Kumārajīva, coming to Chang’an, the state capital of the Later Qin Dynasty, for the dissemination of the Buddha’s doctrine in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, is a renowned translator of the Buddhist canon, who has attracted various Chinese and foreign scholars to have a long discussion of his translation strategies and Buddhist philosophy, mainly based on literary sources of the Compilation of Notes on the Translation of the Tripiṭaka, the Biographies of Eminent Monks, the Standard Histories, and different Buddhist scriptures. Since the early 20th century, owing to excavations of grottoes in Dunhuang, archaeologists have discovered considerable new manuscripts, some of which are closely related to Kumārajīva and offer a fresh insight into his biography, Buddhist thought, and even the historical development of Chinese Buddhist translation. This paper examines one of those Dunhuang manuscripts numbered S.381, which is a short biography of Kumārajīva in Classical Chinese. It not only differs from the traditional documentary sources, but also provides a new record that contributes to further investigation into the life story of Kumārajīva still remaining questionable. In addition, as the manuscript S.381 has been overlooked by the scholars in general, I hope to undertake an in-depth study on it through systematic textual and historical analysis in order to cast new light on the history of Buddhist scripture translation and the intellectual culture in early medieval China.
