diff --git a/RELEASES.md b/RELEASES.md
index 98d226431..446e1c487 100644
--- a/RELEASES.md
+++ b/RELEASES.md
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 #### Closed issues
 
+- `NumpyBackend.seed` adopts a `numpy.random.RandomState` instead of passing it to `RandomState.seed`, which rejected it (PR #881, Issue #848)
 - Remove a leftover debug `print` from `ot.utils.projection_sparse_simplex` with `axis=1`, and make the `ot.datasets.make_gauss_hd` docstring a raw string so importing `ot` no longer emits a `SyntaxWarning` (PR #860)
 - Fix `ot.dist` ignoring the weights `w` for `metric="cityblock"`, which returned the unweighted distance although the weights are documented for this metric (PR #859)
 - Fix swapped arguments to `div_to_product` in `ot.gromov.fused_unbalanced_across_spaces_cost`: with `reg_type="independent"` (UCOOT) the entropic terms used the plan marginals as the reference measures and vice versa (PR #855, Issue #854)
diff --git a/ot/backend.py b/ot/backend.py
index fc087495c..118afc87b 100644
--- a/ot/backend.py
+++ b/ot/backend.py
@@ -1456,7 +1456,16 @@ def reshape(self, a, shape):
         return np.reshape(a, shape)
 
     def seed(self, seed=None):
-        if seed is not None:
+        r"""Set the random generator used by :meth:`rand` and :meth:`randn`.
+
+        An integer seeds the current generator. A
+        :class:`numpy.random.RandomState` replaces it, matching the way the
+        torch and tensorflow backends adopt an external generator. ``None``
+        leaves the generator unchanged.
+        """
+        if isinstance(seed, np.random.RandomState):
+            self.rng_ = seed
+        elif seed is not None:
             self.rng_.seed(seed)
 
     def rand(self, *size, type_as=None):
diff --git a/test/test_backend.py b/test/test_backend.py
index c88ee5052..d3dbff996 100644
--- a/test/test_backend.py
+++ b/test/test_backend.py
@@ -982,3 +982,41 @@ def test_no_cuda_context_for_cpu_only_work():
         f"interpreter exited with returncode {result.returncode}: "
         f"{result.stderr.decode(errors='replace')[-2000:]}"
     )
+
+
+def _random_state_equal(left, right):
+    return (
+        left[0] == right[0]
+        and np.array_equal(left[1], right[1])
+        and left[2:] == right[2:]
+    )
+
+
+def test_numpy_backend_adopts_random_state():
+    # Non-regression for issue #848. RandomState.seed does not accept another
+    # RandomState, so the backend has to adopt the object.
+    shared = ot.backend.NumpyBackend.rng_
+    shared_before = shared.get_state()
+
+    adopted = np.random.RandomState(42)
+    expected = np.random.RandomState(42).rand(4)
+    backend = ot.backend.NumpyBackend()
+    backend.seed(adopted)
+    np.testing.assert_allclose(backend.rand(4), expected)
+    assert _random_state_equal(shared.get_state(), shared_before)
+
+    continued = np.random.RandomState(7)
+    reference = np.random.RandomState(7)
+    backend.seed(continued)
+    np.testing.assert_allclose(backend.randn(2, 3), reference.randn(2, 3))
+
+    fresh = ot.backend.NumpyBackend()
+    fresh.seed(1)
+    first = fresh.rand(3)
+    fresh.seed(1)
+    second = fresh.rand(3)
+    np.testing.assert_allclose(first, second)
+
+    unchanged = fresh.rng_.get_state()
+    fresh.seed(None)
+    assert _random_state_equal(fresh.rng_.get_state(), unchanged)