~Celebrating King Wan~
The royal Wan now rests on high,Enshrined in brightness of the sky.Chow as a state had long been known,And Heaven's decree at last was shown.Its lords had borne a glorious name;God kinged them when the season came.King Wan ruled well when earth he trod;Now moves his spirit near to God.
A strong-willed, earnest king was Wan,And still his fame rolls widening on.The gifts that God bestowed on ChowBelong to Wan's descendants now.Heaven blesses still with gifts divineThe hundred scions of his line;And all the officers of ChowFrom age to age more lustrous grow.
More lustrous still from age to age,All reverent plans their zeal engage;And brilliant statesmen owe their birthTo this much-favored spot of earth.They spring like products of the land—The men by whom the realm doth stand.Such aid their numerous bands supply,That Wan rests tranquilly on high.
Deep were Wan's thoughts, sustained his ways;His reverence lit its trembling rays.Resistless came great Heaven's decree;The sons of Shang must bend the knee;—The sons of Shang, each one a king,In numbers beyond numbering.Yet as God spoke, so must it be:—The sons of Shang all bent the knee.
Now each to Chow his homage pays—So dark and changing are Heaven's ways.When we pour our libations here,The officers of Shang appear,Quick and alert to give their aid:—Such is the service by them paid,While still they do not cast asideThe cap and broidered axe—their pride.Ye servants of our line of kings,Remember him from whom it springs.
Remember him from whom it springs;—Let this give to your virtue wings.Seek harmony with Heaven's great mind;—So shall you surest blessing find.Ere Shang had lost the nation's heart,Its monarchs all with God had partIn sacrifice. From them you see'Tis hard to keep high Heaven's decree.
'Tis hard to keep high Heaven's decree!O sin not, or you cease to be.To add true lustre to your name,See Shang expire in Heaven's dread flame.For Heaven's high dealings are profound,And far transcend all sense and sound.From Wan your pattern you must draw,And all the States will own your law.
[Book II. is omitted]
~King Seuen on the Occasion of a Great Drought~
Grand shone the Milky Way on high,With brilliant span athwart the sky,Nor promise gave of rain.King Seuen long gazed; then from him broke,In anguished tones the words he spoke.Well might he thus complain!"O Heaven, what crimes have we to own,That death and ruin still come down?Relentless famine fills our graves.Pity the king who humbly craves!Our miseries never cease.To every Spirit I have vowed;The choicest victim's blood has flowed.As offerings I have freely paidMy store of gems and purest jade.Hear me, and give release!
"The drought consumes us. As on wingIts fervors fly, and torment bring.With purest mind and ceaseless careMy sacrifices I prepare.At thine own border altars, Heaven,And in my father's fane, I've givenWhat might relief have found.What Powers above, below, have sway,To all my precious gifts I pay,Then bury in the ground.Yes, every Spirit has receivedDue honor, and, still unrelieved,Our sufferings greater grow.How-tseih can't give the needed aid,And help from God is still delayed!The country lies a ruined waste.O would that I alone might tasteThis bitter cup of woe!
"The drought consumes us. Nor do ITo fix the blame on others try.I quake with dread; the risk I feel,As when I hear the thunders peal,Or fear its sudden crash.Our black-haired race, a remnant now,Will every one be swept from Chow,As by the lightning's flash.Nor I myself will live alone.God from his great and heavenly throneWill not spare even me.O friends and officers, come, blendYour prayers with mine; come, lowly bend.Chow's dynasty will pass away;Its altars at no distant dayIn ruins all shall be!
"The drought consumes us. It keeps onIts fatal course. All hope is gone.The air more fierce and fiery glows.Where can I fly? Where seek repose?Death marks me for its prey.Above, no saving hand! Around,No hope, no comfort, can be found.The dukes and ministers of oldGive us no help. Can ye withholdYour sympathy, who lately reigned?And parents, how are you restrained,In this so dreadful day?
"The drought consumes us. There on highThe hills are parched. The streams are dry.Drought's demon stalks abroad in ire,And scatters wide his flames and fire.Alas, my woful heart!The fires within its strength consume;The heat without creates a gloomThat from it will not part.The dukes and ministers by-goneRespond not to my prayer and moan.God in great Heaven, permission giveThat I may in retirement live,And try to heal my smart!
"The drought consumes us. Still I strive,And will not leave while I survive.Duty to shun I fear.Why upon me has come this drought?Vainly I try to search it out,Vainly, with quest severe.For a good harvest soon I prayed,Nor late the rites I duly paid,To Spirits of the air and land.There wanted nought they could demand,Their favor to secure.God in great heaven, be just, be kind!Thou dost not bear me in Thy mind.My cry, ye wisest Spirits, hear!Ye whom I constantly revere,Why do I this endure?
"The drought consumes us. People fly,And leave their homes. Each social tieAnd bond of rule is snapt.The Heads of Boards are all perplexed;My premier's mind is sorely vexed;In trouble all are wrapt.The Masters of my Horse and Guards;My cook, and men of different wards:—Not one has from the struggle shrunk.Though feeling weak, they have not sunk,But done their best to aid.To the great sky I look with pain;—Why do these grievous sorrows rainOn my devoted head?
