Kasyapa Matanga (Kāśyapa Mātaṇga) or Jia Yemoteng 迦葉摩騰 (Jia Shemoteng 迦攝摩騰, Zhu Yemoteng 竺葉摩騰, or Zhu Shemoteng 竺攝摩騰) was an Indian Buddhist monk who is traditionally believed to have first introduced

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in the 1st century CE. According to popular accounts of

Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...

Emperor Ming of Han Emperor Ming of Han (15June 28 – 5September 75), born and also known as and as , was the second emperor of China's Eastern Han dynasty. He was the fourth son and second crown prince of Emperor Guangwu. It was during Emperor Ming's reign ...

dreamt of a golden deity interpreted as the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

and sent a delegation to India. They returned circa 67 CE with the monks Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna, and white horses carrying

Buddhist texts Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...

and images. The emperor established

White Horse Temple White Horse Temple () is a Buddhist temple in Luoyang, Henan that, according to tradition, is the first Buddhist temple in China, having been first established in 68 AD under the patronage of Emperor Ming in the Eastern Han dynasty. The site is ...

in the Han capital

Luoyang Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River (Henan), Luo River and Yellow River in the west of Henan province. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the ...

, where the two supposedly first translated the ''

Sutra of Forty-two Chapters The ''Sutra of Forty-two Chapters'' (also called the ''Sutra of Forty-two Sections'', Chinese: 四十二章經) is often regarded as the first Indian Buddhist sutra translated into Chinese. However, this collection of aphorisms may have appeared so ...

'' into Chinese.迦葉摩騰
''

Digital Dictionary of Buddhism The project of the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (usually referred to by the acronym DDB) was initiated by Charles Muller, a specialist in East Asian Buddhism, during his first year of graduate school when he realized the dearth of lexicographica ...

'' (login: guest, no password).

References

Indian Buddhist missionaries Indian Buddhist monks Indian Buddhists Year of birth missing Han dynasty Buddhist monks {{India-reli-bio-stub