Most visitors from that country who took a Chinese name received the An prefix to indicate their origin in Anxi.Nothing more is known about his life; the stories about his peregrinations in Southern China recorded in his biographies in CSZJJ (Chu sanzang jiji) and GSZ (Gaoseng Zhuan) must be relegated to the realm of hagiography.
An Shigao has never been successfully identified with any Parthian prince figuring in occidental sources[3]It is still unknown whether he was a monk or layperson or whether he should be considered a follower of the Sarvāstivāda or Mahāyāna,[4] though affiliation with these two groups need not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
[5] An Shigao migrated eastward into China, settling at the Han capital of Luoyang in 148 CE, where he produced a substantial number of translations of Indian Buddhist texts and attracted a devoted community of followers.
[9] Stefano Zacchetti has suggested that, though initially considered inauthentic according to Zürcher's conservative criteria, Taishō 1557, Apitan wu fa xing jing 阿毘曇五法行經, may indeed be the work of An Shigao.
Two manuscripts discovered by Kajiura Susumu in 1999 in the collection of the Kongōji in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, present four heretofore unknown works which, based on their apparent antiquity, may be attributable to An Shigao.