Zhī Qiān 支謙 (style 恭明 Gōngmíng; also called 支越 Zhī Yuè, 越 Yuè; DILA Authority A000164) was a Yuezhi (月氏 / 月支) lay-Buddhist scholar and one of the most important early Chinese Buddhist translators of the third century. According to the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145, 97b–98a) and the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (T2059), his grandfather had emigrated from the Yuezhi territories to China in the late Eastern Hàn; Zhī Qiān himself was born and raised in China and was educated in both Chinese and “western” languages — he is reported to have known six. He studied under Zhī Liàng 支亮 (“Auspicious-Bright”), who was in turn the disciple of the great early translator Lokakṣema 支婁迦讖 Zhī Lóujiāchèn; the Zhī succession Lokakṣema → Zhī Liàng → Zhī Qiān thus places him in the third generation of the Yuezhi school of Chinese Buddhist translation.
He fled the disorders at the end of the Hàn to Jiāng-Nán, and from Huángwǔ 黃武 1 (222) onwards worked as a translator at the Wú court at Jiànyè 建業, where he was patronised by Sūn Quán 孫權 (r. 222–252) and tutored Sūn Liàng 孫亮 (the future emperor) in his youth. He is reported to have been particularly active in the period 222–253 CE; on the accession of Sūn Liàng in 252 he retired to the mountain of Qióng-ài 穹隘 (or 穹隆) and devoted himself to monastic discipline under Zhú Fǎlán 竺法蘭, dying at the age of about 60. His translations include the [[KR6a0020|Fó kāijiě fànzhì Ābá jīng 佛開解梵志阿颰經]] (T20, Ambaṭṭha-sūtra), the [[KR6a0021|Fànwǎng liù-shí’èr jiàn jīng 梵網六十二見經]] (T21, Brahmajāla-sūtra), and a substantial Mahāyāna corpus including a partial translation of the Lalitavistara (T185 Tàizǐ ruìyìng běn-qǐ jīng 太子瑞應本起經), the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa (T474 Wéimójié jīng 維摩詰經, the earliest Chinese version), the Sukhāvatī-vyūha (T362 in the early version), and several others. His diction marks the transition from the An-Shigao stratum to the standardised post-Daoan register, and the Sōngyǒu preferred his rendering of Bhagavat as 世尊 (rather than the older 眾祐) — a choice that would become canonical.