Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

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NOTES

(1) This fondness for music among the Khoteners is mentioned by Hsuan
and Ch'wang and others.

(2) Mahayana. It is a later form of the Buddhist doctrine, the second
phase of its development corresponding to the state of a Bodhisattva,
who, being able to transport himself and all mankind to nirvana, may
be compared to a huge vehicle. See Davids on the "Key-note of the
'Great Vehicle,'" Hibbert Lectures, p. 254.

(3) Fa-hien supplies sufficient information of how the common store or
funds of the monasteries were provided, farther on in chapters xvi and
xxxix, as well as in other passages. As the point is important, I will
give here, from Davids' fifth Hibbert Lecture (p. 178), some of the
words of the dying Buddha, taken from "The Book of the Great Decease,"
as illustrating the statement in this text:--"So long as the brethren
shall persevere in kindness of action, speech, and thought among
the saints, both in public and private; so long as they shall divide
without partiality, and share in common with the upright and holy, all
such things as they receive in accordance with the just provisions of
the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl; . . . so
long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to prosper."

(4) The Chinese {.} (t'ah; in Cantonese, t'ap), as used by Fa-hien,
is, no doubt, a phonetisation of the Sanskrit stupa or Pali thupa; and
it is well in translating to use for the structures described by
him the name of topes,--made familiar by Cunningham and other Indian
antiquarians. In the thirteenth chapter there is an account of one
built under the superintendence of Buddha himself, "as a model for all
topes in future." They were usually in the form of bell-shaped domes,
and were solid, surmounted by a long tapering pinnacle formed with
a series of rings, varying in number. But their form, I suppose, was
often varied; just as we have in China pagodas of different shapes.
There are several topes now in the Indian Institute at Oxford, brought
from Buddha Gaya, but the largest of them is much smaller than "the
smallest" of those of Khoten. They were intended chiefly to contain
the relics of Buddha and famous masters of his Law; but what relics
could there be in the Tiratna topes of chapter xvi?

(5) The meaning here is much disputed. The author does not mean to
say that the monk's apartments were made "square," but that the
monasteries were made with many guest-chambers or spare rooms.

(6) The Sanskrit term for a monastery is used here,--Sangharama,
"gardens of the assembly," originally denoting only "the surrounding
park, but afterwards transferred to the whole of the premises" (E. H.,
p. 118). Gomati, the name of this monastery, means "rich in cows."

(7) A denomination for the monks as vimala, "undefiled" or "pure."
Giles makes it "the menials that attend on the monks," but I have not
met with it in that application.

(8) K'eeh-ch'a has not been clearly identified. Remusat made it
Cashmere; Klaproth, Iskardu; Beal makes it Kartchou; and Eitel,
Khas'a, "an ancient tribe on the Paropamisus, the Kasioi of Ptolemy."
I think it was Ladak, or some well-known place in it. Hwuy-tah, unless
that name be an alias, appears here for the first time.

(9) Instead of "four," the Chinese copies of the text have "fourteen;"
but the Corean reading is, probably, more correct.

(10) There may have been, as Giles says, "maids of honour;" but the
character does not say so.

(11) The Sapta-ratna, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, rock crystal,
rubies, diamonds or emeralds, and agate. See Sacred Books of the East
(Davids' Buddhist Suttas), vol. xi., p. 249.

(12) No doubt that of Sakyamuni himself.

(13) A Bodhisattva is one whose essence has become intelligence;
a Being who will in some future birth as a man (not necessarily or
usually the next) attain to Buddhahood. The name does not include
those Buddhas who have not yet attained to pari-nirvana. The symbol of
the state is an elephant fording a river. Popularly, its abbreviated
form P'u-sa is used in China for any idol or image; here the name has
its proper signification.

(14) {.} {.}, "all the thien," or simply "the thien" taken as plural.
But in Chinese the character called thien {.} denotes heaven, or
Heaven, and is interchanged with Ti and Shang Ti, meaning God. With
the Buddhists it denotes the devas or Brahmanic gods, or all the
inhabitants of the six devalokas. The usage shows the antagonism
between Buddhism and Brahmanism, and still more that between it and
Confucianism.

