'Triptaka Master' is the highest award possible to a Buddhist monk. Only those who had already read the three Pitakas: Sutra, Vinaya and Abhidharma, and were well versed in their doctrines, would be so addressed by both the clerics and the layman. In the Goldern Age of Buddhist translation in China (from the third century to tenth century A.D.), there were many foreign or Chinese monks who acted as 'Chief Translator', in different translation centres. From the Buddhist bibliographical works, we found forty odd of the above-mentioned chief translators being marked as a 'Tripitaka Master'. And among them, only Hsuan-tsang (玄奘 602-664) and I-ching (義淨 635-713) were Chinese natives. As both of them had been made their pilgrimage to India and studied in Nalanda Monastoery, people would therefore think that whether their titles would have been conferred by the authority of this leading monastery in India. According to my research, their titles were not received from overseas. Material concerning Hsuan-tang shows that when he was still alive, only a few of his cotemporaries addressing him with this title as away of expressing their personal respects. The other people, including the emperors of T'ang China, but calling him 'Master' or 'Sramana' only. After he was passed away, more and more people began to address him 'Tripitaka Master'. Therefore, I venture to say that 'Tripitaka Master' became a posthumous title that honoured Hsuan-tsang by the public. I-ching, on the other hand, was always addressed 'Tripitaka Master' by all people in his life. It is due to the fact that his title was conferred by Empress Wu Tse-t'ion (武則天 R.684-704) in 695. No matter whether their titles were honoured by the people or conferred by the empress, 'Tripitaka' Master Hsuan-tsang and Triptaka Master I-ching were worth-while to win this title. Their scholarship in the doctrines of the entire Tripitaka had already shown in the sacred scriptures that translation by them. Among Hsuan-tsang's 74 translated works (totally in 1329 fascicles), there are 32 works (in 670 fascicles) belong to the 'Sutrapitaka', 2 works (in 2 fascicles) the Vinayapitaka and 40 works (in 657 fascicles) the Abhidharmapitaka; while I-ching's 59 translated works (totally in 276 fascicles), there are 28 works (in 41 fascicles) belong the 'Sutrapitaka', 18 works (in 209 fascicles) the Vinayapitaka and 13 works (in 26 fascicles) the abhidharmapitaka. In accordance with the working procedure of a translation center, a chief translator should have to read the Sanskrit text, sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph, in a congregation in the first place. He then explained its meaning to the participants not only wrote down his explanations, but also occasionally asked him questions or even discussed with him the content of the text. In such circumstances, Hsuan-tsnag and I-ching would have been well versed in the doctrines of the three Pitakes, or they could not complete their tasks of translation.
