Buddhist adoption in Asia, Mahayana Buddhism first entered China through Silk Road. Blue-eyed Central Asian monk teaching East-Asian monk. A fresco from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, dated to the 9th century; although Albert von Le Coq (1913) assumed the blue-eyed, red-haired monk was a Tocharian,[1] modern scholarship has identified similar Caucasian figures of the same cave temple (No. 9) as ethnic Sogdians,[2] an Eastern Iranian people who inhabited Turfan as an ethnic minority community during the phases of Tang Chinese (7th- 8th century) and Uyghur rule (9th-13th century).[3] Buddhism entered Han China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE.[4][5] The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China (all foreigners) were in the 2nd century CE under the influence of the expansion of the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin under Kanishka.[6][7] These contacts brought Gandharan Buddhist culture into territories adjacent to China proper. Direct contact between Central Asian and Chinese Buddhism continued throughout the 3rd to 7th century, well into the Tang period. From the 4th century onward, with Faxian's pilgrimage to India (395–414), and later Xuanzang (629–644), Chinese pilgrims started to travel by themselves to northern India, their source of Buddhism, in order to get improved access to original scriptures. Much of the land route connecting northern India (mainly Gandhara) with China at that time was ruled by the Kushan Empire, and later the Hephthalite Empire. The Indian form of Buddhist tantra (Vajrayana) reached China in the 7th century. Tibetan Buddhism was likewise established as a branch of Vajrayana, in the 8th century. But from about this time, the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism began to decline with the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, resulting in the Uyghur Khaganate by the 740s.[8] By this time, Indian Buddhism itself was in decline, due to the resurgence of Hinduism on one hand and due to the Muslim expansion on the other, while Tang-era Chinese Buddhism was repressed in the 9th century, but not before in its turn giving rise to Korean and Japanese traditions. The transmission of Buddhism Kingdoms in the Tarim Basin during the 3rd century, connecting the territory of China with that of the Kushan Empire: Kashgar, Kucha, Khotan, Karasahr, Shanshan, Turfan. First contacts Buddhism was brought to China via the Silk Road. Buddhist monks travelled with merchant caravans on the Silk Road, to preach their new religion. The lucrative Chinese silk trade along this trade route began during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) with the establishment by Alexander the Great of a system of Hellenistic kingdoms (323 BC - 63 BC) and trade networks extending from the Mediterranean to modern Afghanistan and Tajikistan on the borders of China. The powerful Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms (250 BC-125 BC) in Afghanistan and the later Indo-Greek Kingdoms (180 BC - 10 CE) practiced Greco-Buddhism and formed the first stop on the Silk Road, after China, for nearly 300 years. See Dayuan (Ta-yuan; Chinese: 大宛; literarily "Great Ionians"). The transmission of Buddhism to China via the Silk Road started in the 1st century CE with a semi-legendary account of an embassy sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming (58–75 CE): It may be assumed that travelers or pilgrims brought Buddhism along the Silk Roads, but whether this first occurred from the earliest period when those roads were open, ca. 100 BC, must remain open to question. The earliest direct references to Buddhism concern the 1st century AD, but they include hagiographical elements and are not necessarily reliable or accurate.[9] Extensive contacts however started in the 2nd century CE, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Greco-Buddhist Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin, with the missionary efforts of a great number of Central Asian Buddhist monks to Chinese lands. The first missionaries and translators of Buddhists scriptures into Chinese were either Parthian, Kushan, Sogdian or Kuchean.[10] Central Asian missionaries Peoples of the Silk Road. Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, China, 9th century Bodhisattva mural. Chinese work showing Central Asian influence. Mogao Caves, China. Sogdian donors to the Buddha (fresco, with detail), Bezeklik, eastern Tarim Basin, China, 8th century In the middle of the 2nd century, the Kushan empire under king Kaniṣka from its capital at Purushapura (modern Peshawar), India expanded into Central Asia and went beyond the regions of Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkand, in the Tarim Basin, modern Xinjiang. As a consequence, cultural exchanges greatly increased, and Central Asian Buddhist missionaries became active shortly after in the Chinese capital cities of Loyang and sometimes Nanjing, where they particularly distinguished themselves by their translation work. They promoted both Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna scriptures. Thirty-seven of these early translators of Buddhist texts are known. An Shigao, a Parthian prince who made the first known translations of Hīnayāna Buddhist texts into Chinese (148–170) Lokakṣema, a Kushan and the first to translate Mahāyāna scriptures into Chinese (167–186) An Xuan, a Parthian merchant who became a monk in China in 181 Zhi Yao (c. 185), a Kushan monk in the second generation of translators after Lokakṣema. Kang Meng-hsiang (194–207), the first translator from Kangju Zhi Qian (220–252), a Kushan monk whose grandfather had settled in China during 168–190 Zhi Yueh (c.230), a Kushan monk who worked at Nanjing Kang Senghui (247–280), born in Jiaozhi (or Chiao-chih) close to modern Hanoi in what was then the extreme south of the Chinese empire, and a son of a Sogdian merchant[11] Tan-ti (c.254), a Parthian monk Po Yen (c.259), a Kuchean prince Dharmarakṣa (265–313), a Kushan whose family had lived for generations at Dunhuang An Fachiin (281–306), a monk of Parthian origins Po Srimitra (317–322), a Kuchean prince Kumārajīva (c. 401), a Kuchean monk and one of the most important translators Fotudeng (4th century), a Central Asian monk who became a counselor to the Chinese court Bodhidharma (440–528), the founder of the Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism, and the legendary originator of the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolin kung fu. According to the earliest reference to him, by Yang Xuanzhi, he was a monk of Central Asian origin whom Yang Xuanshi met around 520 at Loyang.[12] Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is referred to as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" (碧眼 胡:Bìyǎn hú) in Chinese Chan texts.[13] Five monks from Gandhāra who traveled in 485 CE to the country of Fusang ("the country of the extreme east" beyond the sea, probably Japan), where they introduced Buddhism.[a] Jñānagupta (561–592), a monk and translator from Gandhāra Śikṣānanda (652–710 CE), a monk and translator from Udyāna, Gandhāra Prajñā (c. 810), a monk and translator from Kabul who educated the Japanese Kūkai in Sanskrit texts Early translations Eastern Han inscriptions on lead ingot, using barbarous Greek alphabet in the style of the Kushans, excavated in Shaanxi, China, 1st-2nd century CE.[14] The first documented translation of Buddhist scriptures 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 Loyang 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 ca. 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. Chinese pilgrims to India From the 4th century onward, Chinese pilgrims also started to travel on the Silk Road to India, the origin of Buddhism, by themselves in order to get improved access to the original scriptures. According to Chinese sources, the first Chinese to be ordained was Zhu Zixing, after he went to Central Asia in 260 to seek out Buddhism. It is only from the 4th century CE that Chinese Buddhist monks started to travel to India to discover Buddhism first-hand. Faxian's pilgrimage to India (395–414) is said to have been the first significant one. He left along the Silk Road, stayed six years in India, and then returned by the sea route. Xuanzang (629–644) and Hyecho traveled from Korea to India.[15] The most famous of the Chinese pilgrims is Xuanzang (629–644), whose large and precise translation work defines a "new translation period", in contrast with older Central Asian works. He also left a detailed account of his travels in Central Asia and India. The legendary accounts of the holy priest Xuanzang were described in the famous novel Journey to the West, which envisaged trials of the journey with demons but with the help of various disciples. Merchants During the fifth and sixth centuries C.E., Merchants played a large role in the spread of religion, in particular Buddhism. Merchants found the moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism to be an appealing alternative to previous religions.