"Yes, at the mighty sky I gaze,And lo! the stars pursue their maze,And sparkle clear and bright.Ah! Heaven nor helps, nor seems to ken.Great officers and noble men,With all your powers ye well have striven,And reverently have sought from HeavenIts aid in our great fight.My death is near; but oh! keep on,And do as thus far you have done.Regard you only me?No, for yourselves and all your friends,On whom for rule the land depends,You seek security.I turn my gaze to the great sky;—When shall this drought be done, and IQuiet and restful be?"
[NOTE *: Selections from Book II. are omitted.—EDITOR.]
~Appropriate to a Sacrifice to King Wan~
My offerings here are given,A ram, a bull.Accept them, mighty Heaven,All-bountiful.
Thy statutes, O great king,I keep, I love;So on the realm to bringPeace from above.
From Wan comes blessing rich;Now on the rightHe owns those gifts to whichHim I invite.
Do I not night and day,Revere great Heaven,That thus its favor mayTo Chow be given?
~On Sacrificing to the Kings Woo, Ching, and K'ang~
The arm of Woo was full of might;None could his fire withstand;And Ching and K'ang stood forth to sight,As kinged by God's own hand.
We err not when we call them sage.How grandly they maintainedTheir hold of all the heritageThat Wan and Woo had gained!
As here we worship, they descend,While bells and drums resound,And stones and lutes their music blend.With blessings we are crowned.
The rites correctly we discharge;The feast we freely share.Those Sires Chow's glory will enlarge,And ever for it care.
[Translation by James Legge]
Nothing of great importance is known about F‚-hien in addition to what may be gathered from his own record of his travels. I have read the accounts of him in the "Memoirs of Eminent Monks," compiled in A.D. 519, and a later work, the "Memoirs of Marvellous Monks," by the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1403-1424), which, however, is nearly all borrowed from the other; and all in them that has an appearance of verisimilitude can be brought within brief compass.
His surname, they tell us, was Kung, and he was a native of Wu-yang in P'ing-yang, which is still the name of a large department in Shan-hsÓ. He had three brothers older than himself; but when they all died before shedding their first teeth, his father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist society, and had him entered as a Sr‚manera, still keeping him at home in the family. The little fellow fell dangerously ill, and the father sent him to the monastery, where he soon got well and refused to return to his parents.
When he was ten years old, his father died; and an uncle, considering the widowed solitariness and helplessness of the mother, urged him to renounce the monastic life, and return to her, but the boy replied, "I did not quit the family in compliance with my father's wishes, but because I wished to be far from the dust and vulgar ways of life. This is why I choose monkhood." The uncle approved of his words and gave over urging him. When his mother also died, it appeared how great had been the affection for her of his fine nature; but after her burial he returned to the monastery.
On one occasion he was cutting rice with a score or two of his fellow-disciples, when some hungry thieves came upon them to take away their grain by force. The other Sr‚maneras all fled, but our young hero stood his ground, and said to the thieves, "If you must have the grain, take what you please. But, sirs, it was your former neglect of charity which brought you to your present state of destitution; and now, again, you wish to rob others. I am afraid that in the coming ages you will have still greater poverty and distress; I am sorry for you beforehand." With these words he followed his companions to the monastery, while the thieves left the grain and went away, all the monks, of whom there were several hundred, doing homage to his conduct and courage.
When he had finished his novitiate and taken on him the obligations of the full Buddhist orders, his earnest courage, clear intelligence, and strict regulation of his demeanor, were conspicuous; and soon after, he undertook his journey to India in search of complete copies of the Vinaya-pitaka. What follows this is merely an account of his travels in India and return to China by sea, condensed from his own narrative, with the addition of some marvellous incidents that happened to him, on his visit to the Vulture Peak near R‚jagriha.
It is said in the end that after his return to China, he went to the capital (evidently Nanking), and there, along with the Indian Sramana Buddha-bhadra, executed translations of some of the works which he had obtained in India; and that before he had done all that he wished to do in this way, he removed to King-chow (in the present Hoo-pih), and died in the monastery of Sin, at the age of eighty-eight, to the great sorrow of all who knew him. It is added that there is another larger work giving an account of his travels in various countries.
Such is all the information given about our author, beyond what he has himself told us. F‚-hien was his clerical name, and means "Illustrious in the Law," or "Illustrious master of the Law." The Shih which often precedes it is an abbreviation of the name of Buddha as S‚kyamuni, "the S‚kya, mighty in Love, dwelling in Seclusion and Silence," and may be taken as equivalent to Buddhist. He is sometimes said to have belonged to "the eastern Tsin dynasty" (A.D. 317-419), and sometimes to "the Sung," that is, the Sung dynasty of the House of LiŻ (A.D. 420-478). If he became a full monk at the age of twenty, and went to India when he was twenty-five, his long life may have been divided pretty equally between the two dynasties.
