Lokaksema (Ch: 支娄迦谶 Zhi Loujiachan， sometimes abbreviated 支谶 Zhi Chan), born around 147 CE, is the earliest known Buddhist monk to have translated Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into the Chinese language.

Origins

Lokaksema was a Kushan of Yuezhi ethnicity from Gandhara. His ethnicity is described in his adopted Chinese name by the prefix Zhi (Ch:支), abbreviation of Yuezhi (Ch:月支). As a Yuezhi, his native tongue was a version of Tocharian, an Indo-European language.

He was born in Gandhara at a time when Buddhism was actively sponsored by the Kushan king Kanishka, who convened the Fourth Buddhist Council. The Council probably marked the official recognition of the pantheistic Mahayana Buddhism and its scission with Nikaya Buddhism, opening the way to prozelitism by monks such as Lokaksema. Second century Gandhara was also a center of Greco-Buddhist art, a fusion of Buddhist and Hellenistic influences.

Lokaksema came from Gandhara to the court of the Han dynasty at the capital Loyang and worked there between 178 and 189.

Activity in China

Lokaksema's work includes the translation of the Pratyutpanna Sutra, containing the first known mentions of the Buddha Amitabha and his Pure Land, said to be at the origin of Pure Land practice in China, and the first known translations of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (The "Astasahasrikaprajnaparamita Sutras", or "Perfection of Wisdom Sutras of the practice of the Way", a part of the "Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 lines"), a founding text of Mahayana Buddhism.

Lokaksema's translation activities, as well as those of the Parthians An Shih Kao and An Hsuan slightly earlier, or the Yuezhi Dharmaraksa (around 286 CE) illustrate the key role Central Asians had in propagating the Buddhist faith to the countries of Eastern Asia.

Another Yuezhi monk and one of Lokaksema's students named Zhi Yao (Ch:支曜)，translated Mahayana Buddhist texts from Central Asian around 185 CE, such as the "Sutra on the Completion of Brightness" (Ch:成具光明经 Chengiu guangming jing).

See also

• History of Buddhism
• Buddhist texts
• Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

References:

"Religions of the Silk Road" Richard C.Foltz ISBN 0312233388