Kucha
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Kucha (S. *Kucīna; C. Qiuzi 龜茲) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin and south of the Muzat River.
Kucha "served as a major center of Buddhism in Central Asia and an important conduit for the transmission of Buddhism from India to China."[1]
The Princeton Dictionary states:
- Indian Buddhism began to be transmitted into the Kuchean region by the beginning of the Common Era; and starting at least by the fourth century CE, Kucha had emerged as a major Buddhist and trade center along the northern SILK ROAD through Central Asia. Both mainstream and Mahayana traditions are said to have coexisted side by side in Kucha, although the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who visited Kucha in 630, says that Sarvāstivāda scholasticism predominated. Xuanzang also reports that there were over one hundred monasteries in Kucha, with some five thousand monks in residence.[1]
The former area of Kucha now lies in present-day Xinjiang, China.
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. Kucha
Further reading
Kucha, Wikipedia- Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. Kucha