If there were ever another and larger account of F‚-hien's travels than the narrative of which a translation is now given, it has long ceased to be in existence.
In the catalogue of the imperial library of the Suy dynasty (A.D. 589-618), the name F‚-hien occurs four times. Towards the end of the last section of it, after a reference to his travels, his labors in translation at Kin-ling (another name for Nanking), in conjunction with Buddha-bhadra, are described. In the second section we find "A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms"—with a note, saying that it was the work of "the Sramana, F‚-hien"; and again, we have "Narrative of F‚-hien in two Books," and "Narrative of F‚-hien's Travels in one Book." But all these three entries may possibly belong to different copies of the same work, the first and the other two being in separate subdivisions of the catalogue.
In the two Chinese copies of the narrative in my possession the title is "Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms." In the Japanese or Corean recension the title is twofold; first, "Narrative of the Distinguished Monk, F‚-hien"; and then, more at large, "Incidents of Travels in India, by the Sramana of the Eastern TsÓn, F‚-hien, recorded by himself."
There is still earlier attestation of the existence of our little work than the Suy catalogue. The "Catalogue Raisonnť" of the imperial library of the present dynasty mentions two quotations from it by Le T‚o-yŁen, a geographical writer of the dynasty of the Northern Wei (A.D. 386-584), one of them containing eighty-nine characters, and the other two hundred and seventy-six; both of them given as from the "Narrative of F‚-hien."
In all catalogues subsequent to that of Suy our work appears. The evidence for its authenticity and genuineness is all that could be required. It is clear to myself that the "Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms" and the "Narrative of his Travels by F‚-hien" were designations of one and the same work, and that it is doubtful whether any larger work on the same subject was ever current. With regard to the text subjoined to my translation, it was published in Japan in 1779. The editor had before him four recensions of the narrative; those of the Sung and Ming dynasties, with appendices on the names of certain characters in them; that of Japan; and that of Corea. He wisely adopted the Corean text, published in accordance with a royal rescript in 1726, so far as I can make out; but the different readings of the other texts are all given in top-notes, instead of foot-notes as with us, this being one of the points in which customs in the East and West go by contraries. Very occasionally, the editor indicates by a single character, equivalent to "right" or "wrong," which reading in his opinion is to be preferred.
The editors of the "Catalogue Raisonnť" intimate their doubts of the good taste and reliability of all F‚-hien's statements. It offends them that he should call central India the "Middle Kingdom," and China, which to them was the true and only Middle Kingdom, but "a Border-land"—it offends them as the vaunting language of a Buddhist writer, whereas the reader will see in the expressions only an instance of what F‚-hien calls his "simple straightforwardness."
As an instance of his unreliability they refer to his account of the Buddhism of Khoten, whereas it is well-known, they say, that the Khoteners from ancient times till now have been Mohammedans;—as if they could have been so one hundred and seventy years before Mohammed was born, and two hundred twenty-two years before the year of the Hegira! And this is criticism in China. The catalogue was ordered by the K'ien-lung emperor in 1722. Between three and four hundred of the "Great Scholars" of the empire were engaged on it in various departments, and thus egregiously ignorant did they show themselves of all beyond the limits of their own country, and even of the literature of that country itself.
Much of what F‚-hien tells his readers of Buddhist miracles and legends is indeed unreliable and grotesque; but we have from him the truth as to what he saw and heard.
In concluding this introduction I wish to call attention to some estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world which have become current, believing, as I do, that the smallest of them is much above what is correct.
In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes (1854), General Cunningham says: "The Christians number about two hundred and seventy millions; the Buddhists about two hundred and twenty-two millions, who are distributed as follows: China one hundred and seventy millions, Japan twenty-five millions, Anam fourteen millions, Siam three millions, Ava eight millions, NepŠl one million, and Ceylon one million." In his article on M.J. Barthťlemy Saint-Hilaire's "Le Bouddha et sa Religion," republished in his "Chips from a German workshop," vol. i. (1868), Professor Max MŁller says, "The young prince became the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand years, is still professed by four hundred and fifty-five millions of human beings," and he appends the following note: "Though truth is not settled by majorities, it would be interesting to know which religion counts at the present moment the largest numbers of believers. Berghaus, in his 'Physical Atlas,' gives the following division of the human race according to religion: 'Buddhists 31.2 per cent., Christians 30.7, Mohammedans 15.7, Brahmanists 13.4, Heathens 8.7, and Jews O.3.' As Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China from the followers of Confucius and Laotse, the first place on the scale belongs really to Christianity. It is difficult in China to say to what religion a man belongs, as the same person may profess two or three. The emperor himself, after sacrificing according to the ritual of Confucius, visits a Tao-tsť temple, and afterwards bows before an image of Fo in a Buddhist chapel." ("Mťlanges Asiatiques de St. Pťtersbourg," vol. ii. p. 374.)
