Garma C. C. Chang (born Zhang Chengji) was an important Buddhist schfolar and philosopher.

Born in Shanghai, Republic of China, his father Zhang Dulun was a senior army officer and later provincial governor of Hubei. Together with his mother, Chang frequently visited Buddhist temples and recited regularly at Buddhist sutras. At 15, he entered a Chan Monastery in the Lushan Mountains in the Jiangxi Province, and from the age of 16 spent nine years in Buddhist monasteries in Vajrayana, eastern Tibet, including six years with his Guru Rinpoche Gangkar in the Minyak Gangkar Monastery in southwest Kangding.

Chang returned to his family in Nanjing in 1945 and emigrated with his wife to the United States in the 1950s. Having gained extensive knowledge of Buddhist philosophy and being proficient in the Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali and English languages, he became a lecturer at various American universities and eventually professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University in State College.

Chang translated and interpreted many Chinese and Tibetan texts into English, including songs of the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa, Zen practice, the practice of Mahamudra, and the Philosophy of Hua-yen. His books gained considerable popularity amongst Western practitioners of Vajrayana and the Chan/Zen and became widely distributed in the U.S. and Europe.

Chang suffered from heart problems and failing eyesight and died in 1988 in Marietta, Georgia at the age of 67.