Sahajaśrī: A Fourteenth-Century Indian Buddhist Missionary to China

He was born in Nepal but orphaned soon after, ordained and educated in Kashmir, then despite old age and the long, harsh journey, this fourteenth-century Buddhist monk travelled to China where he lived for the rest of his life. This is what this article is about — the life of the great Buddhist missionary Sahajaśrī. Through various sources, mainly in Chinese, this paper will investigate what inspired or impelled him to leave Kashmir and travel to China. China was in a dynastic transitional period. When Sahajaśrī arrived he was well received, against all expectations, by both Mongol and Chinese emperors. However, it seems that Sahajaśrī’s achievement in Chinese Buddhism has not been recognized. By putting all the fragmentary accounts about Sahajaśrī together, this article aims to reconstruct Sahajaśrī’s life in Ming China.