(15) Giles and Williams call this "the oratory of Buddha." But
"oratory" gives the idea of a small apartment, whereas the name here
leads the mind to think of a large "hall." I once accompanied the
monks of a large monastery from their refectory to the Hall of Buddha,
which was a lofty and spacious apartment splendidly fitted up.

(16) The Ts'ung, or "Onion" range, called also the Belurtagh
mountains, including the Karakorum, and forming together the
connecting links between the more northern T'een-shan and the Kwun-lun
mountains on the north of Thibet. It would be difficult to name the
six countries which Fa-hien had in mind.

(17) This seems to be the meaning here. My first impression of it
was that the author meant to say that the contributions which they
received were spent by the monks mainly on the buildings, and only to
a small extent for themselves; and I still hesitate between that view
and the one in the version.

There occurs here the binomial phrase kung-yang {.} {.}, which is one
of the most common throughout the narrative, and is used not only
of support in the way of substantial contributions given to monks,
monasteries, and Buddhism, but generally of all Buddhistic worship, if
I may use that term in the connexion. Let me here quote two or three
sentences from Davids' Manual (pp. 168-170):--"The members of the
order are secured from want. There is no place in the Buddhist scheme
for churches; the offering of flowers before the sacred tree or
image of the Buddha takes the place of worship. Buddhism does not
acknowledge the efficacy of prayers; and in the warm countries where
Buddhists live, the occasional reading of the law, or preaching of the
word, in public, can take place best in the open air, by moonlight,
under a simple roof of trees or palms. There are five principal kinds
of meditation, which in Buddhism takes the place of prayer."



CHAPTER IV

THROUGH THE TS'UNG OR "ONION" MOUNTAINS TO K'EEH-CH'A;--PROBABLY
SKARDO, OR SOME CITY MORE TO THE EAST IN LADAK

When the processions of images in the fourth month were over,
Sang-shao, by himself alone, followed a Tartar who was an earnest
follower of the Law,(1) and proceeded towards Kophene.(2) Fa-hien and
the others went forward to the kingdom of Tsze-hoh, which it took them
twenty-five days to reach.(3) Its king was a strenuous follower of
our Law,(4) and had (around him) more than a thousand monks, mostly
students of the mahayana. Here (the travellers) abode fifteen days,
and then went south for four days, when they found themselves among
the Ts'ung-ling mountains, and reached the country of Yu-hwuy,(5)
where they halted and kept their retreat.(6) When this was over,
they went on among the hills(7) for twenty-five days, and got to
K'eeh-ch'a,(8) there rejoining Hwuy-king(9) and his two companions.

NOTES

(1) This Tartar is called a {.} {.}, "a man of the Tao," or faith of
Buddha. It occurs several times in the sequel, and denotes the man who
is not a Buddhist outwardly only, but inwardly as well, whose faith
is always making itself manifest in his ways. The name may be used of
followers of other systems of faith besides Buddhism.

(2) See the account of the kingdom of Kophene, in the 96th Book of the
first Han Records, p. 78, where its capital is said to be 12,200 le
from Ch'ang-gan. It was the whole or part of the present Cabulistan.
The name of Cophene is connected with the river Kophes, supposed to be
the same as the present Cabul river, which falls into the Indus, from
the west, at Attock, after passing Peshawar. The city of Cabul, the
capital of Afghanistan, may be the Kophene of the text; but we do not
know that Sang-shao and his guide got so far west. The text only says
that they set out from Khoten "towards it."

(3) Tsze-hoh has not been identified. Beal thinks it was Yarkand,
which, however, was north-west from Khoten. Watters ("China Review,"
p. 135) rather approves the suggestion of "Tashkurgan in Sirikul" for
it. As it took Fa-hien twenty-five days to reach it, it must have been
at least 150 miles from Khoten.

(4) The king is described here by a Buddhistic phrase, denoting
the possession of viryabala, "the power of energy; persevering
exertion--one of the five moral powers" (E. H., p. 170).

(5) Nor has Yu-hwuy been clearly identified. Evidently it was directly
south from Tsze-hoh, and among the "Onion" mountains. Watters hazards
the conjecture that it was the Aktasch of our present maps.

(6) This was the retreat already twice mentioned as kept by the
pilgrims in the summer, the different phraseology, "quiet rest,"
without any mention of the season, indicating their approach to India,
E. H., p. 168. Two, if not three, years had elapsed since they left
Ch'ang-gan. Are we now with them in 402?

