Qifu Guoren establishes Western Qin, a state of Xianbei ethnicity entirely distinct from the ancient Qin Dynasty, the Former Qin, and the Later Qin, in 385.

All rulers of the Western Qin will declare themselves "wang,” translatable as either "king" or "prince."

The Former Qin state had begun to break apart following the disastrous Battle of Fei River in Fu Jian’s failed bid to unify China.

Fu Jian himself is killed in 385 by his former subordinate, Yao Chang, the founding emperor of Later Qin.

Murong Chui, briefly during early 385, also has to battle the forces of Jin, which has taken most of the territory south of the Yellow River and is in a temporary alliance with Fu Pi.

The future of his Later Yan state appears dim, but after moving north to pacify most of modern Hebei, Murong Chui is eventually able to take Yecheng late in 385 when Fu Pi abandons it and moves west. (Fu Pi, upon hearing that Fu Jiān had died earlier that year at Yao's hand, now declares himself emperor, but poses no further threat to Later Yan.)

While isolated pockets of Former Qin resistance remain, by the end of 385 later Yan is largely in control of the territory north of the Yellow River and east of Taihang Mountains.

Chimnyu, the eldest son of Geungusu and Lady Ai, had taken the throne in 384 to become the fifteenth king of Baekje.

In this year, the Indian Buddhist monk Marananta had come to Baekje from Eastern Jin.

Chimnyu welcomed him into the palace, and shortly thereafter adopted Buddhism.

In 385, he orders that a Buddhist temple be built at the Baekje capital of Hansan, and ten people become monks.

Chimnyu had also sent a tribute mission to Eastern Jin.

The Chinese court had sent a mission in return granting him a title, but they do not arrive until after his death in this year.

Jerome had returned in August 385 to Antioch, accompanied by his brother Paulinianus and several friends, and followed a little later by Paula and Eustochium, who had resolved to leave their patrician surroundings and to end their days in the Holy Land.

Jerome accompanies them in the winter of this year and acts as their spiritual adviser.

Siricius, unanimously elected to succeed the late Damasus in late December 385, had, along with Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours, protested against the verdict leveled by Maximus against Priscillian.

Priscillian, condemned in 384 by a synod at Burdigala (modern Bordeaux), appeals to Maximus, who orders him to the Imperial court.

Bishop Martin of Tours, although greatly opposed to the Priscillianists, had hurried to Trier on an errand of mercy to remove them from the secular jurisdiction of the emperor.

His efforts at affecting reconciliation with the latter lead some to suspect him of heresy.

Maximus had at first acceded to his entreaty, but, after Martin departs, yields to the solicitations of Ithacius.

Judging Priscillian and his six companions guilty of sorcery and immorality, he orders the accused to be beheaded in 385, making them the first Christians to be executed by other Christians for heresy, in this case of Priscillianism, (though the civil charges were for the practice of magic).

Their property is confiscated.

Martin, deeply grieved, refuses to communicate with Ithacius and the bishops who condoned the slaughter of the Priscillian heretics, until pressured by the Emperor.

Later Liang, a state of the Sixteen Kingdoms, is founded in 386 by the Lü family of the Di ethnicity.

All rulers of the Later Liang will proclaim themselves "Heavenly Prince" (Tian Wang).

Huiyuan, a Mahayana Buddhist theologian, establishes the cult of Pure Land Buddhism in China, calling it the White Lotus sect.

According to this belief, the cosmos contains many Pure Lands, in each of which dwells one Buddha.

In 386, Huiyuan builds the Donglin Temple (literally "East Wood Temple", a Buddhist monastery approximately twenty kilometers (twelve miles) from present Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China.

Built in 386 CE at the foot of Lushan, the temple is today well known for how long it has stood without collapsing.

The defeat of the Former Qin in the Battle of Fei and the subsequent uprisings split its territory into two noncontiguous pieces after the death of Fu Jian: one located at present day Taiyuan, Shanxi, is soon overwhelmed in 386 by the Xianbei under the Later Yan and the Gaoche, or Dingling.

The other portion, occupying greatly reduced territories around the border of present day Shaanxi and Gansu, struggles for survival.