Lokakṣema (लोकक्षेम, ) (flourished 147–189) was a Kushan Buddhist monk from Gandhara who traveled to China during the Han dynasty and translated Buddhist texts into Chinese, and, as such, is an important figure in Chinese Buddhism. Biography Details of Lokakṣema's life come to us via a short biography by Sengyou (僧祐; pinyin: Sēngyòu; 445–518 CE) and his text “Collected Records concerning the Tripitaka” (出三藏記集 Chu sanzang jìjí, T2145). The name 婁迦讖 is usually rendered in Sanskrit as Lokakṣema, though this is disputed by some scholars, and variants such as Lokakṣama have been proposed. In particular the character 讖 can be read as chen or chan. Sengyou refers to him as Zhīchèn (). The Zhī () prefix added to his Chinese name suggests that Lokaksema was of Yuezhi () ethnicity. He is traditionally said to have been a Kushan, though the Chinese term Yuezhi covered a broad area of what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Lokaksema was born in Gandhara, a center of Greco-Buddhist art, at a time when Buddhism was actively sponsored by the king, Kanishka the Great, who convened the Fourth Buddhist council. The proceedings of this council actually oversaw the formal split of Nikaya and Mahayana Buddhism. It would seem that Kanishka was not ill-disposed towards Mahayana Buddhism, opening the way for missionary activities in China by monks such as Lokakṣema. Lokaksema arrived in the Han capital Luoyang toward the end of the reign of Emperor Huan of Han (r.147-168), and between 178 and 189 CE translated a number of Mahayāna Buddhist texts into Chinese. Lokaksema's translation activities, as well as those of the Parthians An Shigao and An Xuan slightly earlier, or his fellow Yuezhi Dharmarakṣa (around 286 CE) illustrate the key role Central Asians had in propagating Buddhism to the countries of East Asia. With the decline and fall of the Han, the empire fell into chaos and Lokakṣema disappears from the historical record so that we do not know the date of his death. Extant translations The editors of the Taishō Tripiṭaka attribute twelve texts to Lokakṣema. These attributions have been studied in detail by Erik Zürcher, Paul Harrison and Jan Nattier, and some have been called into question. Zürcher considers it reasonably certain that Lokakṣema translated the following: T224. 道行般若經. A translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra. T280. 佛說兜沙經. The Scripture on the Tusita Heaven, part of the proto-Avatamsaka Sutra T313. 阿閦佛國經. Akṣohhya-vyūha