Both these estimates are exceeded by Dr. T.W. Rhys Davids (intimating also the uncertainty of the statements, and that numbers are no evidence of truth) in the introduction to his "Manual of Buddhism." The Buddhists there appear as amounting in all to five hundred millions:—thirty millions of Southern Buddhists, in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Anam, and India (Jains); and four hundred and seventy millions of Northern Buddhists, of whom nearly thirty-three millions are assigned to Japan, and 414,686,974 to the eighteen provinces of China proper. According to him, Christians amount to about 26 per cent, of mankind, Hindus to about 13, Mohammedans to about 12-1/2, Buddhists to about 40, and Jews to about one-half of one per cent.
In regard to all these estimates, it will be observed that the immense numbers assigned to Buddhism are made out by the multitude of Chinese with which it is credited. Subtract Cunningham's one hundred and seventy millions of Chinese from his total of two hundred and twenty-two millions, and there remain only fifty-two millions of Buddhists. Subtract Davids's four hundred fourteen and one-half millions of Chinese from his total of five hundred millions, and there remain only eighty-five and one-half millions for Buddhism. Of the numbers assigned to other countries, as well as of their whole populations, I am in considerable doubt, excepting in the cases of Ceylon and India; but the greatness of the estimates turns upon the immense multitudes said to be in China. I do not know what total population Cunningham allowed for that country, nor on what principle he allotted one hundred and seventy millions of it to Buddhism; perhaps he halved his estimate of the whole, whereas Berghaus and Davids allotted to it the highest estimates that have been given of the people.
But we have no certain information of the population of China. At an interview with the former Chinese ambassador, Kwo Sung-t‚o, in Paris, in 1878, I begged him to write out for me the amount, with the authority for it, and he assured me that it could not be done. I have read probably almost everything that has been published on the subject, and endeavored by methods of my own to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion;—without reaching a result which I can venture to lay before the public. My impression has been that four hundred millions is hardly an exaggeration.
But supposing that we had reliable returns of the whole population, how shall we proceed to apportion that among Confucianists, T‚oists, and Buddhists? Confucianism is the orthodoxy of China. The common name for it is JŻ Chi‚o, "the Doctrines held by the Learned Class," entrance into the circle of which is, with a few insignificant exceptions, open to all the people. The mass of them and the masses under their influence are preponderatingly Confucian; and in the observance of ancestral worship, the most remarkable feature of the religion proper of China from the earliest times, of which Confucius was not the author but the prophet, an overwhelming majority are regular and assiduous.
Among "the strange principles" which the emperor of the K'ang-hsÓ period, in one of his famous Sixteen Precepts, exhorted his people to "discountenance and put away, in order to exalt the correct doctrine," Buddhism and T‚oism were both included. If, as stated in the note quoted from Professor MŁller, the emperor countenances both the T‚oist worship and the Buddhist, he does so for reasons of state; to please especially his Buddhistic subjects in Thibet and Mongolia, and not to offend the many whose superstitious fancies incline to T‚oism.
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 further. 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 T‚oism. To make a table of percentages of mankind, and to assign to each system its proportion, are 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 percentage might tell more for one system than a very large integral one for another.
~From Ch'ang-gan to the Sandy Desert~
F‚-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-h‚e year of the cycle, [2] he entered into an engagement with Hwuy-king, T‚o-ching, Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei, that they should go to India and seek for the Disciplinary Rules.
After starting from Ch'ang-gan, they passed through Lung, [3] and came to the kingdom of K'een-kwei,[4] where they stopped for the summer retreat. When that was over, they went forward to the kingdom of Now-t'an, crossed the mountain of Yang-low, and reached the emporium of Chang-yih.[5] 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 d‚napati.[6]
Here they met with Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, Sang-sh‚o, P‚o-yun, and Sang-king; and in pleasant association with them, as bound on the same journey with themselves, they passed the summer retreat of that year [7] together, resuming after it their travelling, and going on to T'un-hwang, [8] the chief town in the frontier territory of defence extending for about eighty li from east to west, and about forty from north to south. Their company, increased as it had been, halted there for some days more than a month, after which F‚-hien and his four friends started first in the suite of an envoy, having separated for a time from P‚o-yun and his associates.
Le H‚o, the prefect of Tun-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.
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 2: The period Hwang-che embraced from A.D. 399 to 414, being the greater portion of the reign of Y‚o 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 F‚-hien came to say that Ke-h‚e 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-h‚e. 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 Ts'in, which was A.D. 399.]
[Footnote 3: 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.]
[Footnote 4: K'een-kwei was the second king of "the Western Ts'in." F‚-hien would find him at his capital, somewhere in the present department of Lan-chow, Kan-suh.]
[Footnote 5: 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 LŽang."]
[Footnote 6: D‚na is the name for religious charity, the first of the six p‚ramit‚s, or means of attaining to nirv‚na; and a d‚napati is "one who practises d‚na and thereby crosses the sea of misery."]
[Footnote 7: This was the second summer since the pilgrims leftCh'ang-gan. We are now, therefore, probably, in A.D. 400.]
[Footnote 8: T'un-hwang 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.]