(7) This is the Corean reading {.}, much preferable to the {.} of the
Chinese editions.

(8) Watters approves of Klaproth's determination of K'eeh-ch'a to be
Iskardu or Skardo. There are difficulties in connexion with the view,
but it has the advantage, to my mind very great, of bringing the
pilgrims across the Indus. The passage might be accomplished with ease
at this point of the river's course, and therefore is not particularly
mentioned.

(9) Who had preceded them from Khoten.



CHAPTER V

GREAT QUINQUENNIAL ASSEMBLY OF MONKS. RELICS OF BUDDHA. PRODUCTIONS OF
THE COUNTRY.

It happened that the king of the country was then holding the pancha
parishad, that is, in Chinese, the great quinquennial assembly.(1)
When this is to be held, the king requests the presence of the Sramans
from all quarters (of his kingdom). They come (as if) in clouds;
and when they are all assembled, their place of session is grandly
decorated. Silken streamers and canopies are hung out in, and
water-lilies in gold and silver are made and fixed up behind the
places where (the chief of them) are to sit. When clean mats have been
spread, and they are all seated, the king and his ministers present
their offerings according to rule and law. (The assembly takes place),
in the first, second, or third month, for the most part in the spring.

After the king has held the assembly, he further exhorts the ministers
to make other and special offerings. The doing of this extends over
one, two, three, five, or even seven days; and when all is finished,
he takes his own riding-horse, saddles, bridles, and waits on him
himself,(2) while he makes the noblest and most important minister
of the kingdom mount him. Then, taking fine white woollen cloth, all
sorts of precious things, and articles which the Sramans require, he
distributes them among them, uttering vows at the same time along
with all his ministers; and when this distribution has taken place, he
again redeems (whatever he wishes) from the monks.(3)

The country, being among the hills and cold, does not produce the
other cereals, and only the wheat gets ripe. After the monks have
received their annual (portion of this), the mornings suddenly show
the hoar-frost, and on this account the king always begs the monks to
make the wheat ripen(4) before they receive their portion. There is in
the country a spitoon which belonged to Buddha, made of stone, and in
colour like his alms-bowl. There is also a tooth of Buddha, for which
the people have reared a tope, connected with which there are more
than a thousand monks and their disciples,(5) all students of the
hinayana. To the east of these hills the dress of the common people
is of coarse materials, as in our country of Ts'in, but here also(6)
there were among them the differences of fine woollen cloth and of
serge or haircloth. The rules observed by the Sramans are remarkable,
and too numerous to be mentioned in detail. The country is in the
midst of the Onion range. As you go forward from these mountains, the
plants, trees, and fruits are all different from those of the land of
Han, excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate,(7) and sugar-cane.

NOTES

(1) See Eitel, p. 89. He describes the assembly as "an ecclesiastical
conference, first instituted by king Asoka for general confession of
sins and inculcation of morality."

(2) The text of this sentence is perplexing; and all translators,
including myself, have been puzzled by it.

(3) See what we are told of king Asoka's grant of all the Jambudvipa
to the monks in chapter xxvii. There are several other instances of
similar gifts in the Mahavansa.

(4) Watters calls attention to this as showing that the monks of
K'eeh-ch'a had the credit of possessing weather-controlling powers.

(5) The text here has {.} {.}, not {.} alone. I often found in
monasteries boys and lads who looked up to certain of the monks as
their preceptors.

(6) Compare what is said in chapter ii of the dress of the people of
Shen-shen.

(7) Giles thinks the fruit here was the guava, because the ordinary
name for "pomegranate" is preceded by gan {.}; but the pomegranate
was called at first Gan Shih-lau, as having been introduced into China
from Gan-seih by Chang-k'een, who is referred to in chapter vii.



CHAPTER VI

ON TOWARDS NORTH INDIA. DARADA. IMAGE OF MAITREYA BODHISATTVA.

From this (the travellers) went westwards towards North India, and
after being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting across
and through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests on them
both winter and summer. There are also among them venomous dragons,
which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of
snow and storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten thousand of those
who encounter these dangers escapes with his life. The people of the
country call the range by the name of "The Snow mountains." When
(the travellers) had got through them, they were in North India,
and immediately on entering its borders, found themselves in a small
kingdom called T'o-leih,(1) where also there were many monks, all
students of the hinayana.

