Ān Shìgāo 安世高 (DILA primary name 安清; lay name reportedly Qīng 清, with 世高 his style; alternates 安侯 / 安侯道人 “Marquis Ān, the Way-man”) is the earliest named Buddhist translator into Chinese whose work survives in identifiable form, and traditionally regarded as the founder of the East-Asian Buddhist translation enterprise. According to the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145, 95a–96b) and the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (T2059, 323a–325a), he was a prince of the Anxi 安息 kingdom (Parthia, in modern Iran/Turkmenistan); on his father’s death he relinquished the throne to his brother and became a monk. He arrived in Luòyáng 洛陽 in Jiànhé 建和 2 (148 CE), the first year of the reign of Hàn Huándì, and worked as a translator and teacher there for over twenty years, until c. Jiànníng 建寧 3 (170). The biographical sources record that he founded the Dà’ānsì 大安寺 at Yùzhāng 豫章, travelled to the JiāngNán region during the political turmoil of the late Hàn, and was eventually killed at Kuàijī 會稽 after being caught up in a marketplace brawl. The year of his death is unrecorded.
He is credited by tradition with 34 (or 176) translations, of which a smaller number — the modern critical literature (Zürcher, Nattier, Harrison, Zacchetti) places the figure at around 14–16 — survive in identifiable form in the Taishō. Among the more substantial of these are the meditation manuals Ānbān shǒuyì jīng 安般守意經 (T602), Yīnchírù jīng 陰持入經 (T603), Dàodì jīng 道地經 (T607), and Chánxíng fǎxiǎng jīng 禪行法想經 (T605); the Āgama extracts [[KR6a0013|Cháng āhán shíbào fǎ jīng 長阿含十報法經]] (T13), [[KR6a0014|Rénběn yùshēng jīng 人本欲生經]] (T14), the Pǔ fǎ yì jīng 普法義經 (T98), the Sìdì jīng 四諦經 (T32), the Qīchù sānguān jīng 七處三觀經 (T150A), the Bā zhèngdào jīng 八正道經 (T112), and the Wǔyīn pìyù jīng 五陰譬喻經 (T105); and Abhidharma material including the Apítán wǔfǎ jīng 阿毘曇五法經 (T1557) and the Apítán jiǔshíbā jié jīng 阿毘曇九十八結經 (now lost). His meditation translations were of foundational importance in the early Chinese reception of dhyāna practice. DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000366.