Kang Senghui (traditional: 康僧會; simplified: 康僧会; pinyin: Kāng Sēnghuì; Wade–Giles: K'ang Seng-hui;[1] Vietnamese: Khương Tăng Hội; died 280) was a Buddhist monk and translator during the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China. He was born in Jiaozhi (modern-day northern Vietnam).[2][3] He was the son of a Sogdian merchant, hence the last name of Kang, meaning "one whose forefathers had been people from Kangju", or Sogdia.[4] Kang received a Chinese literary education and was "widely read in the six (Confucian) classics."[5] He also read Sanskrit and was known for his knowledge of the Tripiṭaka (the Buddhist canon).[6] He joined the saïgha (the Buddhist monastic order) as a teenager, following the death of his parents.[6] Kang contributed more to the diffusion of Buddhist sutras as a preacher than to their translation into the Chinese language as there are only two collections of avadānas in the canon which are attributed to him.[7] According to legend, the first Buddha relic in China appeared in a vase in 248 C.E. so that Kang Senghui would have something to show a local ruler. [8] Sun Quan, the king of Eastern Wu, would unsuccessfully attempt to destroy the tooth by subjecting it to various tests. [9]
Kang is known as Khương Tăng Hội in Vietnam[10][11] and Thông Biện (1096) claims scriptural traditions from Kang influenced Vietnamese Buddhism, though there is no independent evidence for this tradition.[12]
Khương Tăng Hội is regarded as the first Vietnamese patriarch of Zen Buddhism in Vietnam.[3]