Gandhara - Proselytism

Proselytism

Further information: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Gandharan Buddhist missionaries were active, with other monks from Central Asia, from the 2nd century AD in Han-dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) China's capital of Luoyang, and particularly distinguished themselves by their translation work. They promoted scriptures from Early Buddhist schools as well as those from the Mahayana.

• Lokaksema, a Kushan and the first to translate Mahayana scriptures into Chinese (167–186)
• Zhi Yao (c. 185), a Kushan monk, second generation of translators after Lokaksema
• 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
• Dharmaraksa (265–313), a Kushan whose family had lived for generations at Dunhuang
• Jnanagupta (561–592), a monk and translator from Gandhara
• Shikshananda (652–710), a monk and translator from Udyana, Gandhara
• Prajna (c. 810), a monk and translator from Kabul, who educated the Japanese Kūkai in Sanskrit texts