The father of Tripitaka Master Kumarajiva (344-413 A.D.), was Kumarayana, Kumarayana was the son of a high official in India and, although he was heir to his father's position, he renounced the world instead and travelled everywhere in search of a Good knowing Advisor. Since Kumarayana's father was a high official, he was welcomed warmly wherever he went. In his travels he went to Kucha. There the king, hearing that Kumarayana had set aside worldly glory, much admired him and met him at the border, so as to escort him into the country. He also conferred upon him the title of "National Master."

The king had a little sister named Jiva who was just twenty years old. From birth she was so intelligent that she looked down on all the men in her own country. The king invited Kumarayana to a banquet, and the moment Jiva saw him she fell in love with him and wished to marry him. Although she didn't say anything, her brother, who was also quite intelligent, noticed her reaction. He decide it was meant to be, and ordered Kumarayana to marry her.

Before long, she became pregnant, and a lot of strange things began to happen. She would often visit Ch'iao Li Ta Temple where she would listen to the virtuous masters expound upon the Dharma. Originally, she did not understand the Indian languages, but strangely enough, when she was pregnant with Kumarajiva, one day at a banquet offered to the Sangha, she suddenly understood the Indian speakers and was able to converse with them as well. Not only that, her eloquence was unobstructed and her wisdom increased greatly. Everyone expressed their amazement. At that time, an Arhat said, "The child in that woman's womb is no ordinary child but one of great wisdom. This is like the time when Shariputra was in his mother's womb. So the child is probably just like Shariputra, the wisest of the Buddha's Sound-Hearer Disciples." When Kumarajiva was still in his mother's womb, then, he helped her become wise. Not long after that, she expressed the desire to leave the home life, but her husband would not give his consent. Two or three years later she gave birth to a second son. When she heard the Dharma Masters expound the Dharma, saying that everything in the world was bound up in suffering, emptiness, and impermanence, and was without a self, she resolved to leave home, no matter what. This is because her basic disposition was extremely fine. At this time, Kumarajiva was only seven years old.

Although Kumarayana had formerly wanted to leave home, after his marriage to Jiva, he gave up the idea. He was now too much in love with his beautiful wife and too fond of his money and his position. In The Sutra Of Forty-Two Sections it says, "It is hard to study the Way when one is rich. Because of his wealth and rank, Kumarayana had become confused. Not only did he not want to leave home, he wouldn't allow his wife to leave home either.

One day, when Jiva was strolling outside the city, she came upon a charnel field. seeing the dry, brittle bones scattered in great disorderly heaps, she profoundly grasped and universal truth of suffering and accordingly made a vow: "You say you won't let me leave home." she said, "but I'll die before I'll remain with you." and she began to fast. At first, Kumarayana didn't think much of her not eating. But when she hadn't taken any food, or even a drink of water, for six days, he grew concerned. On the evening of the sixth day, seeing her weakened condition and fearing that she might really starve to death, he finally relented. "All right," he said, "you may leave home. Now please eat something!" Jiva replied, "First ask a Dharma Master to cut my hair and then I will eat. Otherwise, after I eat you might go back one your word." Kumarayana had no choice but to go to Ch'iao Li Ta Temple and ask the Abbot to shave his wife's head. After that, she ate. From that time on, she studied the Buddhadharma with great sincerity.

In studying the Dharma, sincerity is essential. Without a sincere heart, no matter how long you study, you'll obtain nothing. Because she was so sincere--ready to starve to death in order to leave home--and because she saw cultivation as more important than life itself, she was able to reach the extreme of single-mindedness. She put absolutely everything else aside and at that time, her spiritual light blazed forth and she realized the first fruit of Arhatship.

Often she would take Kumarajiva with her to the Temple. He was only seven years old at the time and when he saw people bowing to the Buddha, he would do the same. When he saw people lighting incense, he would imitate them. Soon, he left home with his mother. Kumarayana was very upset. He found it as hard to let go of his son as it had been to let go of his wife. He may have wept bitter tears; it's not known for sure. However, Kumarajiva's mother was very firm. "Cry all you like," she said, "but we are leaving home," and off they went.

