Bodhiruci

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Bodhiruci(5th century - 6th century)

A renowned Indian translator and monk (to be distinguished from a subsequent Bodhiruci [s.v.] who was active in China two centuries later during the Tang dynasty). Bodhiruci left north India for Luoyang, the Northern Wei capital, in 508. He is said to have been well versed in the Tripiṭaka and talented at incantations. Bodhiruci stayed at the monastery of Yongningsi in Luoyang from 508 to 512 and with the help of Buddhaśānta (d.u.) and others translated over thirty Mahāyāna sūtras and treatises, most of which reflect the latest developments in Indian Mahāyāna, and especially Yogācāra. His translations include the Dharmasaṃgīti, Shidijing lun, Laṅkāvatārasūtra, Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, and the Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng ji, attributed to Vasubandhu. Bodhiruci’s translation of the Shidijing lun, otherwise known more simply as the Di lun, fostered the formation of a group of Yogācāra specialists in China that later historians retroactively call the Di lun zong. According to a story in the Lidai fabao ji, a jealous Bodhiruci, assisted by a monk from Shaolinsi on Songshan named Guangtong (also known as Huiguang, 468–537), is said to have attempted on numerous occasions to poison the founder of the Chan school, Bodhidharma, and eventually succeeded. Bodhiruci is also said to have played an instrumental role in converting the Chinese monk Tanluan from Daoist longevity practices to the pure land teachings of the Guan Wuliangshou jing. (Source: "Bodhiruci." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 133. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

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