Lokaksema | |
|---|---|
| Born | 147 CE |
| Occupation(s) | Buddhist monk, scholar,translator, andmissionary |
Lokakṣema (लोकक्षेम,Chinese:支婁迦讖;pinyin:Zhī Lóujiāchèn) (flourished 147–189) was a KushanBuddhist monk who travelled to China during theHan dynasty and is one of the first known translators ofMahayana religious texts into any language.[1]
Details of Lokakṣema's life come to us via a short biography bySengyou (僧祐; pinyin: Sēngyòu; 445–518 CE) and his text "Collected Records concerning the Tripitaka" (出三藏記集 Chu sanzang jìjí, T2145).
The name 婁迦讖 is usually rendered in Sanskrit as Lokakṣema, though this is disputed by some scholars, and variants such as Lokakṣama have been proposed.[2] In particular the character 讖 can be read aschen orchan. Sengyou refers to him asZhīchèn (Chinese:支讖). TheZhī (Chinese:支) prefix added to his Chinese name suggests that Lokaksema was ofYuezhi (Chinese:月支) ethnicity. He is traditionally said to have been aKushan, though the Chinese termYuezhi covered a broad area of what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.[3]
Given his background, Lokaksema was very likely to have beenmultilingual and have had knowledge of various languages includingGandhari Prakrit which was used as the language of religion, administration, and commerce in the North Western parts of India. It is speculated however by the scholar, Paul Harrison, that his mother tongue wasBactrian language.[1]
Lokaksema arrived in theHan capitalLuoyang toward the end of the reign ofEmperor Huan of Han (r.147-168), and between 178 and 189 CE translated a number of Mahayāna Buddhist texts into Chinese.[3]
Lokaksema's translation activities, as well as those of theParthiansAn Shigao andAn Xuan slightly earlier, or his fellow YuezhiDharmarakṣa (around 286 CE) illustrate the key role Central Asians had in propagating Buddhism to the countries ofEast Asia. With the decline and fall of the Han, the empire fell into chaos and Lokakṣema disappeared from the historical record so we do not know the date of his death.
The editors of theTaishō Tripiṭaka attribute twelve texts to Lokakṣema. These attributions have been studied in detail byErik Zürcher,Paul Harrison, andJan Nattier, and some have been called into question.[4]
Zürcher considers it reasonably certain that Lokakṣema translated the following:[5]
According to Nattier, Harrison "expresses reservations" concerning theAkṣohhya-vyūha (T313), and considers that T418 is the product of revision and does not date from Lokakṣema's time.[5]
Conversely, Harrison considers that the following ought to be considered genuine:[5]
A characteristic of Lokakṣema's translation style was the extensive transliteration of Indic terms and his retention of India stylistic features such as long sentences. He typically rendered Indic verse as Chinese prose, making no attempt to capture the meter.[6] Based on evidence from Chinese catalogues of texts, Nattier suggests that T224 and T418 are representative of Lokakṣema and might stand as "core texts", i.e. as representative of his style of translating, although both show some signs of later editing. A second tier of texts—T280, T350, T458, and T807—all strongly resemble Lokakṣema's core texts, though with occasional anomalies. T624 and T626 form a third tier with more deviations from the distinctive style of Lokakṣema. If T313 was indeed a translation by Lokakṣema, it has been extensively revised by an unknown editor, though the prose sections are closer to his style than the verse.[7]
Several translations attributed to Lokakṣema have been lost:
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