Yang Xuanzhi () was a Chinese writer and translator of

Mahayana ''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing br ...

Buddhist 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 ...

texts into the Chinese language, during the 6th century, under the Northern Wei Dynasty. Yang wrote "The Monasteries of

Luoyang Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of 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 southeast, Nanyang ...

" () in 547. This text relates the introduction of Buddhism to China around 70 CE: His book also contains the first known account of the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, founder of

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

, whom he met in Luoyang around 520. He describes him as a man of Central Asian origin, who claims to be 150 years old and to have traveled extensively throughout Buddhist lands. He also wrote that Bodhidharma expressed praise for the beauty of the Buddhist temples in Luoyang, and that he chanted the name of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a 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 born in L ...

frequently:

Notes

References

*"Zen-A way of life", by Christmas Humphreys *"A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-Yang" by Yang Xuanzhi（杨衒之)，translated by Yi-t'ung Wang（王伊同，Princeton University Press，Princeton，New Jersey，1983 *"Memories of Lo-yang: Yang Hsuan-chih and the Lost Capital (493–534)" Jenner, William John Francis. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1981. *Theobald, Ulrich (2010)
''Luoyang qielan ji'' 洛陽伽藍記 "The Monasteries of Luoyang"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Xuanzhi Northern Wei Buddhists Northern Wei writers