After Kumarajiva left home, he studied the Small Vehicle teachings and memorized the Sutras at the rate of a thousand verses of thirty-two words each, per day, or thirty-two thousand words a day. That's about thirty times as many words as there are in the Shurangama Mantra. Think it over: Kumarajiva at seven years old could memorize that many words in a single day. How does out intelligence compare with his? Every day you are given twenty-four Chung Wen characters to learn, but today, you don't remember yesterday's lesson. How can we possibly compare with him?

His mother soon had an awakening. Being the little sister of a king, after she left home she was showered with offerings. Not wishing to live in luxury and intent on cultivating the way, she decided to take Kumarajiva with her and travel about. When Kumarajiva was nine years old, she took him to Kashmir where he studied the Small Vehicle under the High Master Bandhudatta. Kumarajiva worked extremely hard at his studies. From dawn until noon. he wrote the verses out, and from noon until the sun went down, he recited them from memory.

In addition to being intelligent, Kumarajiva was also not lazy. Because he was intelligent, he learned the Sutras very fast; because he was not intelligent, but lazy, he never would have learned very much. If he had been industrious, but not intelligent, he also would not have learned very much. But since he was both, he learned very quickly.

When he was twelve, he and his mother set out to return to Kucha. As they passed through the northern mountains of Kusana, an Arhat seeing Kumarajiva said to Jiva, "you should take good care of this little novice. If by the time he is thirty-five he has not broken the Precepts, he will be able to cause the Buddhadharma to flourish greatly and will save countless beings, just like the Fourth Patriarch Upagupta of India. If his Precepts are not held intact, this will not be possible." The Fourth Patriarch had lived in a stone cave. Every time he converted someone, he would put a slip of bamboo in his cave. Eventually, the cave was entirely filled with bamboo slips, which proves that he saved hundreds of thousands of people.

On their way back to Kucha, they stopped in Kashgar. There, in a temple, Kumarajiva saw a large incense burner in front of the Buddha image. It must have weighed at least a hundred pounds. But he picked it right up and put it over his head with no effort at all. Once he had done this, he thought, "I'm just a little child. How can I lift such a heavy thing?" with that one thought, the burner suddenly became very heavy and crashed to the ground. When his mother asked him what was going on, he said, "The burner seemed light and then heavy only because of the discriminations in my mind." Thus, he awoke to the fact that everything is made from the mind alone. Before he had discriminated, he lifted the burner easily. Once he gave rise to discrimination, what had not been heavy became heavy. From this, he knew that the ten thousand dharmas arise only from the mind.

He remained in Kashgar studying Abhidharma texts and was introduced to the Great Vehicle and realized that, while the Small Vehicle was wonderful, the Great Vehicle was the wonderful within the wonderful. He sighed and said, "In my previous study of the Small Vehicle, I was like one who did not recognize gold and took ordinary rock as something wonderful." Although the king of Kashgar was anxious to keep him in his court, the king of Kucha sent a messenger asking him to return and so Kumarajiva and his mother once again set out for Kucha.

In a small country north of Kucha, there was a master of debate who loudly beat the palace drum and announced that if anyone could beat him in a debate, he would chop off his own head and present it to that person as a gift. This, too, was similar to the incident which took place between Shariputra's uncle and the Buddha. As Kumarajiva happened to be through, he questioned the man about two principles. This rendered the man completely speechless. Since the master of debate couldn't ear to cut off his head, he bowed to Kumarajiva as his teacher and studied with him. Kumarajiva once again set out for Kucha and was welcomed at the border by the king himself.

At the age of twenty, Kumarajiva received, at the palace, the full Precepts; that is, complete ordination. He studied the Sarvastivadin Vinaya In Ten Sections under Vimalaksha, the well-known Shramana from Kashmir who had travelled to Kucha and was a renowned master of the Vinaya.

