Tibetan King Khri srong lde btsan (742–797) invited the Ch’an master Mo-ho-yen (whose name consists of the same Chinese characters used to transliterate "Mahayana") to transmit the Dharma at Samye Monastery.
Ray (2005) holds that the first documented dissemination of Ch'an to Tibet, chronicled in what has become known as the Statements of the Sba Family, occurred in c761CE when Trisong Detsen sent a party to the I-chou region to receive teachings of Reverend Kim Kim Hwasang, a Korean Ch'an master, whom they encountered in Szechwan.