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Updated: July 8, 2025
Fa-Hsien, it appears to me, intended his readers to understand that the naga-guardian had a palace of his own, inside or underneath the pool or tank. It stands out on the narrative as a whole that we have not here "some pilgrims," but one devotee. What the "great prohibitions" which the devotee now gave up were we cannot tell.
It is sufficient for us to know that the capital city was not far from Lob or Lop Nor, into which in lon. 38d E. the Tarim flows. Fa-Hsien estimated its distance to be 1500 le from T'un-hwang. He and his companions must have gone more than twenty-five miles a day to accomplish the journey in seventeen days.
Fa-Hsien again with all his heart directed his thoughts to Kwan-she-yin and the monkish communities of the land of Han; and, through their dread and mysterious protection, was preserved to day-break. After day-break, the Brahmans deliberated together and said, "It is having this Sramana on board which has occasioned our misfortune and brought us this great and bitter suffering.
For the particular attempt referred to in the text, see "The Life of the Buddha," p. 107. When he was engulphed, and the flames were around him, he cried out to Buddha to save him, and we are told that he is expected yet to appear as a Buddha under the name of Devaraja, in a universe called Deva-soppana. E. H., p. 39. Fa-Hsien, however, applies this term only to Brahmanical temples.
This king was perhaps Kanishka himself, Fa-Hsien mixing up, in an inartistic way, different legends about him. Eitel suggests that a relic of the old name of the country may still exist in that of the Jats or Juts of the present day.
The first king was Kwo-kin, and received his appointment from the sovereign of the chief Ts'in kingdom in 385. He was succeeded in 388 by his brother, the K'een-kwei of the text, who was very prosperous in 398, and took the title of king of Ts'in. Fa-Hsien would find him at his capital, somewhere in the present department of Lan-chow, Kan-suh.
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-Hsien" were designations of one and the same work, and that it is doubtful whether any larger work on the same subject was ever current.
It would be difficult to name the six countries which Fa-Hsien had in mind. This seems to be the meaning here. My first impression of it was that the author meant to say that the contributions which they received were spent by the monks mainly on the buildings, and only to a small extent for themselves; and I still hesitate between that view and the one in the version.
Its doctrines, so far as known, were Hinayanist but it was distinguished from cognate schools by holding that the external world can be said to exist and is not merely a continual process of becoming. It had its own version of the Abhidharma and of the Vinaya. In the time of Fa-Hsien the latter was still preserved orally and was not written.
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. 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.
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