This paper attempts to summarize an ancient debate on translation paradigms which ran through the entire history of Chinese translation of Buddhism from the Eastern Han to the Northern Song dynasties. The debate was on two translation methods known as ‘simple translation’ and ‘sophisticated translation’. In this paper, the author attempts to define the terminology, to trace the evolution of the theory in chronological order, and to analyze the concept of ‘matching the meaning’ developed by Buddhist translators alongside the debate on ‘simple’ versus ‘sophisticated’ translation.