Historically Guangzhou has been a trade center in Southern China. Because of its excellent locale on the trade route of South China Sea, Guangzhou has long attracted merchants as well as missionaries across South and Southeast Asia. As early as in 281 A.D. there were records of Buddhist missionary activities in Guangzhou. While the missionaries, the majority of whom were monks, did preach and even had some important Buddhist texts translated during their stay, almost none of them took up residence in Guangzhou at least according to the Chinese Buddhist hagiological records, or turned it into a center of Buddhist learning. Why did they choose not to, despite the financial conditions supported by the trade route? The reasons are twofold. History-wise, the monks were enroute to the imperial capital of the time and Guangzhou was but the entry port and one of the stops on the journey. Mission-wise, on the other hand, Guangzhou arguably lacked an intellectual class that could be deployed to translate and communicate Buddhist thought. Unlike Christian missions, which were backed by the church and the states, there was no equivalent support organized by the foreign Buddhist monks neither was the Saṃgha an important factor of overseas missionary activity. Without the Saṃgha, the Buddhist missions could hardly ever be materialized in foreign land.
