Tao-sheng’s life (ca. 360-434) lies mainly within the period of Eastern Chin (317-419), extending a little further to that of the Sung Dynasty (House of Liu) (420-477). The Chin era witnessed the development of “gentry Buddhism,” a product of interchanges between monks and intellectuals who fled from the north after its conquest and helped found a new dynasty in the south. Gentry Buddhism thus refers to the class of people involved and their tendency to focus on philosophical rather than religious issues. Tao-sheng was first initiated into this form of Chinese Buddhism.

The introduction of Buddhism to China had taken place about three centuries earlier, generally believed to have occurred around the time of the Christian era. In spite of this great length of time, Buddhism had not really taken root in Chinese soil. Only since the middle of the second century, with the influx of missionaries from the Indian subcontinent and its perimeter (including An Shih-kao, from Parthia, the first missionary ever recorded), could tangible signs of development be found. The influx of missionaries led to the introduction and translation of āgamas, sūtras, and expositions, activities that had increased greatly by the time of Tao-sheng, due mainly to the missionary zeal of Kumārajīva, with whom the former studied for some time. These thinkers were to encounter and challenge the presuppositions of the existing traditions and face a number of new hermeneutical and exegetical problems.