Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.24

v1.c7.24

abroad. But seen from the angle of culture, the spread of the Buddhist teaching was the beginning of the journey of the conversion to kindness and propriety. Believers were willing to lay down their life for their belief, looking for scriptural texts and sending delegations. For example, tradition says that Xianzong of the later Han, Emperor Xiaoming, dreamed about a golden person one night. When he sent his senior secretary Cai Yin and the scholar Qin Jing, to India in search of the teachings of Buddha and when he invited the ‘*śramaṇas*’ Jiaye Moteng (Kāśyapa Mātaṅga) and Zhu Falan (Dharmarājan/Dharmaratna) to China, Buddhism began its spread in China. Zhu Fahu (Dharmarakṣa), a ‘*śramaṇa*’ from Dunhuang during the Eastern Jin, travelled through 36 countries in the West and along the way he translated the *Da ji Hu jing* (*Great Sutra presented by the West*). In Chang’an, he erected a temple outside of the Qing gate. Shi Baoyun, a *śramaṇa* from Liangzhou during the Eastern Jin, and Shi Faxian, Shi Zhiyan, etc, entered India and understood the meaning of their sounds. They returned to Chang’an and to the region south of the Yangtze River and they carefully translated their scriptures. Shi Zhimeng, a *śramaṇa* from Jingzhao, went with 15 companions to the West from Liangzhou, to the countries of Shanshan and reached Jibin (Kashmir). He met five hundred *arhatas*, explored the local customs and returned. Most famous, of course, is Xuanzang, the *śramaṇa* from the Great Zhuangyan Temple in the capital of the Great Tang. In the third year of Zhenguan, he went by himself to the West in search of Buddha’s original teachings. He crossed 150 countries on his way. He translated scriptures by imperial command and he wrote the *Xi yu ji* (*Record of the Western Regions*).