Church of the East in Sichuan

[2] David Crockett Graham noted that Marco Polo found East Syriac monasteries in Sichuan and Yunnan in the 13th century.

[3] According to the 12th-century biji collection Loose Records from the Studio of Possible Change by Wu Zeng [zh], during the Tang dynasty, "Hu" missionaries built a Daqin temple [ja] (i.e., an East Syriac church) into the existing ruins of the former Castle of Seven Treasures[a] at Chengdu, which was constructed by ancient Shu kings of the Kaiming dynasty (666 BC – 316 BC) and had pearl curtains installed as decorative applications.

He was unaware of the site being the ruins of a church, for he went on to write: "I suspect that in olden days these were tombs of a minister or grandee, they set the stones up as markers, and they still survive today.

"[10] According to volume 7 of Du Gongbu's Poems Annotated by Thousand Scholars [zh],[i] Pearl Temple was "later destroyed and fell to the ground, but the foundation remained.

[12] Zhao Bian [zh]'s Stories of Shu Commandery[k] (11th century) also mentions the temple: "The Daqin empire, whence a variety of precious stones is obtained, namely, lapis lazuli, emeralds, pearls, and luminous jade.

[16] The rest are crosses within Bodhi leaves carved on a round granite stone base, now in front of an antique shop on a back-street in Ciqikou.

[20] According to local testimonies, Fang Kuan's name was carved on the no-longer-extant Nestorian stele at Wang Hsiang T'ai Temple.

[24] A report by the 9th-century writer Li Weigong included in A Complete Collection of Tang-era Prose Literature [zh] states that a certain Daqin cleric proficient in ophthalmology[25][26] or optometry[27] was present in the Chengdu area.

In volume 12 of The Collected Works of Li Weigong,[n] it is recorded that in 829, Wang Cuodian [zh], a powerful official of the Kingdom of Nanzhao (modern-day Yunnan), "led his troops to attack Shu and returned with much plunder."

Chen Ming stated in his 2007 article that he was "inclined to agree with Lo Hsiang-lin, and to conclude that Li Xun was probably a Nestorian who was influenced by Taoism".

[30] Lo's idea was also supported by Zhang Xushan as the latter called Li Xun an East Syriac Christian proficient in medical skills.