KUMĀRAJĪVA (343–413; alternative dates: 350–409) was renowned as the founder of the Sanlun ("three treatise," i. e., Mādhyamika) school in China and as an adept translator into Chinese of many important and influential Mahāyāna Buddhist texts.

Kumārajīva was born of noble lineage in the Central Asian city of Kuchā. His father was an emigrant Indian brahman and his mother a Kuchean princess. During the fourth century Kuchā was a major city along the northern trade route of the Silk Road connecting China with India and the West. There is ample testimony from the travelogues of Faxian and Xuanzang that cities along this route were strongholds of Hīnayāna Buddhism, especially the Sarvāstivāda sect, which had been introduced from its center in Kashmir. The works of this sect were thus the...