Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

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When I went out and in as a missionary among the Chinese people for
about thirty years, it sometimes occurred to me that only the inmates
of their monasteries and the recluses of both systems should be
enumerated as Buddhists and Taoists; but I was in the end constrained
to widen that judgment, and to admit a considerable following of both
among the people, who have neither received the tonsure nor assumed
the yellow top. Dr. Eitel, in concluding his discussion of this point
in his "Lecture on Buddhism, an Event in History," says: "It is not
too much to say that most Chinese are theoretically Confucianists,
but emotionally Buddhists or Taoists. But fairness requires us to add
that, though the mass of the people are more or less influenced by
Buddhist doctrines, yet the people, as a whole, have no respect for
the Buddhist church, and habitually sneer at Buddhist priests." For
the "most" in the former of these two sentences I would substitute
"nearly all;" and between my friend's "but" and "emotionally" I would
introduce "many are," and would not care to contest his conclusion
farther. It does seem to me preposterous to credit Buddhism with the
whole of the vast population of China, the great majority of whom are
Confucianists. My own opinion is, that its adherents are not so many
as those even of Mohammedanism, and that instead of being the most
numerous of the religions (so called) of the world, it is only
entitled to occupy the fifth place, ranking below Christianity,
Confucianism, Brahmanism, and Mohammedanism, and followed, some
distance off, by Taoism. To make a table of percentages of mankind,
and assign to each system its proportion, is to seem to be wise where
we are deplorably ignorant; and, moreover, if our means of information
were much better than they are, our figures would merely show the
outward adherence. A fractional per-centage might tell more for one
system than a very large integral one for another.





THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN

or RECORD OF BUDDHISTIC KINGDOMS



CHAPTER I

FROM CH'ANG-GAN TO THE SANDY DESERT

Fa-hien had been living in Ch'ang-gan.(1) Deploring the mutilated and
imperfect state of the collection of the Books of Discipline, in the
second year of the period Hwang-che, being the Ke-hae year of the
cycle,(2) he entered into an engagement with Kwuy-king, Tao-ching,
Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei,(3) that they should go to India and seek for
the Disciplinary Rules.(4)

After starting from Ch'ang-gan, they passed through Lung,(5) and came
to the kingdom of K'een-kwei,(6) where they stopped for the summer
retreat.(7) When that was over, they went forward to the kingdom
of Now-t'an,(8) crossed the mountain of Yang-low, and reached the
emporium of Chang-yih.(9) There they found the country so much
disturbed that travelling on the roads was impossible for them. Its
king, however, was very attentive to them, kept them (in his capital),
and acted the part of their danapati.(10)

Here they met with Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, Sang-shao, Pao-yun, and
Sang-king;(11) and in pleasant association with them, as bound on the
same journey with themselves, they passed the summer retreat (of that
year)(12) together, resuming after it their travelling, and going
on to T'un-hwang,(13) (the chief town) in the frontier territory of
defence extending for about 80 le from east to west, and about 40 from
north to south. Their company, increased as it had been, halted there
for some days more than a month, after which Fa-hien and his four
friends started first in the suite of an envoy,(14) having separated
(for a time) from Pao-yun and his associates.

Le Hao,(15) the prefect of T'un-hwang, had supplied them with the
means of crossing the desert (before them), in which there are many
evil demons and hot winds. (Travellers) who encounter them perish
all to a man. There is not a bird to be seen in the air above, nor an
animal on the ground below. Though you look all round most earnestly
to find where you can cross, you know not where to make your choice,
the only mark and indication being the dry bones of the dead (left
upon the sand).(16)

NOTES

(1) Ch'ang-gan is still the name of the principal district (and its
city) in the department of Se-gan, Shen-se. It had been the capital
of the first empire of Han (B.C. 202-A.D. 24), as it subsequently was
that of Suy (A.D. 589-618). The empire of the eastern Tsin, towards
the close of which Fa-hien lived, had its capital at or near Nan-king,
and Ch'ang-gan was the capital of the principal of the three
Ts'in kingdoms, which, with many other minor ones, maintained a
semi-independence of Tsin, their rulers sometimes even assuming the
title of emperor.

