Zhú Fǎ-lán 竺法蘭 (Sanskrit reconstruction Dharmaratna “Dharma-Jewel”; DILA Authority A000748) is the legendary co-founder, with 迦葉摩騰 (Kāśyapa-Mātaṅga), of Buddhism in China. According to the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (T2059) and the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145), he was a Central Indian (中天竺) monk reputed to be able to recite “tens of thousands of chapters” of sūtra and śāstra; he is said to have been the teacher of śramaṇa-students in India before being persuaded to follow Mātaṅga to China in CE 67 in response to Emperor Míng’s dream-vision. On arrival in Luòyáng he too was settled at the Báimǎ-sì 白馬寺. He is credited with several Buddhist translations later considered foundational — the Shí-dì duànjié jīng 十地斷結經, the Fó běnshēng jīng 佛本生經, the Fó běnxíng jīng 佛本行經, the Fǎ-hǎi (zàng) jīng 法海(藏)經 — and, jointly with Mātaṅga, the [[KR6i0483|Sì-shí’èr-zhāng jīng 四十二章經]] (T17 No. 784, “Sūtra in Forty-Two Sections”).
As with 迦葉摩騰, the historicity of Fǎ-lán is heavily contested. Modern scholarship since Henri Maspero (“Le songe et l’ambassade de l’empereur Ming,” BEFEO 10, 1910) and especially Erik Zürcher (The Buddhist Conquest of China, Leiden: Brill, 1959/2007) treats the entire Mātaṅga–Dharmaratna foundation legend as a Six Dynasties / Tang fabrication. None of the translations attributed to him survives in a recognisably early form, and the Sì-shí’èr-zhāng jīng is best understood as a later Chinese compilation of canonical sayings rather than a translation of an Indian text. There is also a separate Sūn-Wú monk also named 竺法蘭 (DILA A019559) — an unrelated homonym from the third century. Despite the doubtful historicity, Fǎ-lán remains, with Mātaṅga, the foundational mythological figure of Chinese Buddhism, commemorated at the Báimǎ-sì in Luòyáng.