PREFACE

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him with great respect and made him “teacher of the state”. In
717 AD, he translated the Sutra of the Vajarasekhara Crown. He
died at the age of ninety-nine.


At the same time Wu’ Xi'ng, a Chinese scholar, traveled to
India and met Yi Jing (another Chinese scholar) in Nalanda. Wu’
X i ' n g had collected many Sanskrit scriptures but died on his way
home. The documents he gathered were sent to the monaster y o f
Avatamsaka in Ch'an-An. Having heard about the scriptures,
Subhakarasimha selected some important ones and started
translating the Mahavairocana Sutra and other scriptures in 725
and 726 AD with the help of a Chinese disciple.


At the time, whenever Subhakarasimha initiated the
ceremony to preach the Dharma, he had the spiritual powers from
the Buddhas to perform many miracles and converted many
people to Buddhism.


B. Vajrabodhi (663-723AD)


Vajrabodhi was from southern India. He too came from a
princely family. He received religious training at Nalanda. At the
age of 15, he went to West India to study the treatise on human's
intelligence for four years with Dharmakirti, and went back to
Nalanda to receive the great precepts. He diligently studied the
laws (Vinaya) and essay on the Middle Path (Madhayamira) for
six years with Santabodi. For the next three years he studied the
doctrine of forms and researched on the Yogachna essay of
Asangha, on Intellectualism (Viynaptimara) of Vasubandhu, and
the debate on the middle path essay of An Hui, together with
Jinadhadra (Madhyantavibhaya of Sthimati Bodhisattva) in the
c i t y of Kapilavastu in North India. Seven years later he

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