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An Shih Kao
An Shigao (, Korean: An Sego, Japanese: An Seikō, Vietnamese: An Thế Cao) (fl. c. 148-180 CE) was an early Buddhist missionary to China, and the earliest known translator of Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese. According to legend, he was a prince of Parthia, nicknamed the "Parthian Marquess", who renounced his claim to the royal throne of Parthia in order to serve as a Buddhist missionary monk in China. Origins The prefix ''An'' in An Shigao's name has raised many questions and hypotheses as to his origin and story. Some believe that it is an abbreviation of ''Anxi'', the Chinese name given to the regions ruled by the Parthian Empire. Most visitors from that country who took a Chinese name received the ''An'' prefix to indicate their origin in ''Anxi''.It is still unknown whether he was a monk or layperson or whether he should be considered a follower of the Sarvāstivāda or Mahāyāna, though affiliation with these two groups need not be viewed as mutually exclusive. The u ...
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Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I (r. c. 171–132 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to present-day Afghanistan and western Pakistan. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogene ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ...
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Iranian Buddhists
Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages * Iranian diaspora, Iranian people living outside Iran * Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia * Iranian foods, list of Iranian foods and dishes * Iranian.com, also known as ''The Iranian'' and ''The Iranian Times'' See also * Persian (other) * Iranians (other) * Languages of Iran * Ethnicities in Iran * Demographics of Iran * Indo-Iranian languages * Irani (other) * List of Iranians This is an alphabetic list of notable people from Iran or its historical predecessors. In the news * Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran * Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran, former Chief Justice of Iran. * Hassan Rouhani, former president o ...
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Parthian Princes
Parthian may be: Historical * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by Parthian horsemen Other uses * Parthian Books, a Welsh publishing house * Indo-Parthian Kingdoms * ''Parthian''-class submarine * Seven Parthian clans See also * Parthia (other) * Pahlavi (other) Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty *Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire *Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 **Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944), Shah of ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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Han Dynasty Buddhist Monks
Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese people who may be fully or partially Han Chinese descent. * Han Minjok, or Han people (): the Korean native name referring to Koreans. * Hän: one of the First Nations peoples of Canada. Former states * Han (Western Zhou state) (韓) (11th century BC – 757 BC), a Chinese state during the Spring and Autumn period * Han (state) (韓) (403–230  BC), a Chinese state during the Warring States period * Han dynasty (漢/汉) (206 BC – 220 AD), a dynasty split into two eras, Western Han and Eastern Han ** Shu Han (蜀漢) (221–263), a Han Chinese dynasty that existed during the Three Kingdoms Period * Former Zhao (304–329), one of the Sixteen Kingdoms, known as Han (漢) before 319 * Cheng Han (成漢) (304–347), one of the Six ...
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Buddhist Monks From The Western Regions
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in History of India, northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a Bhavana, training of t ...
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Richard Foltz
Richard Foltz is a Canadian scholar of American origin. He is a specialist in the history of Iranian civilization—what is sometimes referred to as "Greater Iran". He has also been active in the areas of environmental ethics and animal rights. Biography Foltz is a full professor in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and an affiliate professor at the Centre d'études du religieux contemporain, Université de Sherbrooke. He holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from Harvard University and degrees in Persian literature and applied linguistics from the University of Utah. He has taught at Kuwait University, Brown University, Columbia University, and the University of Florida. Prior to entering academia he worked for several years in Europe as a musician, film critic, and travel writer. The author of twelve books and over one hundred scholarly articles, his work has appeared in more than a dozen languages. Scholarly contributions ...
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Buddhism In Central Asia
Buddhism in Central Asia refers to the forms of Buddhism (mainly Mahayana) that existed in Central Asia, which were historically especially prevalent along the Silk Road. The history of Buddhism in Central Asia is closely related to the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism during the first millennium of the common era. History Buddhist monastic groups A number of Early Buddhist schools were historically prevalent throughout Central Asia. A number of scholars identify three distinct major phases of missionary activities seen in the history of Buddhism in Central Asia, which are associated with the following sects (chronologically): # Dharmaguptaka # Sarvāstivāda # Mūlasarvāstivāda The Dharmaguptaka made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas such as Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so. Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordinati ...
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Lokaksema (Buddhist Monk)
Lokakṣema (लोकक्षेम, ) (flourished 147-189) was a Kushan Buddhist monk from Gandhara who traveled to China during the Han dynasty and translated Buddhist texts into Chinese, and, as such, is an important figure in Chinese Buddhism. Biography Details of Lokakṣema's life come to us via a short biography by Sengyou (僧祐; pinyin: Sēngyòu; 445–518 CE) and his text “Collected Records concerning the Tripitaka” (出三藏記集 Chu sanzang jìjí, T2145). The name 婁迦讖 is usually rendered in Sanskrit as Lokakṣema, though this is disputed by some scholars, and variants such as Lokakṣama have been proposed. In particular the character 讖 can be read as ''chen'' or ''chan''. Sengyou refers to him as ''Zhīchèn'' (). The ''Zhī'' () prefix added to his Chinese name suggests that Lokaksema was of Yuezhi () ethnicity. He is traditionally said to have been a Kushan, though the Chinese term ''Yuezhi'' covered a broad area of what is now Iran, Afgha ...
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Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra
The ''Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra'' (''The inquiry of Ugra'') is an early Indian sutra which is particularly important for understanding the beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism. It contains positive references to both the path of the bodhisattva and the path of the arhat, the latter of which was denigrated as a lesser spiritual path in later Mahayana sutras. It also emphasises solitary spiritual practices instead of community-based ones much like the very early '' Rhinoceros Sutra''. History of the sutra While no version in an Indo-Aryan language survives, extant versions of the ''Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra'' include three Chinese translations ( Taishō Tripiṭaka 322, 12.15a-23a; T 323 12.23a-30c; T 310 0 11.472b-480b), a Tibetan translation, and a Mongolian translation based on the Tibetan version. The ''Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra'' was one of the first Buddhist texts to be brought to China and it was apparently very popular as it was translated into Chinese six times between the second a ...
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An Xuan
An Xuan () was a Parthian layman credited with working alongside An Shigao () and Yan Fotiao () in the translation of early Buddhist texts in 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, Nanyan ... in Later Han China. Bibliography * 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, 89-94; {{China-hist-stub 2nd-century Buddhists Iranian Buddhists Han dynasty Buddhists 2nd-century Iranian people ...
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