, and the Lìdì Jì «歷帝記 » "Records of the Emperors", with ten thousand verses. Lìyán also memorised five thousand verses of the Yúqié Zhēnyán «瑜伽真言» Yoga Mantras. Whatever he heard once was memorized in his heart.
In the 14th year of the Kāiyuán era (開元十四年) (726 CE), [Lìyán] received full ordination. Afterwards, he studied the Vinaya, Abhidharma, and Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna sūtras, as well as Sanskrit and Chinese texts. At the Four Fortresses of Shíchéng 四鎮石城, he protected the secret battle 密戰 in Tǔhuǒluó words 吐火羅言.* He was able to comprehend everything he saw and heard. He was then commanded to translate the scriptures, always keeping their essence intact.
* 石城四鎮護密戰于吐火羅言. I don't understand this sentence. It's a non sequitur. 四鎮 could be a reference to the caturmahārāja (四天王). Shíchéng 石城 "Stone City" may be in modern day Ganzhou (赣州) (SE China). 吐火羅 appears to transcribe Tukhāra, home of the Tocharoi. But what does any of it mean?In Kāiyuán 開元 18 (730 CE), Lǚ Xiūlín 呂休林, the military governor of Ānxi 安西, recommended [Fǎyuè] to the imperial court [of Xuanzong, r. 712–756]. Lìyán 利言 accompanied his master to serve as interpreter. Along their journey, they passed through several major stations: Wūqí 烏耆, Yīxīsì 伊西寺, and Mógāyánqì 摩賀延磧. They continued through Guāshā 瓜沙 and Gānsù 甘肅, proceeding westward to Xīliáng 西涼.
Upon reaching Cháng'ān 長安 in the 20th year (732 CE), the officials submitted a report, and [Fǎyuè] was summoned to the imperial palace. There, he presented expertise in medicinal arts, Sanskrit texts, herbal medicine, and other scriptures, all of which were well received by the emperor. He was sometimes escorted by the imperial cavalry and was generously rewarded multiple times. His disciple, the bhikṣu Lìyán 利言, followed along, serving as his interpreter. Medicinal formulas and materia medica were translated and presented to a superior. In spare time, the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng Bōrě Bōluómìduō Xīnjīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» was translated. It showed no significant difference from the two older versions. The Yáoqín Dynasty 姚秦 (aka Later Qín 394-416) translation is titled Móhē bāně bōluómì dàmíng zhòu jīng «摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪經» [T250].
The emperor, in his free moments among the myriad affairs of state, devoted himself to annotating the Jīngāng Jīng «金剛經» "Diamond Sutra". By the 23rd year (735 CE), he completed his writings. The monastic community requested the establishment of a platform for the Bōrě Jīng «般若經». In the 27th year (739 CE), the work was fully completed. Monks established a hundred ritual sites. In the seventh month, the imperial decree was presented. Following approval, on the tenth day of the eighth month, the opening ceremony for the Sūtra was held at Ānguó Temple 安國寺. On the ninth day at dusk, a gathering was held at Xīmíng Temple 西明寺. On the tenth day, the procession to the Ānguó ritual site began, and the lecture was delivered.
The Emperor's commentary on the Jīngāng Jīng and the Rénwáng Bōrě «仁王般若». Fǎyuè was responsible for elaborating on the Sanskrit sūtra, while Lìyán translated the words [into Chinese]. All who attended the teachings returned with great benefits. The seven calamities were eternally cleared, and the seven blessings were all gathered.
In the following year, the mad rebel Liú Zhìchéng 劉志成 secretly plotted a vicious scheme. A divination was sought from the Tripiṭaka master Bǎohuā 寶花, and heaven did not prolong the evil. The rebellious faction was pacified. All foreign monks were ordered to return to their countries, but Tripiṭaka master Fǎyuè 法月 was graciously allowed to stay. Later, he yearned for his homeland and requested to return. On the 26th day of the seventh month in the 29th year (741 CE), he took leave from the imperial palace.
He journeyed through Xīliáng 西涼, the desert of Shāqì 沙磧, Yīxī 伊西, Wūqí 烏耆, and Shūlè 疎勒, heading toward Tiānzhú 天竺. Proceeding westward, he gradually neared his destination. Upon reaching the mountain pass at the Jílián town of Shìnìguó 式匿國, he encountered bandits and could not proceed further. He retreated into the city of Shūlè 疎勒.
He then travelled southeast for 800 li and arrived at Jīnlún Temple 金輪寺 in Yutian 于闐. He spread the Dharma and benefited those with connections for over a year, during which time both monastics and laypeople paid homage. However, he gradually fell ill and his condition worsened. Despite receiving medicine, it was of no avail, and he passed away. He was 91 years old, having been a monk for 72 years. He died on the 23rd day of the 11th month in the 2nd year of the Tiānbǎo era (743).
