In the year 335 A.D. an Indian monk, of the name of Buddhoganga, persuaded the Emperor She-hu of the Posterior Chow to allow Chinese subjects to take monastic vows. The Chow were Huns, in touch with the main body of their tribe, whose vanguards, driven from their homes by the same process of desiccation which had sent the Chow against China, were now on their way to Europe. The permission obtained by Buddhoganga enabled Buddhism, at any rate in the Chow dominions, to become a native growth instead of an exotic. This is the first sign that Buddhism was becoming an object of serious study to the Chinese people.

Buddhism was also much furthered by the establishment at Singanfu of the Empire of the Anterior Thsin. This dynasty was of Tangut, or Thibetan origin, and had extensive trade relations both with India and the West. They were very zealous Buddhists, and did much for the spread of their faith. Cave temples, after the manner of the celebrated holy places of India, were established in this kingdom about A.D. 370, and it was from the kingdom of the Anterior Thsin also that, in A.D. 372, the first Buddhist missionary was sent to the Korean kingdom of Koma.

In 366 there was translated into Chinese a portion of the Avatamsaka, or Kegon Scriptures. The reader will remember that these were the Scriptures fabled to have been brought by Nagarjuna from the Dragon's Palace

at the bottom of the sea. How suitable those weird books must have seemed for reconciling the occupants of the Dragon-throne to the faith of the great Sea-dragon! In the year 381 Hiao-wu-ti, Emperor of the Anterior Thsin, was the first ruler of China openly to profess the Buddhist faith. He built large monasteries and did much for the spread of Buddhism in his extensive dominions. He was not a great gain, perhaps, to his new religion. He was a very sensual man, and was smothered by one of his concubines whom he had offended.

The Thsin dominions extended far to the West, possibly as far as Bokhara, with which country they had, at any rate, many trade relations, and from which they received Buddhist missionaries. In 375, two Christian missionaries, Palladius, a Goth, and Musaeus, Bishop of Aduli, were sent from Galatia to India. Palladius turned back, Musaeus went on from India to Bokhara, and there established a mission. It was probably not without some results.