(2) The period Hwang-che embraced from A.D. 399 to 414, being the
greater portion of the reign of Yao Hing of the After Ts'in, a
powerful prince. He adopted Hwang-che for the style of his reign
in 399, and the cyclical name of that year was Kang-tsze. It is
not possible at this distance of time to explain, if it could be
explained, how Fa-hien came to say that Ke-hae was the second year of
the period. It seems most reasonable to suppose that he set out on his
pilgrimage in A.D. 399, the cycle name of which was Ke-hae, as {.},
the second year, instead of {.}, the first, might easily creep into
the text. In the "Memoirs of Eminent Monks" it is said that our author
started in the third year of the period Lung-gan of the eastern Tsin,
which was A.D. 399.

(3) These, like Fa-hien itself, are all what we might call "clerical"
names, appellations given to the parties as monks or sramanas.

(4) The Buddhist tripitaka or canon consists of three collections,
containing, according to Eitel (p. 150), "doctrinal aphorisms
(or statements, purporting to be from Buddha himself); works on
discipline; and works on metaphysics:"--called sutra, vinaya, and
abhidharma; in Chinese, king {.}, leuh {.}, and lun {.}, or texts,
laws or rules, and discussions. Dr. Rhys Davids objects to the
designation of "metaphysics" as used of the abhidharma works, saying
that "they bear much more the relation to 'dharma' which 'by-law'
bears to 'law' than that which 'metaphysics' bears to 'physics'"
(Hibbert Lectures, p. 49). However this be, it was about the vinaya
works that Fa-hien was chiefly concerned. He wanted a good code of
the rules for the government of "the Order" in all its internal and
external relations.

(5) Lung embraced the western part of Shen-se and the eastern part
of Kan-suh. The name remains in Lung Chow, in the extreme west of
Shen-se.

(6) K'een-kwei was the second king of "the Western Ts'in." His family
was of northern or barbarous origin, from the tribe of the Seen-pe,
with the surname of K'eih-fuh. The first king was Kwo-kin, and
received his appointment from the sovereign of the chief Ts'in kingdom
in 385. He was succeeded in 388 by his brother, the K'een-kwei of the
text, who was very prosperous in 398, and took the title of king of
Ts'in. Fa-hien would find him at his capital, somewhere in the present
department of Lan-chow, Kan-suh.

(7) Under varshas or vashavasana (Pali, vassa; Spence Hardy, vass),
Eitel (p. 163) says:--"One of the most ancient institutions of
Buddhist discipline, requiring all ecclesiastics to spend the rainy
season in a monastery in devotional exercises. Chinese Buddhists
naturally substituted the hot season for the rainy (from the 16th day
of the 5th to the 15th of the 9th Chinese month)."

(8) During the troubled period of the Tsin dynasty, there were five
(usurping) Leang sovereignties in the western part of the empire ({.}
{.}). The name Leang remains in the department of Leang-chow in the
northern part of Kan-suh. The "southern Leang" arose in 397 under a
Tuh-fah Wu-ku, who was succeeded in 399 by a brother, Le-luh-koo; and
he again by his brother, the Now-t'an of the text, in 402, who was not
yet king therefore when Fa-hien and his friends reached his capital.
How he is represented as being so may be accounted for in various
ways, of which it is not necessary to write.

(9) Chang-yih is still the name of a district in Kan-chow department,
Kan-suh. It is a long way north and west from Lan-chow, and not far
from the Great Wall. Its king at this time was, probably, Twan-yeh of
"the northern Leang."

(10) Dana is the name for religious charity, the first of the six
paramitas, or means of attaining to nirvana; and a danapati is "one
who practises dana and thereby crosses {.} the sea of misery." It is
given as "a title of honour to all who support the cause of
Buddhism by acts of charity, especially to founders and patrons of
monasteries;"--see Eitel, p. 29.

(11) Of these pilgrims with their clerical names, the most
distinguished was Pao-yun, who translated various Sanskrit works on
his return from India, of which only one seems to be now existing. He
died in 449. See Nanjio's Catalogue of the Tripitaka, col. 417.

(12) This was the second summer since the pilgrims left Ch'ang-gan. We
are now therefore, probably, in A.D. 400.

(13) T'un-hwang (lat. 39d 40s N.; lon. 94d 50s E.) is still the name
of one of the two districts constituting the department of Gan-se, the
most western of the prefectures of Kan-suh; beyond the termination of
the Great Wall.

(14) Who this envoy was, and where he was going, we do not know. The
text will not admit of any other translation.