Meanwhile, Kumarajiva's mother decided to travel to India. There she was to be certified to the third fruit of Arhatship. Before leaving, she took a look at the causes and conditions and saw that her son's affinities lay in Chung Kuo. She told him. "The profound Vaipulya teachings should be propagated extensively in Chung Kuo. You are the only one with the power to do this. However, it will be most unbeneficial for you personally. I don't know how you feel about this..."

Kumarajiva replied, "The way of the Bodhisattva is to benefit others and forget oneself. If I can transmit the great teaching and enlighten the people, I would not even object to being boiled in a cauldron."

Kumarajiva remained in Kucha for two years studying the Great Vehicle Sutras. Then his uncle, the king, had a golden lion throne made for him and asked him to ascend it and speak the Dharma. But at that time Kumarajiva had something else on his mind. He wanted to convert his Small Vehicle Master, Bandhudatta. His Small vehicle Master had a lot of disciples, and if Kumarajiva could convert him, he would convert many others as well. so, although his uncle had made his a lion throne, he still intended to leave Kucha for Kashmir where Bandhudatta lived. This greatly upset his uncle. "I have been so gracious as to make you this throne," he said, "and you show me no consideration whatever."

Curiously enough, shortly thereafter, Bandhudatta arrived at the border, seeking entrance into Kucha. When border officials informed the palace, both Kumarajiva and the king went to meet him. The king asked Bandhudatta, "Why have you come from so far?"

Bandhudatta replied, "I came first of all because I heard of the great awakening of my disciple, and secondly, because I heard, Great King, of your vast propagation of the Buddhadharma and I wished to meet you."

Kumarajiva was delighted to see his teacher and spoke for him The Sutra Of The Questions Of The Virtuous woman, a Great Vehicle Sutra. When he had finished, his Teacher said, "Just what particular advantages does the Great Vehicle have that have caused you to take it up in lieu of the Small Vehicle?"

Kumarajiva replied, "The Great Vehicle propounds the doctrine that dharmas are empty. The Small Vehicle relies upon names and marks."

Bandhudatta replied, "The Great Vehicle talks about emptiness, but emptiness is just emptiness--nothing at all. What's the use of studying it? If everything is empty, then why study it?"

Kumarajiva said, "In emptiness there is Wonderful Existence. In True Emptiness there is Wonderful Existence. The Great Vehicle is the ultimate teaching. It is not like the Small Vehicle which restricts itself with names and terms and does not teach genuine liberation. The Small Vehicle is too rigid and stuffy."

Then Bandhudatta countered, "I have an analogy for the emptiness of the Great Vehicle. Once there was a madman who asked a weaver to weave him a piece of fine silk. The first piece the weaver brought his was not fine enough, and the second was still too coarse. He kept sending the weaver back to his loom until, in exasperation, the weaver finally confronted him with nothing at all, just his empty fist clenched in space and said, "Here it is. This is my finest work!"

"But there's nothing there," the madman said.
"This silk is so fine," said the weaver, "that even I, the master weaver, cannot see it. It's so fine it's invisible,"

"The madman was delighted and paid a handsome price for the silk. the other weavers also took up this method and they all cheated the madman who paid out a lot of money for nothing at all. Your exposition of the Great Vehicle Dharma is exactly like that," said Bandhudatta. "You talk about emptiness and say that within emptiness there is existence, but no one can see it."

"No, no, no," said Kumarajiva, and he continued to explain many subtle Great Vehicle Doctrines to him until finally, after over a month of discussion, he won his Teacher over to the Great Vehicle, and brought him to a true understanding or the doctrine of True Emptiness and Wonderful Existence. Then what do you think happened?

Bandhudatta said, "I want to bow to you as my Master,"

Kumarajiva said, "You can't do that. I have already bowed to you as my Master. How can you bow to me as your Master?"