~On to Shen-shen and thence to Khoten~
After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate of about 1500 li, the pilgrims reached the kingdom of Shen-shen, 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, [1] 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, who were all students of the hÓnay‚na. [2] The common people of this and other kingdoms in that region, as well as the Sramans, [3] all practise the rules of India, 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. 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 northwest bringing them to the country of Woo-e. In this also there were more than four thousand monks, all students of the hÓnay‚na. They were very strict in their rules, so that Sramans from the territory of Ts'in were all unprepared for their regulations. F‚-hien, through the management of Foo Kung-sun,maÓtre d'hotellerie, 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 P‚o-yun and his friends. 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 K‚o-ch'ang, hoping to obtain there the means of continuing their journey. F‚-hien and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight forward in a southwest 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.
[Footnote 1: This is the name which F‚-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 of Ts'in, having its capital in Ch'ang-gan.]
[Footnote 2: Meaning the "small vehicle, or conveyance." There are in Buddhism the triy‚na, or "three different means of salvation, i.e. of conveyance across the sams‚ra, or sea of transmigration, to the shores of nirv‚na. Afterwards the term was used to designate the different phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma passed, known as the mah‚y‚na, hÓnay‚na, and madhyamay‚na." "The hÓnay‚na is the simplest vehicle of salvation, corresponding to the first of the three degrees of saintship." E.H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.]
[Footnote 3: "Sraman" may in English take the place of Sramana, 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.]
~Khoten—Processions of Images~
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. The monks amount to several myriads, most of whom are students of the mah‚y‚na. [1] They all receive their food from the common store. Throughout the country the houses of the people stand apart like separate stars, and each family has a small tope [2] reared in front of its door. The smallest of these may be twenty cubits high, or rather more. They make in the monasteries rooms for monks from all quarters, 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 F‚-hien and the others comfortably, and supplied their wants, in a monastery called Gomati, of the mah‚y‚na 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 demeanor 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 require food, they are not allowed to call out to the attendants for it, but only make signs with their hands.
Hwuy-king, T‚o-ching, and Hwuy-tah set out in advance towards the country of K'eeh-ch'‚; but F‚-hien and the others, wishing to see the procession of images, remained behind for three months. There are in this country four 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, take up their residence for the time.
The monks of the Gomati monastery, being mah‚y‚na students, and held in greatest reverence by the king, took precedence of all the others in the procession. At a distance of three or four li 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 [3] were grandly displayed about it, with silken streamers and canopies hanging all around. The chief image stood in the middle of the car, with two Bodhisattvas [4] in attendance on it, while devas 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 li 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 two hundred and fifty 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, 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 are possessed, they contribute the greater portion to this monastery, using but a small portion of them themselves.
[Footnote 1: Mah‚y‚na 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 nirv‚na, may be compared to a huge vehicle.]
[Footnote 2: A worshipping place, an altar, or temple.]
[Footnote 3: The Sapta-ratna, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, rock crystal, rubies, diamonds or emeralds, and agate.]
[Footnote 4: 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 parinirv‚na. The symbol of the state is an elephant fording a river.]
~Through the Ts'ung Mountains to K'eech-ch'a~
When the processions of images in the fourth month were over, Sang-sh‚o, by himself alone, followed a Tartar who was an earnest follower of the Law, and proceeded towards Ko-phene. F‚-hien and the others went forward to the kingdom of Tsze-hoh, which it took them twenty-five days to reach. Its king was a strenuous follower of our Law, and had around him more than a thousand monks, mostly students of the mah‚y‚na. 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, where they halted and kept their retreat. [1] When this was over, they went on among the hills for twenty-five days, and got to K'eeh-ch'a, there rejoining Hwuy-king and his two companions.
[Footnote 1: 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. Two, if not three, years had elapsed since they left Ch'ang-gan. Are we now with them in 402?]
~Great Quinquennial Assembly of Monks~
It happened that the king of the country was then holding the paŮcha parishad; that is, in Chinese, the great quinquennial assembly. 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 it, 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, 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.
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 [1] before they receive their portion. There is in the country a spittoon which belonged to Buddha, made of stone, and in color 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, all students of the hÓnay‚na. 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 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, and sugarcane.
[Footnote 1: Watters calls attention to this as showing that the monks of K'eeh-ch'‚ had the credit of possessing weather-controlling powers.]
~North India—Image of Maitreya Bodhisattva~
From this the travellers went westward 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'oleih, where also there were many monks, all students of the hÓnay‚na.
In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan, [1] who by his supernatural power took a clever artificer up to the Tushita [2] heaven, to see the height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva, [3] 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.
[Footnote 1: Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat are all designations of the perfected ¬rya, 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 Nirv‚na.]
[Footnote 2: Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn before finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita four thousand years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to four hundred years on earth.]
[Footnote 3: Maitreya was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed, of S‚kyamuni's retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary disciples, nor is anything told of his antecedents. It was in the Tushita heaven that S‚kyamuni met him and appointed him as his successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of five thousand years. Maitreya is therefore the expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing at present in Tushita.]
