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Updated: July 8, 2025
Has always been translated "heretical teachers;" but I eschew the terms heresy and heretical. The parties would not be Buddhists of any creed or school, but Brahmans or of some other false doctrine, as Fa-Hsien deemed it. The Chinese term means "outside" or "foreign;" in Pali, anna-titthiya,="those belonging to another school."
Fa-Hsien himself grew up with other boys in a monastery, and no doubt had to "go to school." And the next sentence shows us there might be schools for more advanced students as well as for the Sramaneras. See chap. xvi, note 22. It is perhaps with reference to the famous Bodhisattva that the Brahman here is said to be "also" named Manjusri. ? Cashmere cloth. See chap. xxiii, note 3.
Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, and Hwuy-tah set out in advance towards the country of K'eeh-ch'a; but Fa-Hsien and the others, wishing to see the procession of images, remained behind for three months. There are in this country four great monasteries, not counting the smaller ones.
The priests occupy themselves with benevolent ministrations and with chanting liturgies; or they sit in meditation." Fa-Hsien tells us the Indian people were happy and honest; capital punishment was unknown. The present MAHAMANDALESWAR or president is Joyendra Puri. This saintly man is extremely reserved, often confining his speech to three words-Truth, Love, and Work. A sufficient conversation!
We must suppose that Fa-Hsien went on from Nan-king to Ch'ang-an, but the Narrative does not record the fact of his doing so. Life of Fa-Hien; Genuineness and Integrity of the Text of his Narrative; Number of the Adherents of Buddhism. Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-Hsien in addition to what may be gathered from his own record of his travels.
Fa-Hsien does not say that he himself saw any of these white elephants, nor does he speak of the lions as of any particular colour. We shall find by-and-by, in a note further on, that, to make them appear more terrible, they are spoken of as "black." East from Buddha's birthplace, and at a distance of five yojanas, there is a kingdom called Rama.
At this place there are as many as a thousand topes of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas. Now in India, Fa-Hsien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was. The estimates of it are very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to seven, and sometimes more.
In the Japanese or Corean recension subjoined to this translation, the title is twofold; first, "Narrative of the Distinguished Monk, Fa-Hsien;" and then, more at large, "Incidents of Travels in India, by the Sramana of the Eastern Tsin, Fa-Hsien, recorded by himself." There is still earlier attestation of the existence of our little work than the Suy Catalogue.
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-Hsien calls his "simple straightforwardness."
Fa-Hsien thus endorses the view that Buddhism was introduced into China in this reign, A.D. 58-75. The emperor had his dream in A.D. 61. The people all use the language of Central India, "Central India" being what we should call the "Middle Kingdom." The food and clothes of the common people are the same as in that Central Kingdom.
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