At the time, the vice governor of the region, Níng Chà 零詧, oversaw the funeral rites. His disciples, including the bhikṣu Lìyán 利言, mourned deeply, weeping in sorrow. They performed the cremation, offering incense and flowers, and constructed a stupa. The texts he translated had not been included in the Kāiyuán Catalog «開元目錄» [T2155; 730 CE], but by imperial decree, they were later added to the Zhēnyuán Newly Revised Buddhist Catalog «貞元新定釋教目錄» [T2157, i.e. the present text composed in 800 CE].
~o~
Notes
Although this is ostensibly a biography of Fǎyuè 法月, you can see that the author, Yuánzhào 圓照, also frequently mentions Lìyán 利言 (aka Zhēnyuè 真月) who plays a major role in the story as Fǎyuè's interpreter when they reach China.
Unfortunately, the narrative tends to segue between the two characters without always flagging the change. It is sometimes ambiguous who "he" refers to. For example, when it says "he received full ordination" in 726, it's only when we get to the end of the account and find out that "He [Fǎyuè] was 91 years old, having been a monk for 72 years" that we see that "he" [in 726] could only have been Lìyán.
One unfortunate ambiguity is "In [his] spare time, [he] translated the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng" (三餘之間遂譯普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經). Sān yú zhī jiān 三餘之間 means "the remaining three intervals", which traditionally refers to intervals of time available for study or other pursuits outside main duties: the periods of winter, nighttime, and rainy days. Hence: "in spare time". In fact, the phrase lacks pronouns and other indicators of who the translator was. Since it follows a sentence with Lìyán as the subject (弟子比丘利言隨師譯語 b28), it seems that this task was accomplished by Lìyán. However, it could well have been Fǎyuè and Lìyán working together.
More broadly, Fǎyuè appears to have been dependent on Lìyán acting as his translator in China. He could not communicate in Chinese. In my terms, then, the texts were enunciated and explained by Fǎyuè, but they were in fact translated into Chinese by Lìyán (and others). The intellectual work of working out how to express the concepts in Chinese was not done by Fǎyuè.
Although Yuánzhào says that the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng «普遍智藏», "showed no significant difference from the two older [versions]" (與古舊二經中無少異。T 2157: 55.878c1), this is self-evidently not true.
Given that Yuánzhào mentions the Dàmíng zhòu jīng (T250) by name, the other "older [version]" (gǔjiù 古舊) has to be Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T251). As an extended text, T252 is clearly very different from the standard text of either the Xīn jīng or the Dàmíng zhòu jīng. For example, where the Xīn jīng is 260 characters and Dàmíng zhòu jīng is 298 characters, the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng is 648 characters or somewhat more than twice the length. I'd call this a significant difference.
That said, T252 retains most of the actual text of the Xīn jīng (T251). As such it is only the introduction and conclusion that are substantially different, while the main body of the text—the "teaching" if you like— was indeed identical. But this also means that if T252 is a translation, only the introduction and conclusion were translated anew, and the text must have been redacted in Chinese to incorporate the text of T251.
This appears to confirm that T252 was the first extended text to be created, though T252 was a cul de sac and all the other extended texts follow T253 (also apparently translated by Lìyán). We still don't know which language the extended text was composed in, Sanskrit or Chinese, although no Sanskrit text corresponding to T252 has ever been found.
As I noted in comparing T253 and T254, T253 may not be a translation from Sanskrit either. There are times when the Sanskrit Hṛdaya is substantially different from the Xīn jīng and this had no effect on how T251 was incorporated into either T252 or T253. At the very least, T253 underwent editing in Chinese to integrate the text of T251 in its entirety.
I can confirm that the Pǔbiàn zhìzàng bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» (T252) is mentioned in the Dà táng zhēnyuán xù kāiyuán shìjiào lù «大唐貞元續開元釋教錄» compiled in 794 CE by Yuanzhao 圓照 (T 2156), and it is not mentioned in the Dà táng kāiyuán shìjiào lù «大唐開元釋教錄» (T 2154) compiled by Zhìshēng 智昇 ca. 730 CE. And that the Kāiyuán lù «開元錄» (T 2154), is the first catalogue (or document of any type) to mention the Dàmíng zhòu jīng.
This gives us a rough order of when each text first appears in the historical record:
Xīn jīng (T251) 656 CE. Dàmíng zhòu jīng (T250) 730 CE. Pǔbiàn zhìzàng (T252) 738 CE. Dà xīn jīng (T253) 788 CE.
A problem I have not addressed here is that the information presented is from a single uncorroborated source, and that source is a religious text (which carries a high likelihood of religious bias). It's further problematic that later sources tend to uncritically rely on and repeat information from earlier sources. On the plus side, the source was at least composed by someone who knew Lìyán.
