Kālayaśas

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Kālayaśas on the DRL

English Phonetics Kālayaśas
Sort Name Kālayaśas
Dates
Birth:   383
Death:   442


Tibetan calendar dates

About

Biographical Information

Kālayaśas (C. Jiangliangyeshe; J. Kyōryōyasha; K. Kangnyangyasa 畺良耶舍 (383–442). A Central Asian monk who was one of the early translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese. Kālayaśas arrived at Jiankang, the capital of the Liu-Song dynasty, in 424, where he became an adviser to Emperor Wen. Two works of translation are attributed to him in the Buddhist catalogues. Perhaps the most influential work with which he is associated is the Guan Wuliangshou jing, the "meditation-sūtra" on Amitābha Buddha, which is one of the three foundational texts of the East Asian Pure Land traditions. Because no Sanskrit recension of this sūtra is attested, this scripture is now considered to be either a Central Asian or a Chinese indigenous scripture . . ., and its ascription to Kālayaśas is problematic. The second text that he translated is the Guan Yaowang Yaoshang er pusa jing ("Sūtra on Visualizing the Two Bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata"), an early sūtra on the Medicine Buddha/Bodhisattva cult associated with the bodhisattva Bhaiṣajyarāja and the buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru. (Source: "Kālayaśas." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 408. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

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