Dharmarakṣa
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Dharmarakṣa (Ch: 竺法護, Zhú Fǎhù) was one of the greatest translators of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Scriptural catalogues describe him as of Yuezhi origin. His family lived at Dunhuang, where he was born around 230 CE. At the age of eight, he adopted the name of his master, an Indian monk named Zhu Gaozuo (Ch: 竺高座).[citation needed]
As a young boy, Dhamaraksa is said to have travelled to many countries in the Western Regions and learned Central Asian languages and scripts. He then traveled back to China with a quantity of Buddhist texts and worked on translations with a Chinese, Nie Chengyuan.[1]
Dharmaraksa came to the Chinese capital of Luoyang in 266 CE, where he made the first known translations of the Lotus Sutra and the Dasabhumika Sutra, which were to become some of the classic texts of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. Altogether, Dharmaraksa translated around 154 Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna sutras, representing most of the important texts of Buddhism available in the Western Regions.
Some of his main works are:
- The Saddharmapundarika-sūtra(Ch: 正法華經, Zheng fahua jing).
- The Panca-vimsati-sāhasrikā-prajnā-pāramita-sūtra (Ch: 光贊般若波羅密經, Guangzan boruoboluomi jing).
- The Dasabhūmika-sūtra (Ch: 漸備一切智德經, Jianbei yiqie zhide jing).
- The Lalitavistara (Ch: 普曜经, Puyao jing).
His proselytizing is said to have converted many to Buddhism in China, and made Chang'an, present-day Xi'an, a major center of Buddhism.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Wood, Francis (2002). The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-520-24340-8.
References
Dictionary of Buddhism by Damien Keown, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860560-9
External links
- Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (log in with userID "guest")
- Texts associated with Dharmaraksa