~The Perilous Crossing of the Indus~
The travellers went on to the southwest 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, ten thousand cubits from the base. When one approached the edge of it, his eyes became 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 were the waters of the river called the Indus. In former times men had chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the number altogether of seven hundred, 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. The place and arrangements are to be found in the Records of the Nine Interpreters, but neither Chang K'een [1] nor Kan Ying [2] had reached the spot.
The monks asked F‚-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 Sķtras and Books of Discipline. Now the image was set up rather more than three hundred years after the Nirv‚na of Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P'ing of the Chow dynasty. 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, the great spiritual master who is to be the successor of the S‚kya, who could have caused the 'Three Precious Ones,' [3] 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 had its proper cause."
[Footnote 1: 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.]
[Footnote 2: Less is known of Kan Ying than of Chang K'een. Being sent in A.D. 88 by his patron Pan Ch‚o 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.]
[Footnote 3: "The precious Buddha," "the precious Law," and "the precious Monkhood"; Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the whole being equivalent to Buddhism.]
~Woo-chang, or Udy‚na—Traces of Buddha~
After crossing the river, the travellers immediately came to the kingdom of Woo-chang, 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 Sangh‚r‚mas; and of these there are in all five hundred, the monks being all students of the hÓnay‚na. When stranger bhikshus [1] arrive at one of them, their wants are supplied for three days, after which they are told to find a resting-place for themselves.
There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he came at once to this country, and that here he left a print of his foot, which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder on the subject. It exists, and the same thing is true about it, at the present day. Here also are still to be seen the rock on which he dried his clothes, and the place where he converted the wicked dragon. The rock is fourteen cubits high, and more than twenty broad, with one side of it smooth.
Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and T‚o-ching went on ahead towards the place of Buddha's shadow in the country of N‚gara; but F‚-hien and the others remained in Woo-chang, and kept the summer retreat. That over, they descended south, and arrived in the country of Soo-ho-to.
[Footnote 1: Bhikshu is the name for a monk as "living by alms," a mendicant. All bhikshus call themselves Sramans. Sometimes the two names are used together by our author.]
~Soo-ho-to—Legends of Buddha~
In that country also Buddhism is flourishing. There is in it the place where Sakra, [1] Ruler of Devas, in a former age, tried the Bodhisattva, by producing a hawk in pursuit of a dove, when the Bodhisattva cut off a piece of his own flesh, and with it ransomed the dove. After Buddha had attained to perfect wisdom, and in travelling about with his disciples arrived at this spot, he informed them that this was the place where he ransomed the dove with a piece of his own flesh. In this way the people of the country became aware of the fact, and on the spot reared a tope, adorned with layers of gold and silver plates.
[Footnote 1: Sakra is a common name for the Brahmanic Indra, adopted by Buddhism into the circle of its own great adherents;—it has been said, "because of his popularity." He is now the representative of the secular power, the valiant protector of the Buddhist body, but is looked upon as inferior to S‚kyamuni, and every Buddhist saint.]
~Gandh‚ra—Legends of Buddha~
The travellers, going downwards from this towards the east, in five days came to the country of Gandh‚ra, the place where Dharma-vivardhana, the son of Asoka, [1] ruled. When Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave his eyes also for another man here; and at the spot they have also reared a large tope, adorned with layers of gold and silver plates. The people of the country were mostly students of the hÓnay‚na.
[Footnote 1: Asoka is here mentioned for the first time—the Constantine of the Buddhist society, and famous for the number of vih‚ras and topes which he erected. He was the grandson of Chandragupta, a rude adventurer, who at one time was a refugee in the camp of Alexander the Great; and within about twenty years afterwards drove the Greeks out of India, having defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler of the Indus provinces. His grandson was converted to Buddhism by the bold and patient demeanor of an Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried alive, and became a most zealous supporter of the new faith.]
~Takshasil‚—Legends—The Four Great Topes~
Seven days' journey from this to the east brought the travellers to the kingdom of Takshasil‚, which means "the severed head" in the language of China. Here, when Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave away his head to a man; and from this circumstance the kingdom got its name.
Going on further for two days to the east, they came to the place where the Bodhisattva threw down his body to feed a starving tigress. In these two places also large topes have been built, both adorned with layers of all the precious substances. The kings, ministers, and peoples of the kingdoms around vie with one another in making offerings at them. The trains of those who come to scatter flowers and light lamps at them never cease. The nations of those quarters call those and the other two mentioned before "the four great topes."
~Buddha's Alms-bowl—Death of Hwuy-king~
Going southwards from G‚ndh‚ra, the travellers in four days arrived at the kingdom of Purushapura. [1] Formerly, when Buddha was travelling in this country with his disciples, he said to ¬nanda, [2] "After my pari-nirv‚na, [3] there will be a king named Kanishka, who shall on this spot build a tope."