(15) Le Hao was a native of Lung-se, a man of learning, able and
kindly in his government. He was appointed governor or prefect of
T'un-hwang by the king of "the northern Leang," in 400; and there he
sustained himself, becoming by and by "duke of western Leang," till he
died in 417.

(16) "The river of sand;" the great desert of Kobi or Gobi; having
various other names. It was a great task which the pilgrims had now
before them,--to cross this desert. The name of "river" in the Chinese
misleads the reader, and he thinks of crossing it as of crossing
a stream; but they had to traverse it from east to west. In his
"Vocabulary of Proper Names," p. 23, Dr. Porter Smith says:--"It
extends from the eastern frontier of Mongolia, south-westward to the
further frontier of Turkestan, to within six miles of Ilchi, the
chief town of Khoten. It thus comprises some twenty-three degrees
of longitude in length, and from three to ten degrees of latitude
in breadth, being about 2,100 miles in its greatest length. In some
places it is arable. Some idea may be formed of the terror with
which this 'Sea of Sand,' with its vast billows of shifting sands, is
regarded, from the legend that in one of the storms 360 cities were
all buried within the space of twenty-four hours." So also Gilmour's
"Among the Mongols," chap. 5.



CHAPTER II

ON TO SHEN-SHEN AND THENCE TO KHOTEN

After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate of
about 1500 le, (the pilgrims) reached the kingdom of Shen-shen,(1) a
country rugged and hilly, with a thin and barren soil. The clothes
of the common people are coarse, and like those worn in our land
of Han,(2) some wearing felt and others coarse serge or cloth
of hair;--this was the only difference seen among them. The king
professed (our) Law, and there might be in the country more than
four thousand monks,(3) who were all students of the hinayana.(4) The
common people of this and other kingdoms (in that region), as well
as the sramans,(5) all practise the rules of India,(6) only that
the latter do so more exactly, and the former more loosely. So (the
travellers) found it in all the kingdoms through which they went on
their way from this to the west, only that each had its own peculiar
barbarous speech.(7) (The monks), however, who had (given up the
worldly life) and quitted their families, were all students of Indian
books and the Indian language. Here they stayed for about a month,
and then proceeded on their journey, fifteen days walking to the
north-west bringing them to the country of Woo-e.(8) In this also
there were more than four thousand monks, all students of the
hinayana. They were very strict in their rules, so that sramans from
the territory of Ts'in(9) were all unprepared for their regulations.
Fa-hien, through the management of Foo Kung-sun, _maitre
d'hotellerie_,(10) was able to remain (with his company in the
monastery where they were received) for more than two months, and here
they were rejoined by Pao-yun and his friends.(11) (At the end of
that time) the people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and
righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner that
Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards Kao-ch'ang,(12)
hoping to obtain there the means of continuing their journey. Fa-hien
and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed
to go straight forward in a south-west direction. They found the
country uninhabited as they went along. The difficulties which they
encountered in crossing the streams and on their route, and the
sufferings which they endured, were unparalleled in human experience,
but in the course of a month and five days they succeeded in reaching
Yu-teen.(13)

NOTES

(1) An account is given of the kingdom of Shen-shen in the 96th of the
Books of the first Han dynasty, down to its becoming a dependency of
China, about B.C. 80. The greater portion of that is now accessible
to the English reader in a translation by Mr. Wylie in the "Journal
of the Anthropological Institute," August, 1880. Mr. Wylie
says:--"Although we may not be able to identify Shen-shen with
certainty, yet we have sufficient indications to give an appropriate
idea of its position, as being south of and not far from lake Lob."
He then goes into an exhibition of those indications, which I need not
transcribe. It is sufficient for us to know that the capital city
was not far from Lob or Lop Nor, into which in lon. 38d E. the Tarim
flows. Fa-hien estimated its distance to be 1500 le from T'un-hwang.
He and his companions must have gone more than twenty-five miles a day
to accomplish the journey in seventeen days.

(2) This is the name which Fa-hien always uses when he would speak
of China, his native country, as a whole, calling it from the great
dynasty which had ruled it, first and last, for between four and five
centuries. Occasionally, as we shall immediately see, he speaks of
"the territory of Ts'in or Ch'in," but intending thereby only the
kingdom or Ts'in, having its capital, as described in the first note
on the last chapter, in Ch'ang-gan.

