Lokaksema (Buddhist monk)

Lokakṣema (Chinese: 支婁迦讖; pinyin: Zhī Lóujiāchèn, sometimes abbreviated 支讖 Zhī Chèn), born around 147 CE, was the earliest known Buddhist monk to have translated Mahāyāna sūtras into the Chinese language and as such was an important figure in Chinese Buddhism. The name Lokakṣema means 'welfare of the world' in Sanskrit.

Origins

Lokaksema was a Kushan of Yuezhi ethnicity from Gandhara. (See Greco-Buddhism.) His ethnicity is described in his adopted Chinese name by the prefix Zhi (Chinese: 支), an abbreviation of Yuezhi (Chinese: 月支). As a Kushan Yuezhi, his native tongue was possibly Bactrian, the official Kushan language related to modern Afghani, or one of the Tocharian languages, or Persian, or Greek, all of which are part of the Indo-European language family and were spoken by the peoples of the Kushan Empire at this time.

Lokaksema was born in Gandhara, a center of Greco-Buddhist art, at a time when Buddhism was actively sponsored by the Kushan Emperor Kanishka, who convened the Fourth Buddhist council. The proceedings of this council actually oversaw the formal split of Nikaya Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. It would seem that Kanishka was not ill-disposed towards Mahayana Buddhism, opening the way for missionary activities in China by monks such as Lokaksema.

Lokaksema came from Gandhara to the court of the Han dynasty at the capital, Luoyang, as early as 150 CE and worked there between 178-189 CE. A prolific scholar monk, many early translations of important Mahāyāna texts in China are attributed to him, including the very early prajñāpāramitā sutra known as the "Practice of the Path" (Chinese: 道行般若經), the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra (Chinese: 般舟三昧經), the Ajātaśatru Kaukṛtya Vinodana Sūtra (Chinese: 阿闍世王經, Taisho XV 627 iii 424a22-425a25), Zá pìyù jīng (Chinese: 雜譬喩經), Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra (Chinese: 首楞嚴經) Infinite Life Sutra (Chinese: 無量淸淨平等覺經), and the Mahāratnakuta Sutra (Chinese: 寶積經).^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The Sanskrit names of the sutras he translated are Astasahasrika, Aksobhyatathagatasyavyuha, an early version of a sutra connected to the Avatamsaka Sutra, Drumakinnararajapariprccha, Bhadrapala Sutra, Ajatasatrukaukrtyavinodana and the Kasyapaparivarta,^[6] which were probably composed in the north of India in the first century CE.^[7][8]

Activity in China

Lokaksema's work includes the translation of the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra, containing the first known mentions of the Buddha Amitābha and his pure land, said to be at the origin of Pure Land Buddhism in China, and the first known translations of the prajñāpāramitās (The Astasahasrika-prajnaparamita sutras, or "Perfection of Wisdom Sutras of the practice of the Way", which later became known as the "Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 lines"), a foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism.

Lokaksema's translation activities, as well as those of the Parthians An Shigao and An Xuan slightly earlier, or his fellow Yuezhi Dharmarakṣa (around 286 CE) illustrate the key role Central Asians had in propagating Buddhism to the countries of East Asia.

One of Lokaksema's students, another Yuezhi monk named Zhi Yao (), translated Mahayana texts from Central Asia around 185 CE, such as the "Sutra on the Completion of Brightness" (Chinese: 成具光明經).

See also

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

References

1. ↑ Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) p. 287b/319
2. ↑ Fo Guang Shan Dictionary, p. 1416
3. ↑ Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa), p. 569
4. ↑ Index to the Bussho kaisetsu daijiten (Ono), p. 341
5. ↑ Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki)(v.1-6), p. 2858a
6. ↑ A History of Indian Buddhism - Hirakawa Akira (translated and edited by Paul Groner) - Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1993, p. 248-251
7. ↑ "The sudden appearance of large numbers of (Mahayana) teachers and texts (in North India in the second century AD) would seem to require some previous preparation and development, and this we can look for in the South." A. K. Warder, Indian Buddhism, 3rd edition, 1999 p. 335.
8. ↑ A History of Indian Buddhism - Hirakawa Akira (translated and edited by Paul Groner) - Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1993, p. 252, 253

Further reading

• Foltz, Richard (2010). Religions of the Silk Road Premodern Patterns of Globalization. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1. 
• Nattier, Jan (2008). A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms Periods, Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica, IRIAB Vol. X, 73-88; ISBN 978-4-904234-00-6