Yang Xuanzhi was a Chinese official and translator of Mahayana Buddhist texts into the Chinese language during the Tuoba
Northern Wei Dynasty in China's Northern and Southern dynastic period. He is primarily remembered as the author of a history of the Buddhist temples and monasteries of Luoyang in Henan Province, at the time the capital of the Wei Empire.
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Works
Yang wrote The History of the Temples of Luoyang or Record of the Monasteries of Luoyang or ) in 547. This text relates the introduction of Buddhism to China around the year 70:
Yang's book also contains the first known account of the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, founder of Zen, 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 frequently:
The Record of the Monasteries of Luoyang also preserves an account of the travels of the Buddhist pilgrims Songyun and Huisheng to India and back, whose own works are now lost.
Editions
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• , also hosted by the Nan Tien Institute.
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