The Sūtra in Forty-Two Chapters (Sishi’er zhang jing 四十二章經) has long been celebrated as the first Indian Buddhist sūtra brought to China where it was—according to tradition—translated into Chinese by two Yuezhi 月支國 (Tokharian) monks, Kāśyapa Mātaņga Jia Yemoteng 迦葉摩騰 or Shemoteng 攝摩騰) and Dharmaratna (Zhu Falan竺法蘭) in 67 CE, making it the first Buddhist text to appear in Chinese. Given the long-standing claim that the Sūtra in Forty-Two Chapters was the first Buddhist text translated into Chinese, since the late nineteenth century it has been a favorite for Western translators, is often referred to in general introductions to Chinese Buddhism—perhaps due to its rather simple doctrinal statements—and discussed in the context of the early transmission of Buddhism from India to China. Over the years, however, scholars began to adopt more critical perspectives in their analysis of the text, raising questions about the precise date and nature of the text. That scholarship is by now generally familiar, so in this essay I aim to bring together two story lines that have evolved somewhat separately in Buddhist and Daoist studies, in order to explore the curious—and rather complicated—lives the Sūtra in Forty-Two Chapters has lived within those two traditions.