Tocharian Buddhism, Kumārajīva, and the Lotus Sūtra: Pre-eminent “depraved” monk (破戒僧) from Kucha and Married monks in Central Asia

This paper examines the scope and nature of Buddhism in Kucha according to the biography of Kumārajīva in The Biographies of Eminent Monks 高僧傳 Gaoseng zhuan during the early phase of Central Buddhism along the Silk Routes.  Kumārajīva travelled extensively in Northern India and Central Asia to study Buddhism from various teachers since his childhood in the fourth/fifth centuries.  Moreover, I am also interested in the sexuality issues of his life. The questions I tried to address regarding sexuality in this paper are: why did he decide to end his celibacy of monkhood towards the end of his life although he continued his major translation work/project in Changan? How common was the practice of having a wife or concubines for Buddhist monks in India, Central Asia, and China at that time? Is it related to a particular  Mahāyāna idea regarding women, indicated in the Lotus Sūtra ? Interestingly his father was an Indian monk who married a Kuchean princess, and we can also examine the examples of the married Buddhist monks in Kroraina  (樓蘭 Loulan in Chinese) along the southern route of the Silk Routes.