In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan,(2) who by his
supernatural power(3) took a clever artificer up to the Tushita
heaven, to see the height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya
Bodhisattva,(4) and then return and make an image of him in wood.
First and last, this was done three times, and then the image was
completed, eighty cubits in height, and eight cubits at the base from
knee to knee of the crossed legs. On fast-days it emits an effulgent
light. The kings of the (surrounding) countries vie with one another
in presenting offerings to it. Here it is,--to be seen now as of
old.(5)

NOTES

(1) Eitel and others identify this with Darada, the country of the
ancient Dardae, the region near Dardus; lat. 30d 11s N., lon. 73d
54s E. See E. H. p. 30. I am myself in more than doubt on the point.
Cunningham ("Ancient Geography of India," p. 82) says "Darel is a
valley on the right or western bank of the Indus, now occupied by
Dardus or Dards, from whom it received its name." But as I read our
narrative, Fa-hien is here on the eastern bank of the Indus, and only
crosses to the western bank as described in the next chapter.

(2) Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat, are all designations of the perfected Arya,
the disciple who has passed the different stages of the Noble Path, or
eightfold excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is not to
be reborn again. Arhatship implies possession of certain supernatural
powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but implies the fact
of the saint having already attained nirvana. Popularly, the Chinese
designate by this name the wider circle of Buddha's disciples, as well
as the smaller ones of 500 and 18. No temple in Canton is better worth
a visit than that of the 500 Lo-han.

(3) Riddhi-sakshatkriya, "the power of supernatural footsteps,"="a
body flexible at pleasure," or unlimited power over the body. E. H.,
p. 104.

(4) Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn
before finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita
4000 years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to 400 years on
earth. E. H., p. 152.

(5) Maitreya (Spence Hardy, Maitri), often styled Ajita, "the
Invincible," was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed,
of Sakyamuni's retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary
(historical) disciples, nor is anything told of his antecedents. It
was in the Tushita heaven that Sakyamuni met him and appointed him
as his successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of 5000 years.
Maitreya is therefore the expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing
at present in Tushita, and, according to the account of him in Eitel
(H., p. 70), "already controlling the propagation of the Buddhistic
faith." The name means "gentleness" or "kindness;" and this will be
the character of his dispensation.

(6) The combination of {.} {.} in the text of this concluding
sentence, and so frequently occurring throughout the narrative,
has occasioned no little dispute among previous translators. In the
imperial thesaurus of phraseology (P'ei-wan Yun-foo), under {.}, an
example of it is given from Chwang-tsze, and a note subjoined that {.}
{.} is equivalent to {.} {.}, "anciently and now."



CHAPTER VII

CROSSING OF THE INDUS. WHEN BUDDHISM FIRST CROSSED THE RIVER FOR THE
EAST

The travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at the foot
of the mountains, and) following the course of their range. The
way was difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank exceedingly
precipitous, which rose up there, a hill-like wall of rock, 10,000
cubits from the base. When one approaches the edge of it, his eyes
become unsteady; and if he wished to go forward in the same direction,
there was no place on which he could place his foot; and beneath where
the waters of the river called the Indus.(1) In former times men had
chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face
of them, to the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there
was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its
banks being there eighty paces apart.(2) The (place and arrangements)
are to be found in the Records of the Nine Interpreters,(3) but
neither Chang K'een(4) nor Kan Ying(5) had reached the spot.

The monks(6) asked Fa-hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha
first went to the east. He replied, "When I asked the people of those
countries about it, they all said that it had been handed down by
their fathers from of old that, after the setting up of the image of
Maitreya Bodhisattva, there were Sramans of India who crossed this
river, carrying with them Sutras and Books of Discipline. Now the
image was set up rather more than 300 years after the nirvana(7) of
Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P'ing of the Chow
dynasty.(8) According to this account we may say that the diffusion of
our great doctrines (in the east) began from (the setting up of)
this image. If it had not been through that Maitreya,(9) the great
spiritual master(10) (who is to be) the successor of the Sakya, who
could have caused the 'Three Precious Ones'(11) to be proclaimed so
far, and the people of those border lands to know our Law? We know
of a truth that the opening of (the way for such) a mysterious
propagation is not the work of man; and so the dream of the emperor
Ming of Han(12) had its proper cause."