A figure like Lìyán is almost entirely left out of accounts of the Heart Sutra. You won't find his name in any of the popular works on the Heart Sutra. He is mentioned by Siu (2019, 2024), largely because of his direct involvement in translating T253, which was the focus of Siu's PhD.
Liú Zhìchéng
The mention of Liú Zhìchéng 劉志成 and his ill-fated rebellion is intriguing. I had not come across it before and could not find much information about it. The name Liú Zhìchéng only occurs once in the Taishō and only rarely elsewhere. He doesn't have a Wikipedia page and does not seem to be mentioned in the comprehensive Cambridge History of China. There is, however, a modern person with exactly the same name. The name Bǎohuā 寶花 is even more obscure.
Yang (2018: 29) sums up the story of the rebellion this way:
In 736, when the court was in Luoyang, many foreign monks were deported from the country in the aftermath of a revolt led by one Liu Zhicheng 劉志成 in the fifth month. Liu sought out a certain Tripiṭaka Bǎohuā 寶花 to decide upon a most propitious date to launch the uprising. Unfortunately, the plot was uncovered, and apparently the foreigner monk Baohua was convicted of complicity. The resentment of the authorities expanded to all foreigner monks, and an edict was issued to expel them from the land.
The story of the expulsion of foreign monks from China runs counter to the historically dominant narrative in Buddhist literature, which typically asserts Buddhist exceptionalism in China and the idea that Buddhists were always held in the highest regard by the Chinese state. Even in the 8th century, which some imagine to be "a golden age" of Chinese Buddhism, the position of Buddhists in Tang China was actually precarious. I note that this expulsion of foreign monks is not counted amongst the "four Buddhist persecutions" (Sān wǔ yī zōng fǎnàn 三武一宗法難), which occurred in 446, 567, 845, and 955 CE.
Abramson's (2008: viii) account of ethnicity in China mentions that Vajrabodhi was caught up in the expulsions, but not the reason for them. No date is given, but the phrasing here suggests it was "shortly after" Vajrabodhi arrived in China in 719. Gibson (1997: 54) also mentions this event (though with a different date) in a note:
The deportation of the hu monks in 740 followed another revolt led by [Liú Zhìchéng], who had a monk as co-conspirator (Chou, 1945, Appendix L, p. 320).
The cited passage in Chao (1945: 329) adds some historical detail that confirms the modern view that the Buddhist histories have distorted our view of state-Buddhist relations in the Tang.
It is usually believed that Buddhism prospered in the Tang dynasty because of the Emperors' goodwill toward it. This is true only in respect to the later T'ang dynasty. T'ai-tsung, the second Emperor and the actual founder of the dynasty, officially preferred Taoism to Buddhism because he claimed to be a descendant of Lǎozǐ 老子, who had the same surname as that of the imperial family (Táng huì yào 唐會要 49.4a). Despite the great favour shown to Xuanzang by Taizong and his son Gaozong, the petition of the monks who asked for official priority of position in an interview with the Emperor was never granted (Jí gǔjīn fú dào lùn héng 集古今佛道論衡, T 52.382b27).
The entry in the Xīn táng shū 新唐書 "New Book of Tang" is minimal:
二十四年... 五月丙午，醴泉人劉志誠反，伏誅。
On the bǐngwǔ day in the fifth month, Liú Zhìchéng from Lǐquán rebelled and was executed.
This seems to be the same event but with almost no detail and no mention of the expulsion. Here the name Liú Zhìchéng is spelled 劉志誠 vs Taishō 劉志成. NB 劉志誠 is not found in Taishō. As far as I can see, there is no mention of this in the Jiù táng shū 舊唐書 "Old Book of Tang".
~~oOo~~
Bibliography
Abramson, Marc Samuel. (2008). Ethnic Identity in Tang China. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Chou, Yi-liang. (1945). Tantrism in China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 8(3/4), 241–332. https://doi.org/10.2307/2717819
Gibson, T. (1997). Inner Asian Contributions to the Vajrayāna. Indo-Iranian Journal, 40(1), 37–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24662320
Siu, Sai-yau 蕭世友 (2019). 唐代般若、利言《般若波羅蜜多心經》的漢譯研究 . 香港中文大學. [On the Chinese Translation of Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya by Prajña and Satyacandra in the Tang Dynasty. PhD Dissertation. Chinese University of Hong Kong.]
———. (2024). The Evolution of Team-Based Buddhist Scripture Translation in Tang China: United in Dharma. Springer. Open access: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-2293-8
Yang, Zeng. (2018). A biographical study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705-774): networks, institutions, and identities. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. https://open.library.ubc.ca/media/stream/pdf/24/1.0363332/4
