Of His Travels in India and Ceylon
(A.D. 399–414)
In Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline
Translated and Annotated with a Corean Recension of the Chinese Text
by James Legge, M.A., LL.D.
Professor of the Chinese Language and Literature
Oxford
1886
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CONTENTS.
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION. Life of Fâ-hien; genuineness and integrity of the text of his narrative; number of the adherents of Buddhism. 1
• CHAPTER I. From Chʽang-gan to the Sandy Desert.
• CHAPTER II. On to Shen-shen and thence to Khoten.
• CHAPTER III. Khoten. Processions of images. The king’s New monastery.
• CHAPTER IV. Through the Tsʽung or ‘Onion’ mountains to Kʽeeh-chʽâ; probably Skardo, or some city more to the East in Ladak.
• CHAPTER V. Great quinquennial assembly of monks. Relics of Buddha. Productions of the country.
• CHAPTER VI. On towards North India. Darada. Image of Maitreya Bodhisattva.
• CHAPTER VII. Crossing of the Indus. When Buddhism first crossed that river for the East.
• CHAPTER VIII. Woo-chang, or Udyâna. Monasteries and their ways. Traces of Buddha.
• CHAPTER IX. Soo-ho-to. Legend of Buddha.
• CHAPTER X. Gandhâra. Legends of Buddha.
• CHAPTER XI. Taksahśilâ. Legends. The four great topes.
• CHAPTER XII. Purushapura, or Peshâwar. Prophecy about king Kanishka and his tope. Buddha’s alms-bowl. Death of Hwuy-ying.
• CHAPTER XIII. Nagâra. Festival of Buddha’s skull-bone. Other relics, and his shadow.
• CHAPTER XIV. Death of Hwuy-king in the Little Snowy mountains. Lo-e. Poh-nâ. Crossing the Indus to the East.
• CHAPTER XV. Bhida. Sympathy of monks with the pilgrims.
• CHAPTER XVI. On to Mathurâ, or Muttra. Condition and customs of Central India; of the monks, vihâras, and monasteries.
• CHAPTER XVII. Saṅkâśya. Buddha’s ascent to and descent from the Trayastriṃśas heaven, and other legends.
• CHAPTER XVIII. Kanyâkubja, or Canouge. Buddha’s preaching.
• CHAPTER XIX. Shâ-che. Legend of Buddha’s Danta-kâshṭha.
• CHAPTER XX. Kośala and Śrâvastî. The Jetavana vihâra and other memorials and legends of Buddha. Sympathy of the monks with the pilgrims.
• CHAPTER XXI. The three predecessors of Śâkyamuni in the buddhaship.
• CHAPTER XXII. Kapilavastu. Its desolation. Legends of Buddha’s birth, and other incidents in connexion with it.
• CHAPTER XXIII. Râma, and its tope.
• CHAPTER XXIV. Where Buddha finally renounced the world, and where he died.
• CHAPTER XXV. Vaiśâlî The tope called ‘Weapons laid down.’ The Council of Vaiśâlî.
• CHAPTER XXVI. Remarkable death of Ânanda.
• CHAPTER XXVII. Pâṭaliputtra, or Patna, in Magadha. King Aśoka’s spirit-built palace and halls. The Buddhist Brahmân, Rȧdhasȧmi. Dispensaries and hospitals.
• CHAPTER XXVIII. Râjagṛiha, New and Old. Legends and incidents connected with it.
• CHAPTER XXIX. Gṛidhra-kûṭa hill, and legends. Fâ-hien passes a night on it. His reflections.
• CHAPTER XXX. The Śrataparṇa cave, or cave of the First Council. Legends. Suicide of a Bhikshu.
• CHAPTER XXXI. Gayâ. Śâkyamuni’s attaining to the Buddhaship; and other legends.
• CHAPTER XXXII. Legend of king Aśoka in a former birth, and his naraka.
• CHAPTER XXXIII. Mount Gurupada, where Kâśyapa Buddha’s entire skeleton is.
• CHAPTER XXXIV. On the way back to Patna. Vârâṇasî, or Benâres. Śâkyamuni’s first doings after becoming Buddha.
• CHAPTER XXXV. Dakshiṇa, and the pigeon monastery.
• CHAPTER XXXVI. In Patna. Fâ-hien’s labours in transcription of manuscripts, and Indian studies for three years.