NOTES

(1) The Sindhu. We saw in a former note that the earliest name in
China for India was Shin-tuh. So, here, the river Indus is called by a
name approaching that in sound.

(2) Both Beal and Watters quote from Cunningham (Ladak, pp. 88, 89)
the following description of the course of the Indus in these parts,
in striking accordance with our author's account:--"From Skardo to
Rongdo, and from Rongdo to Makpou-i-shang-rong, for upwards of 100
miles, the Indus sweeps sullen and dark through a mighty gorge in
the mountains, which for wild sublimity is perhaps unequalled. Rongdo
means the country of defiles. . . . Between these points the Indus
raves from side to side of the gloomy chasm, foaming and chafing with
ungovernable fury. Yet even in these inaccessible places has daring
and ingenious man triumphed over opposing nature. The yawning abyss
is spanned by frail rope bridges, and the narrow ledges of rocks are
connected by ladders to form a giddy pathway overhanging the seething
cauldron below."

(3) The Japanese edition has a different reading here from the Chinese
copies,--one which Remusat (with true critical instinct) conjectured
should take the place of the more difficult text with which alone he
was acquainted. The "Nine Interpreters" would be a general name for
the official interpreters attached to the invading armies of Han in
their attempts to penetrate and subdue the regions of the west. The
phrase occurs in the memoir of Chang K'een, referred to in the next
note.

(4) Chang K'een, a minister of the emperor Woo of Han (B.C. 140-87),
is celebrated as the first Chinese who "pierced the void," and
penetrated to "the regions of the west," corresponding very much to
the present Turkestan. Through him, by B.C. 115, a regular intercourse
was established between China and the thirty-six kingdoms or states of
that quarter;--see Mayers' Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 5. The memoir
of Chang K'een, translated by Mr. Wylie from the Books of the first
Han dynasty, appears in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute,
referred to already.

(5) Less is known of Kan Ying than of Chang K'een. Being sent in A.D.
88 by his patron Pan Chao on an embassy to the Roman empire, he only
got as far as the Caspian sea, and returned to China. He extended,
however, the knowledge of his countrymen with regard to the western
regions;--see the memoir of Pan Chao in the Books of the second Han,
and Mayers' Manual, pp. 167, 168.

(6) Where and when? Probably at his first resting-place after crossing
the Indus.

(7) This may refer to Sakyamuni's becoming Buddha on attaining to
nirvana, or more probably to his pari-nirvana and death.

(8) As king P'ing's reign lasted from B.C. 750 to 719, this would
place the death of Buddha in the eleventh century B.C., whereas recent
inquirers place it between B.C. 480 and 470, a year or two, or a few
years, after that of Confucius, so that the two great "Masters" of the
east were really contemporaries. But if Rhys Davids be correct, as I
think he is, in fixing the date of Buddha's death within a few years
of 412 B.C. (see Manual, p. 213), not to speak of Westergaard's
still lower date, then the Buddha was very considerably the junior of
Confucius.

(9) This confirms the words of Eitel, that Maitreya is already
controlling the propagation of the faith.

(10) The Chinese characters for this simply mean "the great scholar or
officer;" but see Eitel's Handbook, p. 99, on the term purusha.

(11) "The precious Buddha," "the precious Law," and "the precious
Monkhood;" Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the whole being equivalent to
Buddhism.

(12) Fa-hien thus endorses the view that Buddhism was introduced into
China in this reign, A.D. 58-75. The emperor had his dream in A.D. 61.



CHAPTER VIII

WOO-CHANG, OR UDYANA. MONASTERIES, AND THEIR WAYS. TRACES OF BUDDHA.

After crossing the river, (the travellers) immediately came to the
kingdom of Woo-chang,(1) which is indeed (a part) of North India. The
people all use the language of Central India, "Central India" being
what we should call the "Middle Kingdom." The food and clothes of
the common people are the same as in that Central Kingdom. The Law of
Buddha is very (flourishing in Woo-chang). They call the places where
the monks stay (for a time) or reside permanently Sangharamas; and
of these there are in all 500, the monks being all students of the
hinayana. When stranger bhikshus(2) arrive at one of them, their
wants are supplied for three days, after which they are told to find a
resting-place for themselves.