Kālayaśas (畺良耶舍, c. 383–442) — Central-Asian Buddhist monk-translator (西域三藏) of the Liú-Sòng (劉宋) period, one of the principal early-fifth-century translators of visualisation-sūtras (觀經) into Chinese. Liu-Song-period sources gloss his name as 時稱 (“Time-Renown”). His traditional Chinese-Buddhist biography is preserved in the Liáng Gāo-sēng zhuàn 梁高僧傳 (T2059, fasc. 3, p. 343c11ff).
Sources establish that he was widely versed in the Tripiṭaka with a particular specialisation in dhyāna (禪為專業). In Yuán-jiā 1 / 424 CE, he reached Jiànyè 建業 (= Jiànkāng 建康, modern Nanjing). Emperor Wén of Sòng 宋文帝 (Liú Yìlóng 劉義隆, r. 424–453) received him with the highest honours and installed him at the Zhōng-shān Dào-lín jīng-shè 鍾山道林精舍 — the major imperial monastic establishment of the Liú-Sòng court.
His principal extant translations include:
- Guān Wúliàngshòu jīng 觀無量壽經 (T0365) — the Sūtra on the Contemplation of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, one of the Three Pure-Land Sūtras (淨土三部經) and the foundational visualisation-text for the East Asian Pure-Land tradition.
- Guān Yào-wáng Yào-shàng èr pú-sà jīng 觀藥王藥上二菩薩經 (KR6j0383, T1161) — the Sūtra on the Contemplation of the Two Bodhisattvas Bhaiṣajyarāja and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata, the canonical visualisation-source for the East Asian Buddhist healing-cult.
His introduction of the guānjīng (visualisation-sūtra) genre into Chinese had vast doctrinal consequences for the Pure-Land tradition (Shàndǎo’s seventh-century synthesis is unimaginable without his Guān Wúliàngshòu jīng) and for the iconographic-and-soteriological framing of the Buddhist healing-cult.
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000004; Liáng Gāosēngzhuàn 梁高僧傳 fasc. 3 (T50n2059_p0343c); Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism (2nd ed., Routledge, 2008); Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī (SUNY, 1995).