Record of the Buddhist Country by Fa Hsien
(extracted from Buddhist Pilgrimage, by Bro Chan Khoon San)

Fa Hsien went to India with some fellow monks, namely: Hui-king, Tao-ching, Hui-ying, Hui-yu and others, for the purpose of seeking the Vinaya or Monastic Rules. Starting from Ch’ang-an (Xian) in 399 AD, they travelled by stages on foot till they reached Chang-yeh, a military station at the north-west extremity of the Great Wall, where they met another party of Chinese monks led by Pao-yun and Sung-king, also on their way to India. After spending the rainy season together in Chang-yeh, they pressed on to Dunhuang at the edge of the Takla Makan desert, where they stopped for over a month. The local prefect provided them with the necessities to cross the desert and Fa Hsien’s party started out first on their long trek across the Takla Makan desert. Walking for seventeen days about 1,500 li (1 li = 1 mile) in a south-westerly direction, keeping to the edge of the desert, they reached the rug­ged and barren country of Shen-shen (Loulan), south of Lop Nor. The king of this country honoured the Buddhist religion and there were some 4,000 monks, belonging to the Small Vehicle or Hinayana1. After resting there for about a month, they travelled near the lake Bagarach.north-west for fifteen days, probably following the course of the Tarim river, and arrived at the country of Kara-shahr (Korla),

1 One hundred years after the Buddha’s Parinibbana, the Second Buddhist Council was held at Vesali to discuss the Ten Points practised by the Vajjian monks. Although the Ten Points were ruled to be unlawful by the Council, the Vajjian monks did not accept the verdict. This resulted in a schism in the Sangha and the secession of the Mahasanghika (Vajjian monks), believed to be the forerunners of the Mahayana. From then on further schisms led to the formation of different sub-sects until eighteen schools of Buddhism arose. The name Hinayana was applied to these schools by the followers of the Mahayana tradition, which developed sometime immediately prior to the Christian era. The name re­flected the Mahayanists evaluation of their own tradition as a superior method, surpassing the conservative schools in universality and compassion. This name, however, was not ac­cepted by the conservative schools who considered it as degrading. The modern upholders of the ancient Hinayana tradition are the Theravadins (followers of the Way of the Elders), who are but one of the eighteen ancient schools.

There, they met again the party of monks led by Pao-yun, who had travelled by the northern route to Hami and Turfan. While Fa Hsien’s group remained at Kara-shahr under the protection of an important official, Pao-yun’s group were not so lucky and they had to return to Turfan to procure the necessities for their jour­ney. After staying in Kara-shahr for two months, Fa Hsien and his company continued their journey south-west across the desert. On the road, there were no dwellings or people. The sufferings of their journey on account of the difficulties of the road and rivers exceeded human comparison. They were on the road for a month and five days before they reached the prosperous, oasis town of Khotan. The ruler of the country provided them with accom­modation in a monastery where they stayed for three months and were able to witness the grand procession of images, which began on the first day of the fourth month and lasted for fourteen days.

From Khotan, the pilgrims spent twenty-five days on the road to Yarkand, where they stopped for fifteen days before continu­ing their journey. After another twenty-five days of walking, they arrived at Kashgar, in the middle of the Tsung-ling range (Pamirs), in time to witness the Pancavassika Parisa or Quinquennial assembly, a five-yearly event instituted by King Asoka, in which the ruler made a great offering to the Sangha. Leaving Kashgar, they entered Tajikistan through the Sarykol range, taking a month to cross the Pamir mountains, and continued their journey south-west for fifteen days over a difficult, precipitous and danger­ous road. Fa Hsien described it thus:

“The mountain side is simply a stone wall standing up 10,000 feet. Looking down, the sight is confused and there is no sure foothold. Below is a river called Sint’u-ho (Indus). In old days, men had cut away the rocks to make a way down and spread out side ladders, of which there are 700 steps to pass. When these are negotiated, the river is crossed by a hanging rope bridge. The two banks of the river are something less than 80 paces apart.”

After crossing the river, they arrived at the country of Udyana, which comprises the regions from Chitral to Swat in present day Northern Pakistan. It was then a flourishing centre of Buddhism, with five hundred monasteries belonging to the Small Vehicle. Three of the pilgrims, Hui-king, Tao-ching and Hui Yu went on ahead to Nagarahara (Jalalabad) to pay reverence to the Buddha-shadow2  at the Gopala Naga cave and the tooth and skull bone relics at Hadda while Fa Hsien and Hui Ying remained at Udyana to spend the rains-retreat. When this was over, they journeyed south to Swat and descending eastward for five days arrived at Gandhara (region between Takkasila and modern day Charsadda). From there, they travelled south to Peshawar to see the famed stupa of Kaniska and the alms-bowl relic. Here they met the party of Pao-yun and Sung-king who had come to pay homage to the alms-bowl relic. One of Fa Hsien’s friends, Hui-yu, who had previously gone to Nagarahara also came to Peshawar and at this point, he decided to return to China with Pao-yun and Sung-king. Meanwhile Fa Hsien’s companion, Hui-ying, dwelling in the temple of the alms-bowl relic, died there.

