The Inception of Buddhist Scripture in China
佛教在中国的引入
The earliest Buddhist scripture introduced to China was in its Sanskrit version. This fact was corroborated by paragraphs of ancient Buddhist scripture written upon wooden boards in Sanskrit, dateable to the beginning of the first century, which was unearthed in the Niya ruins near Yutian of Xinjiang in 1906. The discovery was believed to be the oldest Buddhist scripture ever found. Since the land of Great Yuezhi had then become the holy site of early Buddhism，the Buddhist scripture introduced to China in that period was all translated from Prakrit, the vernacular used in northwest India, called Futu (Buddha) in Chinese. In the year of 65，the first Chinese religious delegation was dispatched from Luoyang to Great Yuezhi where they copied 42 chapters of Buddhist scripture and brought them back to China. After they returned to Luoyang in the year of 68，they started to translate it into the Chinese “Forty-two Chapters of Scripture. ” While this translation itself was no longer in existence, it was quoted in an introductory article written by Xiang Kai of the Han Dynasty, which said the translation had come from Futu，thereby indicating it was based on a vernacular Indian version.
传入中国最早的佛经是梵文版本。这一事实证实了古代的佛经是写在梵文木板上的， 1906年出土于尼雅遗址靠近新疆于湉的梵文佛教可追溯至公元前一世纪。这被认为是被发现的最古老佛经。大月氏的土地已成为当时最早的佛教遗址，在那个时期传入中国的佛经全部是由古印度语翻译而成的，在印度西北部使用本地语言，在中国叫浮屠（佛）。在65年，首届中国宗教代表团从洛阳派往大月氏，他们复制佛经42章，带回中国。之后，68年他们回到了洛阳，他们开始把“四十二章佛经”翻译成中文。 “虽然这些翻译的版本不复存在，它被汉代的襄楷引述在介绍性文章的写作中，据说翻译都来自浮屠，从而表明它是基于印度的版本。
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