Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c32.s1.67

c32.s1.67

**Nālandā Scholars working as Missionaries in China.** The pioneers among Indian Scholars working as missionaries in foreign countries were Kumārajīva, Guṇavarman, or Paramārtha, the translator of the life of Vasubandhu, all belonging to the fifth century a.d. They were followed by many scholars who proceeded to China from Central India, many of whom were scholars of Nālandā. We read of a Pandit of Nālandā named Śubhākara Siṁha settling down in China in the beginning of eighth century a.d. Four of his works were translated from Sanskrit to Chinese. Cultural intercourse between China and India was interrupted for some time by political conditions. But it revived in the tenth century when we find the Nālandā scholar Dharmadeva taking up work in China as a member of the Imperial Bureau of Translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese under the Song Dynasty (a.d. 960–1127). Up to a.d. 981 Dharmadeva translated forty-six works into Chinese, which were mostly Tantras and *Dhāraṇīs* (e.g. *Vasudharā-Dhāraṇī*, *Buddha-hṛidaya-Dhāraṇī*, etc.). In the period of nineteen years, from a.d. 981, he translated another seventy-two works. He also translated into Chinese the popular Mahāyāna work, *Sukhāvatīvyūha*.