Timothy Richard
It was not long after that he and several friends raised money to establish the Jinling Sutra Publishing House (金凌刻經處 "Jīnlíng kèjīng chù"), Jinling being an old name for Nanjing. In 1878 he left China to visit England and France, bringing back several scientific instruments which he donated to researchers in China. During another trip to England he met the Japanese Buddhist Nanjo Bunyu () and started a correspondence with him. With Nanjō's help, Yang was able to import over 300 sutra texts from Japan that had been lost within China. In 1894 he worked with the British missionary Timothy Richard () to translate "Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" into English.