This Kanishka was afterwards born into the world; and once, when he had gone forth to look about him, Sakra, Ruler of Devas, wishing to excite the idea in his mind, assumed the appearance of a little herd-boy, and was making a tope right in the way of the king, who asked what sort of a thing he was making. The boy said, "I am making a tope for Buddha." The king said, "Very good;" and immediately, right over the boy's tope, he proceeded to rear another, which was more than four hundred cubits high, and adorned with layers of all the precious substances. Of all the topes and temples which the travellers saw in their journeyings, there was not one comparable to this in solemn beauty and majestic grandeur. There is a current saying that this is the finest tope in JambudvÓpa [4]. When the king's tope was completed, the little tope of the boy came out from its side on the south, rather more than three cubits in height.
Buddha's alms-bowl is in this country. Formerly, a king of YŁeh-she raised a large force and invaded this country, wishing to carry the bowl away. Having subdued the kingdom, as he and his captains were sincere believers in the Law of Buddha, and wished to carry off the bowl, they proceeded to present their offerings on a great scale. When they had done so to the Three Precious Ones, he made a large elephant be grandly caparisoned, and placed the bowl upon it. But the elephant knelt down on the ground, and was unable to go forward. Again he caused a four-wheeled wagon to be prepared in which the bowl was put to be conveyed away. Eight elephants were then yoked to it, and dragged it with their united strength; but neither were they able to go forward. The king knew that the time for an association between himself and the bowl had not yet arrived, and was sad and deeply ashamed of himself. Forthwith he built a tope at the place and a monastery, and left a guard to watch the bowl, making all sorts of contributions.
There may be there more than seven hundred monks. When it is near mid-day, they bring out the bowl, and, along with the common people, make their various offerings to it, after which they take their mid-day meal. In the evening, at the time of incense, they bring the bowl out again. It may contain rather more than two pecks, and is of various colors, black predominating, with the seams that show its fourfold composition distinctly marked. Its thickness is about the fifth of an inch, and it has a bright and glossy lustre. When poor people throw into it a few flowers, it becomes immediately full, while some very rich people, wishing to make offering of many flowers, might not stop till they had thrown in hundreds, thousands, and myriads of bushels, and yet would not be able to fill it.[5]
P‚o-yun and Sang-king here merely made their offerings to the alms-bowl, and then resolved to go back. Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and T‚o-ching had gone on before the rest to Nag‚ra, to make their offerings at the places of Buddha's shadow, tooth, and the flat-bone of his skull. There Hwuy-king fell ill, and T‚o-ching remained to look after him, while Hwuy-tah came alone to Purushapura, and saw the others, and then he with P‚o-yun and Sang-king took their way back to the land of Ts'in. Hwuy-king came to his end in the monastery of Buddha's alms-bowl, and on this F‚-hien went forward alone towards the place of the flat-bone of Buddha's skull.[6]
[Footnote 1: The modern Pesh‚wur.]
[Footnote 2: A first cousin of S‚kyamuni, and born at the moment when he attained to Buddhaship. Under Buddha's teaching, ¬nanda became an Arhat, and is famous for his strong and accurate memory; and he played an important part at the first council for the formation of the Buddhist canon. The friendship between S‚kyamuni and ¬nanda was very close and tender; and it is impossible to read much of what the dying Buddha said to him and of him, as related in the Mah‚pari-nirv‚na SŻtra, without being moved almost to tears. ¬nanda is to reappear on earth as Buddha in another Kalpa.]
[Footnote 3: On his attaining to nirv‚na, S‚kyamuni became the Buddha, and had no longer to mourn his being within the circle of transmigration, and could rejoice in an absolute freedom from passion, and a perfect purity. Still he continued to live on for forty-five years, till he attained to pari-nirv‚na, and had done with all the life of sense and society, and had no more exercise of thought. He died; but whether he absolutely and entirely ceased to be, in any sense of the word being, it would be difficult to say. Probably he himself would not and could not have spoken definitely on the point. So far as our use of language is concerned, apart from any assured faith in and hope of immortality, his pari-nirv‚na was his death.]
[Footnote 4: JambudvÓpa is one of the four great continents of the universe, representing the inhabited world as fancied by the Buddhists, and so-called because it resembles in shape the leaves of the jambu tree.]
[Footnote 5: Compare the narrative in Luke's Gospel, xxi. 1-4.]
[Footnote 6: This story of Hwuy-king's death differs from the account given in chapter xiv.—EDITOR.]
