A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Faxian

order to exalt the correct doctrine," Buddhism and Taoism were both included. If, as stated in the note quoted from Professor Muller, the emperor countenances both the Taoist worship and the Buddhist, he does so for reasons of state;—to please especially his Buddhist subjects in Thibet and Mongolia, and not to offend the many whose superstitious fancies incline to Taoism.

      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 farther. 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 Taoism. To make a table of percentages of mankind, and assign to each system its proportion, is 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 per-centage might tell more for one system than a very large integral one for another.

THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN

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or RECORD OF BUDDHISTIC KINGDOMS

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CHAPTER I

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FROM CH'ANG-GAN TO THE SANDY DESERT

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      Fa-Hsien 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-hae year of the cycle,(2) he entered into an engagement with Kwuy-king, Tao-ching, Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei,(3) that they should go to India and seek for the Disciplinary Rules.(4)

      After starting from Ch'ang-gan, they passed through Lung,(5) and came to the kingdom of K'een-kwei,(6) where they stopped for the summer retreat.(7) When that was over, they went forward to the kingdom of Now-t'an,(8) crossed the mountain of Yang-low, and reached the emporium of Chang-yih.(9) 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 danapati.(10)

      Here they met with Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, Sang-shao, Pao-yun, and Sang-king;(11) and in pleasant association with them, as bound on the same journey with themselves, they passed the summer retreat (of that year)(12) together, resuming after it their travelling, and going on to T'un-hwang,(13) (the chief town) in the frontier territory of defence extending for about 80 le from east to west, and about 40 from north to south. Their company, increased as it had been, halted there for some days more than a month, after which Fa-Hsien and his four friends started first in the suite of an envoy,(14) having separated (for a time) from Pao-yun and his associates.

      Le Hao,(15) the prefect of T'un-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).(16)

      NOTES

       (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). The empire of the eastern Tsin, towards

       the close of which Fa-Hsien lived, had its capital at or near Nan-king,

       and Ch'ang-gan was the capital of the principal of the three

       Ts'in kingdoms, which, with many other minor ones, maintained a

       semi-independence of Tsin, their rulers sometimes even assuming the

       title of emperor.

       (2) The period Hwang-che embraced from A.D. 399 to 414, being the

       greater portion of the reign of Yao 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 Fa-Hsien came to say that Ke-hae 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-hae, as {.},

       the second year, instead of {.}, the first, might easily creep into

       the text. 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 Tsin,

       which was A.D. 399.

       (3) These, like Fa-Hsien itself, are all what we might call "clerical"

       names, appellations given to the parties as monks or sramanas.

       (4) The Buddhist tripitaka or canon consists of three collections,

       containing, according to Eitel (p. 150), "doctrinal aphorisms

       (or statements, purporting to be from Buddha himself); works on

       discipline; and works on metaphysics:"—called sutra, vinaya, and

       abhidharma; in Chinese, king {.}, leuh {.}, and lun {.}, or texts,

       laws or rules, and discussions. Dr. Rhys Davids objects to the

       designation of "metaphysics" as used of the abhidharma works, saying

       that "they bear much more the relation to 'dharma' which 'by-law'

       bears to 'law' than that which 'metaphysics' bears to 'physics'"

       (Hibbert Lectures, p. 49). However this be, it was about the vinaya

       works that Fa-Hsien was chiefly concerned. He wanted a good code of

       the rules for the government of "the Order" in all its internal and

       external relations.

       (5) Lung embraced the western part of Shen-se and the eastern