Shih-Kao (An Shigao)

An Shigao (安世高; An Shih-kao), personal name An Qing (安清), courtesy name Shigao (世高), was a Parthian who became a Buddhist monk and, active at Luoyang from about 148 CE under Emperor Huan of the Later Han, is the earliest translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese whose name is known.^{1 • 2} Traditional biographies say he was a crown prince of Anxi (安息, the Chinese rendering of Arsaces, the dynasty ruling Parthia) who renounced his father's throne; secular Chinese sources instead describe a Parthian prince sent to Luoyang as a diplomatic hostage.^{3 • 4}

Life and biographical tradition: prince, hostage, or monk?

The earliest surviving complete biographies are in Sengyou's (445–518) Chu sanzang ji ji (出三藏記集, T. 2145) and Huijiao's (497–554) Gaoseng zhuan (高僧傳, T. 2059), the latter largely based on the former.⁴ Both are embellished with hagiographical anecdotes, and there is little reliable information about him beyond mentions in early colophons and prefaces.¹

Hostage or monk. Secular sources state that An was from Anxi, that he was a prince sent to the court at Luoyang as a diplomatic hostage, and that his descendants became officials; the Gaoseng zhuan, compiled by Huijiao around 530, instead claims that An Shigao, like the historical Buddha, gave up his claim to his father's throne and became a monk.³ The discrepancy led some modern scholars to posit two different Iranians with the same name in Luoyang in the late second century. Antonino Forte, in The Hostage An Shigao and His Offspring (1995), argued the two traditions concern one person, suggesting early Buddhist authors "may have deliberately employed vagueness and a double entendre in order to propagate the idea that An Shigao had embraced the monastic life."³

The hagiographic cycle: karma, rebirth, and the southern travels

The biographies devote their largest part to miraculous deeds during An Shigao's travels in south-central China, organized around karmic retribution in four main episodes.⁴ In the cycle, a previous life as a monk killed in Guangzhou led to rebirth as prince of Anxi; the irascible monk was reborn as a serpent deity near Mount Lu, whom An Shigao tamed, with donated treasures funding the Eastern Monastery in Yuzhang; he then visited Guangzhou to meet his former killer; and he died an accidental death in a brawl at Kuaiji, witnessed by that convert.⁴

Scholars divide on the historicity of this southern extension: Erik Zürcher regarded it as entirely legendary, while others (Deleanu, Forte, Nattier) allow it may contain a kernel of historical truth; the "southern cycle" may conflate the real southward movement of his texts with the imaginary travels of the translator.⁴

The translation corpus

The earliest list of his translations contains thirty titles, with four more possibly attributable; of the thirty, nineteen survive, but only four can be proved to be by him on contemporary or near-contemporary evidence.¹ Later, unreliable bibliographies add many more.¹

Character of the corpus. All nineteen surviving works belong to the earlier, Hīnayāna school of Buddhism, with no trace of Mahāyāna influence, and concern meditation techniques (dhyāna) or various numerical categories.¹ Dao'an characterized An Shigao as a learned Abhidharma specialist whose translations are notable for their detailed treatment of "meditation and numerical categories" (chan shu, 禪數).⁴ Named genuine works include the Chang Ahan shi bao fa jing (T. 13, Daśottarasūtra), Ren ben yu sheng jing (T. 14, Mahānidānasūtra), Si di jing (T. 32, Saccavibhaṅgasutta), Yin chi ru jing (T. 603), and the Daodi jing (T. 607), a partial translation of Saṅgharakṣa's Yogācārabhūmi.⁴ The Daodi jing is one of the earliest preserved Buddhist texts introduced to China and is recorded in Dao'an's Zongli zhongjing mulu, the earliest catalog of its kind.⁵ Texts attributed to him on medical topics include T553 Nainü qiyu yinyuan jing (Āmrapālī and Jīvaka Avadāna Sutra) and T701 Wenshi xiyu zhong seng jing (The Sutra on Bathing the Sangha in the Bath House).⁵

Translation method and style

With very few exceptions, all terms are rendered into Chinese with semantic translations rather than phonetic transcriptions, in contrast to his near contemporary Lokakṣema, whose corpus is marked by transcriptions.⁴ His Chinese adheres rigidly to the syntax of the Indic originals and renders verses as prose; Zürcher described the style as crude, without any "trace of any concession to Chinese literary taste."⁴ In medical vocabulary he tended to substitute Indian terms with corresponding Chinese concepts, whereas the later translator Dharmarakṣa sought to preserve and introduce foreign concepts comprehensively.⁵ The Chinese of his translations is of great linguistic interest because it seems closer to the vernacular of the day than to the literary language of secular texts of the same period.¹ Several terms first attested in his works remain part of the Chinese Buddhist lexicon, and he pioneered a specifically Buddhist translation idiom.⁴

Comparison: An Shigao and Lokakṣema at the Han court

Lokakṣema (支婁迦讖, fl. 147–189) was a Buddhist monk from Gandhāra also active in Luoyang, whose translations use phonetic transcriptions such as dəm-mɑ 曇摩 for dharma.² The two were near contemporaries at the same court, but their corpora differ in technique (semantic versus phonetic rendering) and in orientation: Lokakṣema's corpus is marked by transcriptions, while all of An Shigao's surviving works show no trace of Mahāyāna influence.^{2 • 1}

By the numbers

The counts attached to An Shigao's name vary with the source and the criterion:

• Earliest list: 30 titles, plus 4 possibly attributable; 19 survive; 4 provable on contemporary or near-contemporary evidence.¹
• Later catalogs: nearly 200 attributed translations.⁴
• Zürcher's assessment: 16 of the nearly 200 may be regarded as authentic; Zacchetti proposed 13 of those 16.⁴
• One recent survey: of 176 sūtras attributed over the centuries, most are inauthentic, with 35 ascribed to him.⁶

In 1999, two manuscript scrolls containing texts ascribable or linked to An Shigao were discovered at Kongōji (金剛寺) in Ōsaka Prefecture, Japan, including the Fo shuo shi'er men jing (佛説十二門經) and Fo shuo jie shi'er men jing (佛説解十二門經).⁴ The Kongōji version of the Anban shouyi jing is probably the original Han translation, while the canonical T. 602 represents a later commentary.⁴

References

1. AN SHIH-KAO, Encyclopaedia Iranica
2. Chinese Transcription of Buddhist Terms in the Late Hàn Dynasty, SOAS repository
3. Review of Antonino Forte, The Hostage An Shigao and His Offspring, Persée
4. An Shigao, Oxford Research Archive (scholarly handbook chapter)
5. Translating Medicine Across Cultures: The Divergent Strategies of An Shigao and Dharmarakṣa, Religions (2025)
6. Mission, Meditation and Miracles: An Shigao in Chinese Tradition, University of Otago thesis

Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026

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