~Festival of Buddha's Skull-bone~
Going west for sixteen yojanas, [1] he came to the city He-lo [2] in the borders of the country of Nag‚ra, where there is the flat-bone of Buddha's skull, deposited in a vih‚ra [3] adorned all over with gold-leaf and the seven sacred substances. The king of the country, revering and honoring the bone, and anxious lest it should be stolen away, has selected eight individuals, representing the great families in the kingdom, and committed to each a seal, with which he should seal its shrine and guard the relic. At early dawn these eight men come, and after each has inspected his seal, they open the door. This done, they wash their hands with scented water and bring out the bone, which they place outside the vih‚ra, on a lofty platform, where it is supported on a round pedestal of the seven precious substances, and covered with a bell of lapis lazuli, both adorned with rows of pearls. Its color is of a yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches round, curving upwards to the centre. Every day, after it has been brought forth, the keepers of the vih‚ra ascend a high gallery, where they beat great drums, blow conches, and clash their copper cymbals. When the king hears them, he goes to the vih‚ra, and makes his offerings of flowers and incense. When he has done this, he and his attendants in order, one after another, raise the bone, place it for a moment on the top of their heads, and then depart, going out by the door on the west as they had entered by that on the east. The king every morning makes his offerings and performs his worship, and afterwards gives audience on the business of his government. The chiefs of the Vaisyas [4] also make their offerings before they attend to their family affairs. Every day it is so, and there is no remissness in the observance of the custom. When all of the offerings are over, they replace the bone in the vih‚ra, where there is a vimoksha tope, of the seven precious substances, and rather more than five cubits high, sometimes open, sometimes shut, to contain it. In front of the door of the vih‚ra, there are parties who every morning sell flowers and incense, and those who wish to make offerings buy some of all kinds. The kings of various countries are also constantly sending messengers with offerings. The vih‚ra stands in a square of thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth be rent, this place would not move.
Going on, north from this, for a yojana, F‚-hien arrived at the capital of Nag‚ra, the place where the Bodhisattva once purchased with money five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the Dip‚nkara Buddha. In the midst of the city there is also the tope of Buddha's tooth, where offerings are made in the same way as to the flat-bone of his skull.
A yojana to the northeast of the city brought him to the mouth of a valley, where there is Buddha's pewter staff; and a vih‚ra also has been built at which offerings are made. The staff is made of Gosirsha Chandana, and is quite sixteen or seventeen cubits long. It is contained in a wooden tube, and though a hundred or a thousand men were to try to lift it, they could not move it.
Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha's Sangh‚li, [5] where also there is reared a vih‚ra, and offerings are made. It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it, and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain from the sky.
South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great hill fronting the southwest; and here it was that Buddha left his shadow. Looking at it from a distance of more than ten paces, you seem to see Buddha's real form, with his complexion of gold, and his characteristic marks in their nicety, clearly and brightly displayed. The nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes, as if it were only in your fancy. When the kings from the regions all around have sent skilful artists to take a copy, none of them have been able to do so. Among the people of the country there is a saying current that "the thousand Buddhas must all leave their shadows here."
Rather more than four hundred paces west from the shadow, when Buddha was at the spot, he shaved off his hair and clipped his nails, and proceeded, along with his disciples, to build a tope seventy or eighty cubits high, to be a model for all future topes; and it is still existing. By the side of it there is a monastery, with more than seven hundred monks in it. At this place there are as many as a thousand topes of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas.
[Footnote 1: Now in India, F‚-hien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was. The estimates of it are very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to seven, and sometimes more.]
[Footnote 2: The present Hidda, west of Pesh‚wur, and five miles south of Jellalabad.]
[Footnote 3: "The vihara," says Hardy, "is the residence of a recluse or priest;" and so Davids—"the clean little hut where the mendicant lives."]
[Footnote 4: The Vaisyas, or the bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are described here as "resident scholars."]
[Footnote 5: Or Sangh‚ti, the double or composite robe, part of a monk's attire, reaching from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round the waist.]
~Crossing the Indus to the East~
Having stayed there till the third month of winter, F‚-hien and the two others, proceeding southwards, crossed the Little Snowy mountains. On them the snow lies accumulated both winter and summer. On the north side of the mountains, in the shade, they suddenly encountered a cold wind which made them shiver and become unable to speak. Hwuy-king could not go any farther. A white froth came from his mouth, and he said to F‚-hien, "I cannot live any longer. Do you immediately go away, that we do not all die here"; and with these words he died. F‚-hien stroked the corpse, and cried out piteously, "Our original plan has failed; it is fate. What can we do?" He then again exerted himself, and they succeeded in crossing to the south of the range, and arrived in the kingdom of Lo-e, [1] where there were nearly three thousand monks, students of both the mah‚y‚na and hÓnay‚na. Here they stayed for the summer retreat, [2] and when that was over, they went on to the south, and ten days' journey brought them to the kingdom of Poh-n‚, where there are also more than three thousand monks, all students of the hÓnay‚na. Proceeding from this place for three days, they again crossed the Indus, where the country on each side was low and level.
[Footnote 1: Lo-e, or Rohi, or Afghanistan; only a portion of it can be intended.]
[Footnote 2: We are now therefore in A.D. 404.]
~Sympathy of Monks with the Pilgrims~
After they had crossed the river, there was a country named Pe-t'oo, where Buddhism was very flourishing, and the monks studied both the mah‚y‚na and hÓnay‚na. When they saw their fellow-disciples from Ts'in passing along, they were moved with great pity and sympathy, and expressed themselves thus: "How is it that these men from a border-land should have learned to become monks, and come for the sake of our doctrines from such a distance in search of the Law of Buddha?" They supplied them with what they needed, and treated them in accordance with the rules of the Law.