Fa xian biography of mahatma

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 [Khotan]. 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 Mahyana. 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 stupa [stupa] reared in front of its door. 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.

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 require food, they are not allowed to call out to the attendants for it, but only make signs with their hands.

There are in this country four great monasteries, not counting the smaller ones.

Fa xian biography of mahatma

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. 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 [i. The chief image [presumably Sakyamuni] stood in the middle of the car, with two Bodhisattvas 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 groundhe 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. It may be 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 stupa there has been built a Hall of Buddha of the utmost magalficence and beauty, the beams, pillars, venetianed doors, and windows being all overlaid with goldleaf.

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 [probably this means southwestern Xinjiang] are possessed, they contribute the greater portion to this monasteryusing but a small portion of them themselves.

Baltistan in fa xian biography of mahatma Pakistan], 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 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, where they halted and kept their retreat.

When this was over, they went on among the hills for twenty-five days, and got to K'eeh-ch'a [Skardu, a town in present-day northern Pakistan, or a town to the east in Ladak], there rejoining Hwuy-king and his two companions. 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 placein the first, second, or third month, for the most part in the spring.

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.

After the monks have received their fa xian biography of mahatma portion of thisthe mornings suddenly show the hoar-frost, and on this account the king always begs the monks to make the wheat ripen 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 stupa, connected with which there are more than a thousand monks and their disciples, 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 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 sugar-cane. The snow rests on them both winter and summer.

Faxian claimed that demons and dragons were the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka. On Faxian's way back to China, after a two-year stay in Ceylon, a violent storm drove his ship onto an island, probably Java. He spent the rest of his life translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. Faxian wrote a book on his travels, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Roads as they were, at the turn of the 5th century CE.

He also wrote that inhabitants of Middle India also eat and dress like China people. He declared Patliputra as a very prosperous city. He returned in and settled in what is now Nanjing. He spent the next decade, until his death, translating the Buddhist sutra he had brought with him from India. The following is the introduction to a translation of Faxian's work by James Legge :.

Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-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 Monkscompiled in A. 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 Sramanerastill keeping him at home in the family.

They used the salt-water of the sea for cooking, and carefully divided the fresh water, each man getting two pints. They had passed through many perils and hardships, and had been in a state of anxious apprehension for many days together; and now suddenly arriving at this shore, and seeing those well-known vegetables, the lei and kwoh, they knew indeed that it was the land of Han.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. Bhikkhu, historian, travelogue author, and Buddhist pilgrim of the Silk Road. Biography [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification.

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Shi Huijiao; et al. External links [ edit ]. Chinese travellers and explorers. Faxian — Jakuen — His memoirs are notable independent record of early Buddhism in India. He took with him a large number of Sanskrit texts, whose translations influenced East Asian Buddhism and which provide a terminus ante quem for many historical names, events, texts, and ideas therein.

Faxian was born in Shanxi in the 4th-century during the reign of the Eastern Jin dynasty. He later adopted the name Faxian, which literally means "Splendor of Dharma". In CE, about age 60, Faxian was among the earliest attested pilgrims to India. He set out with nine others to locate sacred Buddhist texts. He visited India in the early fifth century.

He is said to have walked all the way from China across the icy desert and rugged mountain passes. He entered India from the northwest and reached Pataliputra. He took back with him a large number of Sanskrit Buddhist texts and images sacred to Buddhism. Upon his return to China, he is also credited with translating these Sanskrit texts into Chinese.