Bandhudatta said, "I am your Small Vehicle Master; you can be my Great Vehicle Master. that way, we'll both have our Masters and we'll both have our Vehicles and everyone will be satisfied. It's no big problem."

In this way, Kumarajiva received his own Teacher as a disciple. It's obvious from this that the ancients did not have a mark of self. They had true understanding. Otherwise, Bandhudatta would not have been able to bow to his own disciple as a teacher. He would simply have said. "I don't care how lofty your eloquence; you are my disciple and that's that." The ancients had no view of self. They took the way as their Teacher. All that was necessary was for someone else to have more virtue than they, and they would bow to them as their Teacher. They had no obstructive thoughts of rank or position, and they were not self-centered.

One time, when the weather was extremely dry in Kucha, and it hadn't rained for a long time, Kumarajiva manifested great spiritual powers and set up a Dharma Altar to seek rain. He announced, "Within three days there will certainly be rain." Sure enough, before three days had passed, it rained. Everyone believed in him even more.

All the nations stood in awe of Kumarajiva and the kings would kneel beneath his speaking platform to listen to him expound upon the sutras. The King would even allow his back to be used as a step for Kumarajiva to walk on as he ascended the Dharma seat to deliver a lecture. The King did this to show how much he honored the Master any how much he esteemed the Buddhadharma.

In Chung Kuo at this time, The Emperor was Yao Hsing and his reign period was called Yao Ch'in Earlier, Emperor Fu Chien had set up the Fu Ch'in Dynasty. When Fu Chien was murdered by Yao ch'ang, the dynasty name was changed to Yao Ch'in. Later, when Yao Ch'ang died, Yao Hsing took the throne.

In Ch'ang An, Fu Chien's court astrologer, ch'ih Tien Chien, had seen a "wisdom star" shining in the direction of India and told Fu Chien, "In India, there is a person of great wisdom who shall be coming here to protect our country."

Fu Chien said, "It is most likely Kumarajiva. We should send out troops to escort him here. He then sent General Lu Kuang with seventy thousand mounted troops to Kucha after Kumarajiva.

Before Lu Kuang arrived in Kucha, Kumarajiva had told the King, "Chung Kuo is sending troops to our country, but they do not wish to take our land. They have another objective and you should listen to them and agree to their demands." But the King refused to listen and when Lu Kuang arrived, he sent out his troops to fight. The Chung Kuo army was large and powerful, and Kucha was just a little country. the King was murdered and his troops defeated.

As the King had been an ardent believer in Buddhism, you may wonder why he was murdered. It was because the killing karma he had created in past lives was too heavy. It was a fixed, unavoidable retribution.

Lu Kuang captured Kumarajiva and started back. One night he camped in a gorge at the base of two mountain. Kumarajiva advised him not to camp there as it was an inauspicious site, but Lu Kuang said, "What do you, a left home person, know about military matters?" In the middle of the night a flood swept down the gorge and Lu Kuang lost several thousand men. The next day he realized that Kumarajiva was rather extraordinary and that he had spiritual powers. Before the troops had drowned he did not believe in him, but now he certainly did!

When Lu Kuang arrived in Ku Tsang, he heard that in Chung Kuo, Fu Chien had been murdered by Yao Ch'ang, who had set up the Yao Ch'in Dynasty. Uncertain as to how he would be received in Chung Kuo, Lu Kuang decide to remain in Ku Tsang and maintain his neutrality.

