He was the grandson (or according to another source, the son) of an immigrant from the country of the Great Yuezhi,[1] an area that overlapped to at least some extent with the territory of the Kushan Empire.
Toward the end of the Han dynasty, as chaos spread throughout the north, Zhi Qian migrated with several dozens of his countrymen to the southern Wu kingdom.
When he died at the age of sixty (in 252 CE or shortly after), the Wu ruler of the time, Sun Liang, is said to have written a letter to the monastic community mourning his death.
Among them are a number of āgama texts (i.e., non-Mahāyāna sūtras corresponding to scriptures found in the sutta section of the Pāli canon), didactic verses (including a version of the Dharmapada and the *Arthapada, corresponding to the Pāli Aṭṭhakavagga), a biography of the Buddha, and several Mahāyāna sūtras, of which some of the most famous are the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha (dealing with the Pure Land of Amitābha), the Shorter Perfection of Wisdom scripture (corresponding to the Sanskrit Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā), and an early version of what subsequently became the Buddhāvataṃsaka.
An additional factor in Zhi Qian's case was the fact that he revised a number of translations produced by his predecessors (especially Lokakṣema), which—together with his own apparent preference for variety—may have contributed to the inconsistencies in his vocabulary and style.