(3) So I prefer to translate the character {.} (sang) rather than by
"priests." Even in Christianity, beyond the priestly privilege
which belongs to all believers, I object to the ministers of any
denomination or church calling themselves or being called "priests;"
and much more is the name inapplicable to the sramanas or bhikshus of
Buddhism which acknowledges no God in the universe, no soul in man,
and has no services of sacrifice or prayer in its worship. The only
difficulty in the use of "monks" is caused by the members of the
sect in Japan which, since the middle of the fifteenth century,
has abolished the prohibition against marrying on the part of its
ministers, and other prohibitions in diet and dress. Sang and sang-kea
represent the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members,
and empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit
persons to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the
Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the _communio sanctorum_, or
the Buddhist order. The name is used by our author of the monks
collectively or individually as belonging to the class, and may be
considered as synonymous with the name sramana, which will immediately
claim our attention.

(4) Meaning the "small vehicle, or conveyance." There are in
Buddhism the triyana, or "three different means of salvation, i.e. of
conveyance across the samsara, or sea of transmigration, to the shores
of nirvana. Afterwards the term was used to designate the different
phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma passed, known
as the mahayana, hinayana, and madhyamayana." "The hinayana is the
simplest vehicle of salvation, corresponding to the first of the three
degrees of saintship. Characteristics of it are the preponderance of
active moral asceticism, and the absence of speculative mysticism and
quietism." E. H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.

(5) The name for India is here the same as in the former chapter and
throughout the book,--T'een-chuh ({.} {.}), the chuh being pronounced,
probably, in Fa-hien's time as tuk. How the earliest name for India,
Shin-tuk or duk=Scinde, came to be changed into Thien-tuk, it
would take too much space to explain. I believe it was done by the
Buddhists, wishing to give a good auspicious name to the fatherland of
their Law, and calling it "the Heavenly Tuk," just as the Mohammedans
call Arabia "the Heavenly region" ({.} {.}), and the court of China
itself is called "the Celestial" ({.} {.}).

(6) Sraman may in English take the place of Sramana (Pali, Samana;
in Chinese, Sha-man), the name for Buddhist monks, as those who have
separated themselves from (left) their families, and quieted their
hearts from all intrusion of desire and lust. "It is employed, first,
as a general name for ascetics of all denominations, and, secondly, as
a general designation of Buddhistic monks." E. H., pp. 130, 131.

(7) Tartar or Mongolian.

(8) Woo-e has not been identified. Watters ("China Review," viii.
115) says:--"We cannot be far wrong if we place it in Kharaschar, or
between that and Kutscha." It must have been a country of considerable
size to have so many monks in it.

(9) This means in one sense China, but Fa-hien, in his use of the
name, was only thinking of the three Ts'in states of which I have
spoken in a previous note; perhaps only of that from the capital of
which he had himself set out.

(10) This sentence altogether is difficult to construe, and Mr.
Watters, in the "China Review," was the first to disentangle more than
one knot in it. I am obliged to adopt the reading of {.} {.} in the
Chinese editions, instead of the {.} {.} in the Corean text. It seems
clear that only one person is spoken of as assisting the travellers,
and his name, as appears a few sentences farther on, was Foo Kung-sun.
The {.} {.} which immediately follows the surname Foo {.}, must be
taken as the name of his office, corresponding, as the {.} shows, to
that of _le maitre d'hotellerie_ in a Roman Catholic abbey. I was once
indebted myself to the kind help of such an officer at a monastery in
Canton province. The Buddhistic name for him is uddesika=overseer. The
Kung-sun that follows his surname indicates that he was descended from
some feudal lord in the old times of the Chow dynasty. We know indeed
of no ruling house which had the surname of Foo, but its adoption by
the grandson of a ruler can be satisfactorily accounted for; and
his posterity continued to call themselves Kung-sun, duke or lord's
grandson, and so retain the memory of the rank of their ancestor.

(11) Whom they had left behind them at T'un-hwang.

(12) The country of the Ouighurs, the district around the modern
Turfan or Tangut.