When Lu Kuang's most esteemed minister, Ch'ang Chih, fell ill, a Brahman healer thought to swindle Lu Kuang and claimed that he could cure Ch'ang Chih's illness. Lu Kuang gave him a large sum of money, but Kumarajiva knew the man was a swindler and said to Lu Kuang, "No matter how much money you give him, he won't be able to cure Ch'ang Chih's illness. I will prove it to you. Here is a five-colored threat which I shall burn into ashes. Then I will put the ashes in some water. If the ashes turn back into a five-colored thread, then Ch'ang Chih's illness will not be cured. If they do not, he will get well. If you don't believe me, we'll try it out. He burned the thread and put the ashes in a cup of water. As soon as he did this, the ashes turned into a five colored thread. seeing this, Lu Kuang knew that Ch'ang Chih could not be cured. soon after, Ch'ang Chih died. Lu Kuang had spent a lot of money and got no results whatsoever. This was the inconceivable state of Kumarajiva. His spiritual powers were something which ordinary people could never fathom.

In Chung Kuo, when Yao Ch'ang died, his son, Yao Hsing, took the throne. A loyal supporter of the Buddhadharma, he sent men to Ku Tsang to bring Kumarajiva to Chung Kuo. In Ku Tsang, Lu Kuang having died, his son, Lu Shao, had taken the throne. Shortly after, Lu Tsuan, the son of one of his father's concubines, murdered Lu Shao and seized power. During the second year of Lu Tsuan's reign, a three-headed pig was born. Then a dragon was seen crawling out of a well on the outskirts of the eastern part of the city. It coiled up in front of the palace hall and remained there until dawn when it disappeared. Thinking this an auspicious portent, Lu Tsuan renamed the palace "Hovering Dragon." Then a black dragon was seen outside the throne-room gates. Lu Tsuan changed the name from' Nine Chamber Gates" to "Rising Dragon Gate,"

Kumarajiva told Lu Tsuan, "The appearance of these dragons is highly inauspicious. They are YIN dragons and their frequent appearance foretells calamities for the nation. I advise the cultivation of virtue to forestall these impending disasters."

Lu Tsuan would not hear of this. While playing chess with Kumarajiva, Lu Tsuan was about to take one of Kumarajiva's men and said, in reference to the chess move, "I cut off the Hu Nu's (barbarian's) head.

Startled, Kumarajiva said, 'You cannot cut off the Hu Nu's head. The Hu Nu will cut off someone else's head." This was a prophecy, although Lu Tsuan failed to understand it as such.

Lu Kuang's little brother, Lu Pao, had a son named Lu Ch'ao, whose nickname was Hu Nu. At that time, Lu Chao was plotting Lu Tsuan's murder. Later Lu Chao did, in fact, kill Lu Tsuan, and set his older brother, Lu Lung, on the throne. It was Lu Lung who was ruling the country when Yao Hsing's troops arrived from Chung Kuo to take Kumarajiva.

Kumarajiva arrived in Chung Kuo, at Chang An, in 401 A.D. and was made a National Master. He headed a translation center with over eight hundred Sangha and lay scholars assisting him. By the time he died, he had produced over three hundred rolls of translation, including the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra.

We have proof that Kumarajiva's translations are extremely accurate. When he was about to die, he asked to be cremated and said, "I have translated many Sutras during my lifetime and I personally do not know if they are correct. If they are, when I am cremated, my tongue will not burn. If there are mistakes, however, it will." When his body was burned, his tongue was found unburned in the ashes.

During the Tang Dynasty, Vinaya Master Tau Hsuan once asked the god Lu Hsuan Chang, "Why does everyone prefer to read Kumarajiva's translations?" The god replied, "Kumarajiva has been the translation master for the past seven Buddhas and so his translations are extremely accurate."

Kumarajiva was a Tripitaka Master, one who has mastered the Three divisions of the Buddhist Canon: the sutras, Shastras, and Vinaya. A Dharma Master takes the Dharma as his master and bestows the Dharma upon others. Some Dharma Masters chant Sutras, others maintain them in their minds and practice them with their bodies; others write them out and still others explain them for people.

Kumarajiva's name is Sanskrit and means "Youth of Long Life." One could say, "Young Kumarajiva will certainly live to a great age." One could also say, "He was young in years, but mature in wisdom, eloquence, and virtue: he had the wisdom of an old man. So he is called "the youth of long life."