Chinese literature · Confucius
CHAPTER VII
The monks asked Fâ-hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha first went to the east. He replied, "When I asked the people of those countries about it, they all said that it had been handed down by their fathers from of old that, after the setting up of the image of Maitreya Bodhisattva, there were Sramans of India who crossed this river, carrying with them Sútras and Books of Discipline. Now the image was set up rather more than three hundred years after the Nirvâna of Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P'ing of the Chow dynasty. According to this account we may say that the diffusion of our great doctrines in the East began from the setting up of this image. If it had not been through that Maitreya, the great spiritual master who is to be the successor of the Sâkya, who could have caused the 'Three Precious Ones,' [3] to be proclaimed so far, and the people of those border lands to know our Law? We know of a truth that the opening of the way for such a mysterious propagation is not the work of man; and so the dream of the emperor Ming of Han had its proper cause."
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.