page_title: Chinese Buddhism
section_title: The first translations
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese Buddhism / History / Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) / The first translations
caption_attribution_description: English: 8th century fresco at Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in Gansu Province. Depiction of the Han Emperor Wu worshiping statues of the Buddha. Attached textual description of Han Wudi worshiping golden men brought in 120 BC by a great Han general in his campaigns against the nomads: "Emperor Han Wudi directed his troops to fight the XiongNu and obtained two large golden statues that he displayed in the Ganquan Palace and regularly worshipped." The frescoe is located in Cave 323 in Mogao. It pertains to the same panel showing the departure of Zhang Qian to Western lands (Image:ZhangQianTravels.jpg). The two paintings are side-by-side. It combined legend and historical fact: Han Emperor Wu has never worshipped the Buddha. 中文: 漢武帝將其部眾討凶奴,並獲得二金(人),(各)長丈餘,刊〔列〕之於甘泉宮,帝(以)為大神,常行拜褐時。
context_page_description: Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, medicine and material culture.
  The translation of a large body of Indian Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and the inclusion of these translations together with works composed in China into a printed canon had far-reaching implications for the dissemination of Buddhism throughout the East Asian cultural sphere, including Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Chinese Buddhism is also marked by the interaction between Indian religions, Chinese religion and Taoism.
context_section_description: The first documented translation of Buddhist scriptures from various Indian languages into Chinese occurs in 148 CE with the arrival of the Parthian prince-turned-monk An Shigao (Ch. 安世高). He worked to establish Buddhist temples in Luoyang and organized the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, testifying to the beginning of a wave of Central Asian Buddhist proselytism that was to last several centuries. An Shigao translated Buddhist texts on basic doctrines, meditation, and abhidharma. An Xuan (Ch. 安玄), a Parthian layman who worked alongside An Shigao, also translated an early Mahāyāna Buddhist text on the bodhisattva path.
  Mahāyāna Buddhism was first widely propagated in China by the Kushan monk Lokakṣema (Ch. 支婁迦讖, active c. 164–186 CE), who came from the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Gandhāra. Lokakṣema translated important Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, as well as rare, early Mahāyāna sūtras on topics such as samādhi, and meditation on the buddha Akṣobhya. These translations from Lokakṣema continue to give insight into the early period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This corpus of texts often includes emphasizes ascetic practices and forest dwelling, and absorption in states of meditative concentration:
  Paul Harrison has worked on some of the texts that are arguably the earliest versions we have of the Mahāyāna sūtras, those translated into Chinese in the last half of the second century CE by the Indo-Scythian translator Lokakṣema. Harrison points to the enthusiasm in the Lokakṣema sūtra corpus for the extra ascetic practices, for dwelling in the forest, and above all for states of meditative absorption (samādhi). Meditation and meditative states seem to have occupied a central place in early Mahāyāna, certainly because of their spiritual efficacy but also because they may have given access to fresh revelations and inspiration.
caption: Mogao Caves 8th-century mural depicting the legend of Emperor Wu of Han worshipping buddha statues
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