The celebrity I would like to introduce to you today is named Kumarajiva . Some people may not be familiar with his name, but everyone must have heard of the Buddhist scriptures he translated. The "Lotus Sutra", " Diamond Sutra ", " Great Prajna Sutra ", etc. are all his masterpieces.
Kumarajiva's ancestral home is in Tianzhu, but he was born in the Kingdom of Qiuci, so he is actually a mixed race. His life is quite legendary. If you want to use one word to describe it, it would be "crazy and cool."
Kumarajiva is destined to become a legendary person, because his parents are quite legendary.
Kumarajiva's father's name is Kumarayan. He was the eldest son of the prime minister of Tianzhu. Originally, he could inherit the position of prime minister, but this man has a rather eccentric personality. He does not want to inherit the position of prime minister. In order to avoid inheriting the position, he just fled to the Kingdom of Qiuci in the Western Region to become a monk.
It turns out that Kumarajiva has no desire for worldly fame and fortune. He just wants to devote himself to the Buddha and quietly become a successful monk. However, when he came to Kucha, things changed because he met a woman by chance.
This woman is none other than the princess of Qiuci Kingdom. The grandmother is not only smart and beautiful, but also likes Buddhism. When she was just born, an expert told her fortune: "You have a red birthmark on your body, which indicates your future." She will give birth to a child prodigy."
Sure enough, later on, Ji Po met Kumarayan by chance. She fell in love with Kumarayan at first sight and insisted that he marry her, regardless of whether he had become a monk or not, and even used the power of the king to force him to submit.
In the end, Kumarajiva agreed to Jipo's request, and the two of them cooked rice. Princess Jipo successfully abducted Kumarajiva and became her consort.
It didn’t take long for Jiva to become pregnant with Kumarajiva, but Jiva’s experience is quite legendary. Many other women would be pregnant for three years, but Jiva was just the opposite. During her pregnancy, not only did her memory improve, but she also learned to speak Sanskrit without any teacher. It was not until Kumarajiva was born that her special ability gradually dissipated.
After Kumarajiva was born, he inherited his parents' great beauty and language abilities. These top-notch configurations made him win at the starting line right after he was born. Kumarajiva was talented and intelligent, and when his grandmother saw it, she stopped doing anything and began to focus on raising her own son.
When Kumarajiva was seven years old, one day, the senior mother-in-law took Kumarajiva on an outing, and accidentally saw a place in the countryside littered with corpses. This scene touched the senior mother-in-law, so she made a bold decision to take her son to become a monk.
This decision was naturally opposed by her husband Kumarajiva. At that time, he wanted to become a monk quietly, but was dragged back to the mortal world by his senior grandmother. Now that he finally wants to return to the mortal world and embrace a new life, his senior grandmother wants to take his son to become a monk. What is going on.
But the grandmother was not a simple person. Seeing that her husband did not agree to her request, she went on a hunger strike for six days in protest. In the end, Kumarajiva had no choice but to agree to his wife taking his son to become a monk.
After becoming a monk, Kumarajiva was completely fooled, and his intelligence was really stimulated. He could memorize a thousand sages a day, and he learned the Agama Sutra, Mahayana Buddhism, and so on at the age of nine. In the end, he became a famous monk. It is said that when he was teaching the Dharma, the audience was crowded with people. Many people came to listen to him preach the Dharma, but they just met each other late.
After Kumarajiva became famous, people in the Central Plains soon heard that there was such an eminent monk in the Kingdom of Qiuci. It was during the period of the Five Hus and Sixteen Kingdoms. In order to get Kumarajiva, the emperor of the former Qin Dynasty Fu Jian sent General Lu Guang to snatch Kumarajiva directly.
This made Lu Guang a little depressed. He sent a general to go so far just to snatch a monk back? So, under this resentment, when he caught Kumarajiva, he began to use various methods to humiliate him.
But Kumarajiva is an eminent monk, so the more Lu Guang humiliates him, the calmer he becomes, which annoys Lu Guang. At this moment, someone gives Lu Guang an idea and says that even beating and scolding this kind of monk is not a punishment, because he thinks this is part of his practice. If you want to humiliate him, you have to make him break the precepts.
When Lu Guang heard this, he thought it made sense, so he sent someone to pour strong alcohol into Kumarajiva. After getting him drunk, he was imprisoned with a princess from the Kingdom of Qiuci. Later, after Kumarajiva was cracked, he was very sad, but Lu Guang was satisfied. He felt that he had finally conquered this eminent monk.
What Lu Guang didn't expect was that when he returned to the Central Plains with Kumarajiva, Fu Jian's army had long been defeated, and two years later Fu Jian was killed by the leader of the Qiang tribe Yao Chang. Yao Chang succeeded to the throne, and was known as the post-Qin Dynasty in history.
Seeing this, Lu Guang simply stayed in Liangzhou and established himself as king, known as Houliang in history. At that time, Yao Chang heard that there was an eminent monk named Kumarajiva in Houliang, so he came to invite him humbly, but Lu Guang still refused to let him go. In this way, Kumarajiva stayed in Houliang for seventeen years.
In 401 AD, the new monarch of the Later Qin Yao Xing led his troops to attack Houliang. After the victory, he invited Kumarajiva to Chang'an as a national advisor. Yao Xing was considered Kumarajiva's true fan. Not only did he entertain Kumarajiva well, he also sent eight hundred monks to work for him.
Kumarajiva also did his best to translate a large number of Buddhist scriptures. He has translated 98 Buddhist scriptures, totaling more than 400 volumes of Buddhist scriptures. Until now, Kumarajiva's translations are still the main popular Buddhist scriptures among the people.
Not long after he lived in Chang'an, Yao Xing became anxious. It turned out that he saw that Kumarajiva was already in his 60s, and it would be a pity that his excellent genes would not continue. So he suddenly had a whim, and began to force a marriage, and directly gave Kumarajiva a dozen women: "I will kill you if I borrow the seed."
And Kumarajiva did not refuse, so they got married. The result was terrible. Kumarajiva was the most popular eminent monk in the world at that time. With this marriage, everyone's expectations collapsed. Many people immediately asked him: "How can you get married?"
As a result, Kumarajiva didn't explain much. He just took out a handful of silver needles and swallowed it in one gulp. After swallowing, he looked calm and calm. This scene shocked everyone and made those who came to question others shut their mouths.
In fact, Kumarajiva's meaning is already very clear: "If you practice like me, you can break the precepts at will."
In 413 AD, Kumarajiva passed away. Before his death, he left behind Last words: "If the scriptures I have translated are correct, then my tongue will not rot after being cremated."
Sure enough, when Kumarajiva was cremated, the rest of his body was reduced to ashes, except for his tongue, which was turned into a relic. To this day, this relic is still enshrined in the Kumarajiva Temple in Wuwei, Gansu Province.
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