(13) Yu-teen is better known as Khoten. Dr. P. Smith gives (p. 11) the
following description of it:--"A large district on the south-west
of the desert of Gobi, embracing all the country south of Oksu and
Yarkand, along the northern base of the Kwun-lun mountains, for more
than 300 miles from east to west. The town of the same name, now
called Ilchi, is in an extensive plain on the Khoten river, in lat.
37d N., and lon. 80d 35s E. After the Tungani insurrection against
Chinese rule in 1862, the Mufti Haji Habeeboolla was made governor of
Khoten, and held the office till he was murdered by Yakoob Beg, who
became for a time the conqueror of all Chinese Turkestan. Khoten
produces fine linen and cotton stuffs, jade ornaments, copper, grain,
and fruits." The name in Sanskrit is Kustana. (E. H., p. 60).



CHAPTER III

KHOTEN. PROCESSIONS OF IMAGES. THE KING'S NEW MONASTERY.

Yu-teen is a pleasant and prosperous kingdom, with a numerous and
flourishing population. The inhabitants all profess our Law, and join
together in its religious music for their enjoyment.(1) The
monks amount to several myriads, most of whom are students of the
mahayana.(2) They all receive their food from the common store.(3)
Throughout the country the houses of the people stand apart like
(separate) stars, and each family has a small tope(4) reared in front
of its door. The smallest of these may be twenty cubits high, or
rather more.(5) They make (in the monasteries) rooms for monks from
all quarters,(5) the use of which is given to travelling monks who may
arrive, and who are provided with whatever else they require.

The lord of the country lodged Fa-hien and the others comfortably,
and supplied their wants, in a monastery(6) called Gomati,(6) of the
mahayana school. Attached to it there are three thousand monks, who
are called to their meals by the sound of a bell. When they enter the
refectory, their demeanour is marked by a reverent gravity, and they
take their seats in regular order, all maintaining a perfect silence.
No sound is heard from their alms-bowls and other utensils. When any
of these pure men(7) require food, they are not allowed to call out
(to the attendants) for it, but only make signs with their hands.

Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, and Hwuy-tah set out in advance towards the
country of K'eeh-ch'a;(8) but Fa-hien and the others, wishing to see
the procession of images, remained behind for three months. There are
in this country four(9) great monasteries, not counting the smaller
ones. Beginning on the first day of the fourth month, they sweep and
water the streets inside the city, making a grand display in the
lanes and byways. Over the city gate they pitch a large tent, grandly
adorned in all possible ways, in which the king and queen, with their
ladies brilliantly arrayed,(10) take up their residence (for the
time).

The monks of the Gomati monastery, being mahayana students, and held
in great reverence by the king, took precedence of all others in the
procession. At a distance of three or four le from the city, they made
a four-wheeled image car, more than thirty cubits high, which looked
like the great hall (of a monastery) moving along. The seven precious
substances(11) were grandly displayed about it, with silken streamers
and canopies hanging all around. The (chief) image(12) stood in the
middle of the car, with two Bodhisattvas(13) in attendance upon it,
while devas(14) were made to follow in waiting, all brilliantly carved
in gold and silver, and hanging in the air. When (the car) was a
hundred paces from the gate, the king put off his crown of state,
changed his dress for a fresh suit, and with bare feet, carrying
in his hands flowers and incense, and with two rows of attending
followers, went out at the gate to meet the image; and, with his head
and face (bowed to the ground), he did homage at its feet, and then
scattered the flowers and burnt the incense. When the image was
entering the gate, the queen and the brilliant ladies with her in
the gallery above scattered far and wide all kinds of flowers, which
floated about and fell promiscuously to the ground. In this way
everything was done to promote the dignity of the occasion. The
carriages of the monasteries were all different, and each one had its
own day for the procession. (The ceremony) began on the first day of
the fourth month, and ended on the fourteenth, after which the king
and queen returned to the palace.

Seven or eight le to the west of the city there is what is called the
King's New Monastery, the building of which took eighty years, and
extended over three reigns. It may be 250 cubits in height, rich in
elegant carving and inlaid work, covered above with gold and silver,
and finished throughout with a combination of all the precious
substances. Behind the tope there has been built a Hall of Buddha,(15)
of the utmost magnificence and beauty, the beams, pillars, venetianed
doors, and windows being all overlaid with gold-leaf. Besides this,
the apartments for the monks are imposingly and elegantly decorated,
beyond the power of words to express. Of whatever things of highest
value and preciousness the kings in the six countries on the east of
the (Ts'ung) range of mountains(16) are possessed, they contribute the
greater portion (to this monastery), using but a small portion of them
themselves.(17)