2 According to a popular legend among the Chinese pilgrims, the Buddha left his shadow in a cave on the mountainside in Nagarahara (old capital of the Jalalabad district). This cav­ern was the abode of a destructive dragon, Naga Gopala, who was planning to destroy the kingdom for a slight offence against him when he was a shepherd in a former life. Out of compassion for the inhabitants, the Buddha came to Nagarahara from mid India and after taming the dragon, left his shadow on the wall of the Naga Gopala cave. The Buddha advised the dragon to look at his shadow whenever evil intentions arose in his mind and by its power of love and virtue, the evil purpose would be stopped. In later days, the shadow was not visible any more.

Fa Hsien now proceeded alone westward to Nagarahara. On the borders, in the city of Hadda, he visited the vihara of the Buddha’s skull-bone. At the capital of Nagarahara, he visited the viharas of the Buddha’s religious staff and sanghati (outer robe) and the Gopala Naga cave to pay homage to the Buddha shadow. He teamed up with his two remaining companions, Tao-ching and Hui-king and together they spent two months of winter there. When winter was over, they proceeded south and encoun­tered great difficulties and extreme cold crossing the Safed Koh mountain range. Hui-king, barely recovering from an earlier ill­ness, was unable to proceed onwards. He died of exhaustion in Fa Hsien’s arms, urging them to press on lest they too perished. With great effort, the surviving pilgrims crossed the mountain range and entered Afghanistan where they spent the rains-retreat in the company of 3,000 monks in the vicinity.

After the rains-retreat they crossed the Punjab, where they saw the Buddhist religion flourishing and after passing many monasteries with myraids of monks, the pilgrims reached Mathura country. Fa Hsien then visited in succession Sankasia, Kanauj, Saketa or Ayodha and Savatthi, where the monks at Jetavana monastery were astonished to see them, for they had not seen men from Han (Chinese) come so far as this before in search of the Buddha’s law. Moving eastward, they travelled to the ancient Sakyan kingdom, where they visited the birthplaces of Kakusandha Buddha and Kanakagamana Buddha and saw the Asokan pillars erected there. The capital, Kapilavatthu, was like a great desert, without any in­habitants. There were only a congregation of monks and about ten families of lay people. The roads were devoid of travellers for fear of wild elephants and lions.

From Kapilavatthu, the pilgrims travelled to Kusinara, scene of the Buddha’s Mahaparinibbana. In this city too, there were few inhabitants and such families as were there, were connected with the congregation of monks. Moving onwards, they went to Vesali and Pataliputta, the capital of ancient Magadha. From there, they moved on to Nalanda and Rajagaha, where Fa Hsien ascended Gijjhakuta hill and after offering flowers, incense and lights, re­mained there the whole night contemplating and reciting the suttas. Continuing the pilgrimage, they went to Buddhagaya, scene of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, Deer Park at Sarnath where the Buddha preached the First Sermon, Varanasi and lastly Kosambi in Allahabad district, where they visited the ruins of Ghositarama monastery. Returning to Pataliputta, Tao-ching decided to take up permanent residence in India after seeing the strict decorum observed by the monks in India with regard to the Disciplinary rules compared with the meagre character of the precepts known in China.

For Fa Hsien, the purpose of his sojourn was to seek copies of the Monastic Rules to take home but throughout the journey, he was unable to obtain a single copy as the rules were transmitted orally. Here he was able to obtain a copy used by the Mahasanghikas at Jetavana monastery. Fa Hsien spent three years learning Sanskrit and copying out the Rules. Then following the course of the Ganges river in an easterly direction, he travelled to Tamralipti (modern Tamluk in West Bengal), where he spent a further two years copying the sacred texts and drawing image pictures. From the port of Tamralipti, he took a ship to Sri Lanka where he spent two more years collecting and copying the Buddhist texts includ­ing the Mahisasaka monastic rules, unknown in China.

Fa Hsien had been away from his homeland for many years. Of the four monks who accompanied him to India, one returned to China after going only as far as Peshawar, two died in India and one remained behind in India. At the Abhayagiri monastery in Anuradhapura, the sight of a merchant making a religious offering of a white silk fan from China, made him feel sad and homesick. Having completed his original purpose of obtaining the knowledge of the precepts to spread throughout the land of Han, he decided to return home. In his voyage home by sea, he had several miracu­lous escapes. His ship sprung a leak during a violent storm and was driven to the island of Java, where he spent five months. He took another boat bound for Canton but after a month and some days, he encountered another storm that drove the boat off course and landed on the shores of the Shantung Peninsula instead. Yet in spite of all the perils of the sea, he had managed to return home safely with his precious cargo of the sacred texts intact.

After resting at Tsing-Chow for the summer, he proceeded to Nanking where he exhibited the sacred books he had brought back. He was away fourteen years and had encountered great hardships and dangers in his travels through nearly thirty differ­ent countries. Having been protected by the power of the Triple Gem and delivered safely from all dangers, he desired to share his experiences with readers by writing these records of his travels from 399-414 AD. He died at the age of eighty-six after having accomplished his mission of translating into Chinese the Buddhist texts, which he had taken so much time and trouble to bring back from India.