Dharmakṣema

[1][2] Based on canonical catalogues and biographies such as Sengyou's Chu Sanzang Jiji (出三藏記集) and the Wei Annals, it has been possible to reconstruct an outline of Dharmakṣema's life and career.

Throughout his youth, Dharmakṣema studied the Hīnayāna scriptures and showed great promise as he was gifted with considerable powers of memory and eloquence.

When his trickery came to light, he fled to Central Asia taking with him the copy of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and two other texts on moral discipline.

[1] An anecdote, mentioned in the monastic biographies, dating to this period shows a somewhat less than respectful attitude towards the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, even though the account presumably comes from Dharmakṣema himself.

[1] Almost immediately, Dharmakṣema was put to work translating the Nirvāṇa Sūtra by Juqu who may have been interested in the prophecies contained in that text concerning the "end-days" of the Dharma.

He also continued to use his magical or thaumaturgic skills to retain Juqu's reliance upon him, reportedly exorcising the city of a host of plague-bearing demons.

[1] After negotiations had dragged on for several years, the pressure from Tuoba Tao became impossible to ignore—he was even threatening to invade Northern Liang to take Dharmakṣema by force.

In the late months of 432, a decision to kill Dharmakṣema was reached by Juqu Mengxun and Li Shun, the aristocratic emissary of Tuoba Tao.

The reasons for this decision are unclear as two differing accounts are found in the monastic biographies and the civil Wei Annals, though the two sources concur that he was killed in January 433 at the age of forty-nine.

The monastic biographical records state that Dharmakṣema had insisted on leaving Guzong for another trip in search of further missing parts of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra.

They record that Dharmakṣema was particularly famed for secret sexual techniques, which had interested Tuoba Tao, which had already got him into trouble in Shanshan with female members of the royal family there.

[1] It is also recorded that Juqu regretted his actions and was plagued by visitations from demons "even in broad daylight" until his own death a few months later in March 433.