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Translated & annotated by James Legge

Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

by Chinese Monk , Fa-Hien

Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

by Chinese Monk , Fa-Hien

Project Gutenberg Etext "Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms", by Fa-Hien

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

JAMES LEGGE

PREFACE

Several times during my long residence in Hong Kong I endeavoured to

read through the "Narrative of Fa-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, and I was, moreover, so much occupied with my own special

labours on the Confucian Classics, that my success was far from

satisfactory. When Dr. Eitel's "Handbook for the Student of Chinese

Buddhism" appeared in 1870, the difficulty occasioned by the Sanskrit

words and names was removed, but the other difficulty remained; and I

was not able to look into the book again for several years. Nor had I

much inducement to do so in the two copies of it which I had been able

to procure, on poor paper, and printed from blocks badly cut at first,

and so worn with use as to yield books the reverse of attractive in

their appearance to the student.

In the meantime I kept studying the subject of Buddhism from various

sources; and in 1878 began to lecture, here in Oxford, on the Travels

with my Davis Chinese scholar, who was at the same time Boden Sanskrit

scholar. As we went on, I wrote out a translation in English for my

own satisfaction of nearly half the narrative. In the beginning of

last year I made Fa-hien again the subject of lecture, wrote out a

second translation, independent of the former, and pushed on till I

had completed the whole.

The want of a good and clear text had been supplied by my friend, Mr.

Bunyiu Nanjio, who sent to me from Japan a copy, the text of which is

appended to the translation and notes, and of the nature of which some

account is given in the Introduction, and towards the end of this

Preface.

The present work consists of three parts: the Translation of Fa-hien's

Narrative of his Travels; copious Notes; and the Chinese Text of my

copy from Japan.

It is for the Translation that I hold myself more especially

responsible. Portions of it were written out three times, and the

whole of it twice. While preparing my own version I made frequent

reference to previous translations:--those of M. Abel Remusat, "Revu,

complete, et augmente d'eclaircissements nouveaux par MM. Klaproth et

Landress" (Paris, 1836); of the Rev. Samuel Beal (London, 1869), and

his revision of it, prefixed to his "Buddhist Records of the Western

World" (Trubner's Oriental Series, 1884); and of Mr. Herbert A. Giles,

of H.M.'s Consular Service in China (1877). To these I have to add a

series of articles on "Fa-hsien and his English Translators," by Mr.

T. Watters, British Consul at I-Chang (China Review, 1879, 1880).

Those articles are of the highest value, displaying accuracy of

Chinese scholarship and an extensive knowledge of Buddhism. I have

regretted that Mr. Watters, while reviewing others, did not himself

write out and publish a version of the whole of Fa-hien's narrative.

If he had done so, I should probably have thought that, on the whole,

nothing more remained to be done for the distinguished Chinese pilgrim

in the way of translation. Mr. Watters had to judge of the comparative

merits of the versions of Beal and Giles, and pronounce on the many

points of contention between them. I have endeavoured to eschew those

matters, and have seldom made remarks of a critical nature in defence

of renderings of my own.

The Chinese narrative runs on without any break. It was Klaproth who

divided Remusat's translation into forty chapters. The division is

helpful to the reader, and I have followed it excepting in three or

four instances. In the reprinted Chinese text the chapters are

separated by a circle in the column.

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 Fa-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.

For the Notes I can do little more than claim the merit of selection

and condensation. My first object in them was to explain what in the

text required explanation to an English reader. All Chinese texts, and

Buddhist texts especially, are new to foreign students. One has to do

for them what many hundreds of the ablest scholars in Europe have done

for the Greek and Latin Classics during several hundred years, and

what the thousands of critics and commentators have been doing of our

Sacred Scriptures for nearly eighteen centuries. 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. A second object in them was to teach myself first, and then

others, something of the history and doctrines of Buddhism. I have

thought that they might be learned better in connexion with a lively

narrative like that of Fa-hien than by reading didactic descriptions

and argumentative books. Such has been my own experience. 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 need not mention other authorities, having endeavoured

always to specify them where I make use of them. My proximity and

access to the Bodleian Library and the Indian Institute have been of

great advantage.

I may be allowed to say that, so far as my own study of it has gone, 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 Sutras 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 Fa-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 {...}), always

used of the Buddha, certainly requires to be understood in the highest

sense. I am content myself to wait for further information on these

and other points, as the result of prolonged and careful research.

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. I may not always think on various points

exactly as he does, but I am not more forward than he is to say with

Horace,--

"Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri."

