This paper explores the historical development of the sentenee-final particle lai in
Early Modern Chinese that repersents the usages of 'past occurence' and 'past experience'.Based on the study on the earlier usages of sentence-final lai in Buddhist scriptures translated into
Chinese before the Tang dynasty, this paper suggests that the meaning of 'past experoence' originated from 'past occurrence', and the perceptive verbs played a critical role of bridging the gap between both meanings. The usage of sentence-final lai in the classical texts Zutangji, Guzunsu Yuyao and Journey to the West further reveals its development as an aspect marker. Also, the grammaticalization of sentence-final lai is typologically significant both as an aspectual and evidential category.