• CHAPTER XXXVII. To Champâ and Tâmaliptî. Stay and labours there for three years. Takes ship to Singhala, or Ceylon.
• CHAPTER XXXVIII. At Ceylon. Rise of the kingdom. Feats of Buddha. Topes and monasteries. Statue of Buddha in jade. Bo tree. Festival of Buddha’s tooth.
• CHAPTER XXXIX. Cremation of an Arhat. Sermon of a devotee.
• CHAPTER XL. After two years takes ship for China. Disastrous passage to Java; and thence to China; arrives at Shan-tung; and goes to Nanking. Conclusion or l’envoi by another writer.
• INDEX
• CHINESE TEXT: 法顯傳
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, &c.
• Sketch-map of Fâ-hien’s travels
• I. Dream of Buddha’s mother of his incarnation
• II. Buddha just born, with the nâgas supplying water to wash him
• III. Buddha tossing the white elephant over the wall To face p. 66
• IV. Buddha in solitude and enduring austerities
• V. Buddhaship attained
• VI. The devas celebrating the attainment of the Buddhaship
• VII. Buddha’s dying instructions
• VIII. Buddha’s death
• IX.Division of Buddha’s relics
Several times... I endeavoured to read through the ‘Narrative of Fâ-Hien;’ but though interested with the graphic details of much of the work, its columns bristled so constantly—now with his phonetic representations of Sanskrit words, and now with his substitution for them of their meanings in Chinese characters...
The Chinese narrative runs on without any break. It was Klaproth who divided Rémusat’s translation into forty chapters...
In transliterating the names of Chinese characters I have generally followed the spelling of Morrison rather than the Pekinese, which is now in vogue. We cannot tell exactly what the pronunciation of them was, about fifteen hundred years ago, in the time of Fâ-Hien; but the southern mandarin must be a shade nearer to it than that of Peking at the present day. In transliterating the Indian names I have for the most part followed Dr. Eitel, with such modification as seemed good and in harmony with growing usage....
There are few predecessors in the field of Chinese literature into whose labours translators of the present century can enter. This will be received, I hope, as a sufficient apology for the minuteness and length of some of the notes....The books which I have consulted for these notes have been many, besides Chinese works. My principal help has been the full and masterly handbook of Eitel, mentioned already, and often referred to as E.H. Spence Hardy’s ‘Eastern Monachism’ (E.M.) and ‘Manual of Buddhism’ (M.B.) have been constantly in hand, as well as Rhys Davids’ Buddhism, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, his Hibbert Lectures, and his Buddhist Suttas in the Sacred Books of the East, and other writings....
I think there are many things in the vast field of Buddhist literature which still require to be carefully handled. How far, for instance, are we entitled to regard the present Sûtras as genuine and sufficiently accurate copies of those which were accepted by the Councils before our Christian era? Can anything be done to trace the rise of the legends and marvels of Sakyamuni’s history, which were current so early (as it seems to us) as the time of Fâ-hien, and which startle us so frequently by similarities between them and narratives in our Gospels? Dr. Hermann Oldenberg, certainly a great authority on Buddhistic subjects, says that ‘a biography of Buddha has not come down to us from ancient times, from the age of the Pali texts; and, we can safely say, no such biography existed then’ (‘Buddha—His Life, His Doctrine, His Order,’ as translated by Hoey, p. 78). He has also (in the same work, pp. 99, 416, 417) come to the conclusion that the hitherto unchallenged tradition that the Buddha was ‘a king’s son’ must be given up. The name ‘king’s son’ (in Chinese 太子), always used of the Buddha, certainly requires to be understood in the highest sense...
Dr. Rhys Davids has kindly read the proofs of the Translation and Notes, and I most certainly thank him for doing so, for his many valuable corrections in the Notes, and for other suggestions which I have received from him....
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....
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...
Nothing of great importance is known about Fâ-hien in addition to what may be gathered from his own record of his travels...
[H]is father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist society, and had him entered as a Śrâmaṇera, still keeping him at home in the family...
When he was ten years old, his father died;... When his mother also died... after her burial he returned to the monastery...
When he had finished his novitiate and taken on him the obligations of the full Buddhist orders... he undertook his journey to India in search of complete copies of the Vinaya-piṭaka. 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 Râjagṛiha....
Much of what Fâ-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.
-- A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien Of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) In Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline, Translated and Annotated with a Corean Recension of the Chinese Text, by James Legge