Sketch-Map Of Fâ-Hien’s TravelsUniversity Press, Oxford.
Sketch-Map Of Fâ-Hien’s TravelsUniversity Press, Oxford.
University Press, Oxford.
University Press, Oxford.
The accompanying Sketch-Map, taken in connexion with the notes on the different places in the Narrative, will give the reader a sufficiently accurate knowledge of Fâ-hien’s route.
There is no difficulty in laying it down after he crossed the Indus from east to west into the Punjâb, all the principal places, at which he touched or rested, having been determined by Cunningham and other Indian geographers and archæologists. Most of the places from Chʽang-an to Bannu have also been identified. Woo-e has been put down as near Kutcha, or Kuldja, in 43° 25′ N., 81° 15′ E. The country of Kʽieh-chʽa was probably Ladak, but I am inclined to think that the place where the traveller crossed the Indus and entered it must have been further east than Skardo. A doubt is intimated on page 24 as to the identification of Tʽo-leih with Darada, but Greenough’s ‘Physical and Geological Sketch-Map of British India’ shows ‘Dardu Proper,’ all lying on the east of the Indus, exactly in the position where the Narrative would lead us to place it. The point at which Fâ-hien recrossed the Indus into Udyâna on the west of it is unknown. Takshaśilâ, which he visited, was no doubt on the west of the river, and has been incorrectly accepted as the Taxila of Arrian in the Punjâb. It should be written Takshasira, of which the Chinese phonetisation will allow;—see a note of Beal in his ‘Buddhist Records of the Western World,’ i. 138.
We must suppose that Fâ-hien went on from Nanking to Chʽang-an, but the Narrative does not record the fact of his doing so.