I have referred above, and also in the Introduction, to the Corean

text of Fa-hien's narrative, which I received from Mr. Nanjio. It is

on the whole so much superior to the better-known texts, that I

determined to attempt to reproduce it at the end of the little volume,

so far as our resources here in Oxford would permit. To do so has not

been an easy task. The two fonts of Chinese types in the Clarendon

Press were prepared primarily for printing the translation of our

Sacred Scriptures, and then extended so as to be available for

printing also the Confucian Classics; but the Buddhist work

necessarily requires many types not found in them, while many other

characters in the Corean recension are peculiar in their forms, and

some are what Chinese dictionaries denominate "vulgar." That we have

succeeded so well as we have done is owing chiefly to the

intelligence, ingenuity, and untiring attention of Mr. J. C. Pembrey,

the Oriental Reader.

The pictures that have been introduced were taken from a superb

edition of a History of Buddha, republished recently at Hang-chau in

Cheh-kiang, and profusely illustrated in the best style of Chinese

art. I am indebted for the use of it to the Rev. J. H. Sedgwick,

University Chinese Scholar.

James Legge.

Oxford:

June, 1886.

[ PICTURE: SKETCH MAP OF FA-HIEN'S TRAVELS ]

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 Fa-hien's route.

There is no difficulty in laying it down after he crossed the Indus

from east to west into the Punjab, all the principal places, at which

he touched or rested, having been determined by Cunningham and other

Indian geographers and archaeologists. Most of the places from Ch'ang-

an to Bannu have also been identified. Woo-e has been put down as near

Kutcha, or Kuldja, in 43d 25s N., 81d 15s E. The country of K'ieh-ch'a

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 T'o-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 Fa-hien

recrossed the Indus into Udyana on the west of it is unknown.

Takshasila, which he visited, was no doubt on the west of the river,

and has been incorrectly accepted as the Taxila of Arrian in the

Punjab. 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 Fa-hien went on from Nan-king to Ch'ang-an, but

the Narrative does not record the fact of his doing so.

INTRODUCTION

Life of Fa-Hien; Genuineness and Integrity of the Text of his

Narrative; Number of the Adherents of Buddhism.

1. 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 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-hsi.

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 Sramanera,

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 chose 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 Sramaneras 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 into 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 noviciate and taken on him the obligations of

the full Buddhist orders, his earnest courage, clear intelligence, and

strict regulation of his demeanour 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 Rajagriha.

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

himself has told us. Fa-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

Sakyamuni, "the Sakya, mighty in Love, dwelling in Seclusion and

Silence," and may be taken as equivalent to Buddhist. It 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

Liu (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.

2. If there were ever another and larger account of Fa-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 Fa-hien occurs four times. Towards the end of the last

section of it (page 22), after a reference to his travels, his labours

in translation at Kin-ling (another name for Nanking), in conjunction

with Buddha-bhadra, are described. In the second section, page 15, we

find "A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms;"--with a note, saying that it

was the work of the "Sramana, Fa-hien;" and again, on page 13, we have

"Narrative of Fa-hien in two Books," and "Narrative of Fa-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 subjoined to this translation, the title is twofold; first,

"Narrative of the Distinguished Monk, Fa-hien;" and then, more at

large, "Incidents of Travels in India, by the Sramana of the Eastern

Tsin, Fa-hien, recorded by himself."

There is still earlier attestation of the existence of our little work

than the Suy Catalogue. The Catalogue Raisonne of the imperial library

of the present dynasty (chap. 71) mentions two quotations from it by

Le Tao-yuen, a geographical writer of the dynasty of the Northern Wei

(A.D. 386-584), one of them containing 89 characters, and the other

276; both of them given as from the "Narrative of Fa-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 Fa-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 appendixes 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. In the notes to the present

republication of the Corean text, S stands for Sung, M for Ming, and J

for Japanese; R for right, and W for wrong. I have taken the trouble

to give all the various readings (amounting to more than 300), partly

as a curiosity and to make my text complete, and partly to show how,

in the transcription of writings in whatever language, such variations

are sure to occur,

"maculae, quas aut incuria fudit,

Aut humana parum cavit nature,"

while on the whole they very slightly affect the meaning of the

document.

The editors of the Catalogue Raisonne intimate their doubts of the

good taste and reliability of all Fa-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 Fa-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 170 years before Mohammed was born, and 222

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 Fa-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.

3. 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.

i. In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes (1854),

General Cunningham says: "The Christians number about 270 millions;

the Buddhists about 222 millions, who are distributed as follows:--

China 170 millions, Japan 25, Anam 14, Siam 3, Ava 8, Nepal 1, and

Ceylon 1; total, 222 millions."

ii. In his article on M. J. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire's "Le Bouddha et

sa Religion," republished in his "Chips from a German Workshop," vol.

i. (1868), Professor Max Muller (p. 215) says, "The young prince

became the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand

years, is still professed by 455 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 0.3.' As

Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China from the

followers of Confucius and Laotse, the first place on the scale really

belongs to Christianity. It is difficult 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-sse temple, and afterwards bows before an image of Fo in

a Buddhist chapel. ('Melanges Asiatiques de St. Petersbourg,' vol. ii.

p. 374.)"

iii. Both these estimates are exceeded by Dr. T. W. Rhys Davids

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