The Vajracchedikā-sūtra with gāthās compiled by Master Fu - Evertype

Then the Chan master Zhigong asked, “O great king, did you know this person?” The Chinese
Emperor said, “Who was he? I didn’t know (him).” Then the Chan master Zhigong said, “This is the
incarnated body of Maitreya Boddhisattva who is the aspiration of the human beings of five forms of
existence and. In order to increase and intensify your believing mind, in order to illustrate and
explain deep and profound meaning of the doctrine Kimkoke, he descended down from the Tuṣita
Heaven. May the great king know this.” Then having heard this word, the Chinese Emperor Wu of
the Liang (dynasty) extremely astonished and surprised. His believing mind to the doctrine Kimkoke
was increased and intensified. Because of this reason that Chinese Emperor has have copied the
doctrine Kimkoke of 49 gāthās on the fourth floor of a big temple in a city called Jingzhou 41 and put (it)
there. Until now it still exists there. Again, as for this doctrine-jewel named Kimkoke of deep and
profound meaning, it is the deepest and finest among the holy doctrines and commands of deep and
profound meaning of the all-wise Buddha, the God of gods. It’s exceptionally profound meaning is
extremely hard to measure that all Buddhas, Purely-Come (= Tathāgata) 42 and Not-Thus, 43 if all of
them wasn’t born and had not appeared because of this doctrine-jewel, even if they are able to know
and understand (it) through learning characters, 44 explanations and illustrations it is totally
impossible to understand it’s profound and deep (meaning).
41 Name of an ancient Chinese city located to the central part of present Hubei Province. It is more popular
name is Jiangling 江 陵 .
42
The original Old Uyghur term is arıgın kälmišlär lit. Those who have purely come. Hazai and Zieme (BT I, p. 19)
translate the term as ,die in Reinheit Gekommenen’; UWb (183b) offers the translation ‚der in Reinheit-
Gekommene’. Unfortunately, there is no counterpart for this term in the Chinese original. However, from the
Xuanzang-biography we know that the arıgın kälmišlär stands for Chin. 如 來 Rulai ‘Tathāgata’; for analysis see
UWb 183b.
43
The original Old Uyghur term is inčä ärmäzlär lit. those who are not like this. Hazai and Zieme translate as
‘wären nicht so’ (BT I, p. 19). The definte meaning of this term is not clear. The Chinese original does not have a
counterpart for this term.
44 The original Old Uyghur text has užik etig, a compound of užik ‘letter’ and etig anything made skilfully and/or
artfully (OTWF 187). Here užik etig renders Chin. 文 wen ‘streaks, lines, veins, strokes’ (Giles 1892, p. 1246).