Go Chodrub ('gos chos grub) was born around 755. According to Tibetan scholar Kelzang Dolma (skal bzang sgrol ma) he may have been born in Tsang, at a place called Tanakpu (rta nag phu).1 He was active in Dunhuang during the first half of the ninth century. He appears to have been a monk, as his name is occasionally recorded as Bande Chodrub (ba nde chos grub). His Chinese name was Facheng 法成.
Go Chodrub enjoyed Tibetan royal patronage, earning the rank of "chief translator" (shu chen gyi lo tsA ba) and Master of Long Lineage (ring lugs pa / chos bcom ldan 'das kyi ring lugs kyi mdun sa). The king was most likely Relpachen (ral pa chen), who was on the Tibetan throne from 815 to 836. He appears to have been based at Dunhuang's Xiuduo Monastery 修多寺.2
According to the Peking Tripitaka Online Search there are eight translations in the Tibetan canon credited to Go Chodrub. These include the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (D 107), which he translated from the Chinese, as well as the Korean monk Woncheuk's (원측 Chinese: Yuance 圓測) Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra commentary. The latter text, renowned in Tibet simply as "The Great Chinese Commentary" (rgya cher 'grel pa), was referenced extensively by Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa, 1357-1419) in his Essence of Elegance (legs bshad snying po). The full Tibetan title is The Great Chinese Commentary on the Ārya Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra ('phags pa dgong pa zab mo nges par 'grel pa'i mdo'i rgya cher 'grel pa) (D 4016). It is attested in the Catalog of Denkar Palace (lhan/ldan dkar ma) compiled between 815 and 824, providing a rough dating for when Chodrup made the translation: between 774, when the Chinese monk Tankuang (曇曠 b. 700) brought it to Dunhuang, and 824.
Go Chodrub also translated the Ullambana Sūtra (Yulanben Jing 盂蘭盆經, T. 685), a Chinese apocryphon in which the Buddha's disciple Maudgalyāyana seeks a means to rescue his mother from rebirth as a hungry ghost. This text was integral to the formation of the Ghost Festival in China, in which one places a bowl of offerings to rescue one's deceased relatives from unfortunate rebirths. It was not included in standard editions of the Tibetan canon.
1 Skal bzang sgrol ma, 32.
2 Powers, 97-98.
དཔྱད་གཞིའི་ཡིག་ཆ་ཁག།
Anon. 1983. Lo tsā ba 'gos chos grub. In Gangs ljongs skad gnyis smra ba du ma'i 'gyur byang blo gsal dga' skyed, vol. 1, pp. 55-56. Lanzhou: Kan lho bod rigs rang skyong khul rtsom sgyur cu'u. BDRC W24697.
Buswell, Robert E, Jr., and Donald S. Lopez, Jr., eds. 2014. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton: University of Princeton Press.
Li Ming and Ma De. 2017. "Avalokiteśvara and the Dunhuang Dhāraṇī Spells of Salvation in Childbirth." In Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism. Yael Bentor and Meir Shahar, eds. Leiden: Brill. 338-354.
Powers, John. 1992. "Lost in China, Found in Tibet: How Wonch'uk Became the Author of the Great Chinese Commentary." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 15, no 1, pp. 95-103.
Shōju Inaba. 1977. "On Chos-grub's Translation of the Chieh-shen-mi-ching-shu." In Buddhist Thought and Asian Civilization Essays in Honor of Herbert V. Guenther on His Sixtieth Birthday, Leslie S. Kawamura and Keith Scott, eds. Emeryville: Dharma Publishing.
Skal bzang sgrol ma. 1988-2009. Lo tsā ba 'gos chos grub dang khong gi 'gyur rtsom mdo mdzangs blun gyi lo tsā'i thabs rtsal skor la dpyad pa. In Krung go'i bod kyi shes rig, vol. 77, pp. 35-57. Beijing: Krung go'i bod kyi shes rig dus deb khang.