A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hsien of Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in Search of the Buddhi

by Faxian

pubOne.info present you this new edition. of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A. D. 399-414)

Genres: History, Buddhism, Travel, India, Nonfiction, China, Philosophy

233 pages, ebook

First published February 15, 1886

About the author

Monastic name is Fǎxiǎn
Name is also spelled as Fâ-hien, fa-xian, Faxian, Faoxian, Fsian, Fasian, etc, due to various translations.

This spelling is the most common romanized version as well as the LCOC canonical version of his name.

Reviews

[Steve]

The Governor of Tun-huang, by name Li Hao, gave them all the necessaries for crossing the desert of Gobi. In this desert there are a great many evil spirits and also hot winds; those who encounter them perish to a man. There are neither birds above nor beasts below. Gazing on all sides as far as the eye can reach in order to mark the track, no guidance is to be obtained save from the rotting bones of dead men, which point the way.


In the year 399 Fa-hsien (Faxian, 337 – c. 422) walked with some companions from Ch'ang-an, the former capital of the Western Han and future capital of the T'ang, all the way across northern China on the Silk Road to what is now Central Asia, across the Hindu Kush to northern India, where he visited the sacred sites of Buddhism, studied Pali or Sanskrit, and collected manuscripts of the sacred books to take back to China. By boat, he continued on to what is now Sri Lanka, passed to Java (where he stayed 5 months) and made the long voyage up to northern China, where he disembarked and completed the circuit back to Ch'ang-an in the year 414. He was by no means the sole Chinese pilgrim to the birthplace of Buddhism in the ancient world, nor was he the only one to leave some kind of record of his journey. These texts are irreplaceable witnesses to regions and cultures that are otherwise mute.

Hence one wishes this little text of less than one hundred pages were ten times as long and less narrowly focused! But such would not be the case for any Chinese travelogue until the T'ang dynasty. Not surprisingly, the pilgrim Fa-hsien reported primarily on matters of interest to his co-religionists. However, because nearly all of Central Asia and northernmost India was Buddhist at that time, along with the rulers, matters of interest to Buddhists included fairly significant matters of broader cultural interest, such as a detailed description of a period of religious festivals and processions in Khotan which involved the entire populace. Non-Buddhist matters do get reported: for example, there are two paragraphs of social and dietary customs in a Hindu kingdom in India proper and a few paragraphs about the climate and produce of Sri Lanka.

One is also treated to some of the wondrous sights and perilous moments during the trek. At least one of his companions froze to death crossing into what is now Afghanistan, and storms caused the ship taking him from Java to Canton to get weeks off course, with nearly fatal results. But then one also gets a detailed description of Buddha's alms bowl and of a piece of his skull. And the Buddha must have needed many reincarnations indeed to produce all the teeth that were being worshiped across the Buddhist world...

Supernatural wonders and miracles are reported with perfect composure. Striking is the description of Buddha's shadow, left by him on the interior wall of a cave. (!)

Looking at it from a distance of ten paces or so, it is like Buddha's actual self, with his golden complexion, his thirty-two greater and eighty lesser characteristic marks, all brightly visible. The nearer one goes, the more indistinct it becomes, appearing as if it were really He.

As in the case of most religions, as time goes by the founder is credited with more and more elaborate miracles; at the beginning of the 5th century Fa-hsien reported miracles from the life of Gautama Buddha that are most definitely not to be found in the Pali canon, some whose obvious purpose was to incorporate some region and people into the story so they would not feel left out. But then organized religions have less to do with Truth than with feeling (and a strict hierarchy which quickly enough funnels wealth to those at the top).

This travelogue is very different from those by Abû Hâmid al-Gharnâtî and Lu Yu I've discussed elsewhere. A Westerner should imagine a Christian monk crossing all of Europe in order to visit churches, monasteries and relics, repeating the local miracle stories and affording the rest of the continent only side glances. Such, for the most part, is Fa-hsien's travelogue. Just to let you know.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish it was longer. Though there were a lot of writings in this genre, (even from Koreans) and there are other and documents which it refers to which might be available. It gives a good general view of what India was like in the 400s. Buddhism was backsliding into Hinduism in both the Madhyadesh and Gandhara, though it was stronger in the east and in Lanka. Java was rife with Hinduism. Untouchability was already in existence, and seemingly quite extreme. Not many kingdoms in Bengal apparently, but a thriving port at the mouth of the Hoogly. Ceylon at the top of its game. Gandhara seemingly in really good shape. Many of the major cities and sites of the Buddha's time are in disrepair, and even Ashoka's old capital is in ruins. How quickly things change. Roadways and trade/communication between north and south india arent in the best shape. But Buddhist institutions of worship and learning still litter the entire region, and it isn't difficult for Faxian to get information or access to sites and relics. It also has some interesting Buddhist legends thrown in whenever Faxian's expedition crosses through a relevant location. The bit about Devadutt's suicide is particularly intriguing for what it implies about Faxian's and by proxy Buddhism's view on the potential legitimacy of suicide.

[Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης · Rating 1 out of 5]

Μερικές φορές πραγματικά νιώθω ότι διαβάζω βιβλία για να μην χρειάζεται να τα διαβάζουν οι άλλοι. Το συγκεκριμένο έχει ένα βασικό πρόβλημα: είναι σχεδόν αδιάφορο για τον μη Βουδιστή ή μελετητή του Βουδισμού. Οι πιο συχνά επαναλαμβανόμενες λέξεις είναι Βούδας, Βουδισμός, τόπε (βουδιστικός ναός), βιχάρα (βουδιστικό μοναστήρι / ερημητήριο), όχι μόνο λόγω του γενικότερου αντικειμένου, αλλά διότι είναι και τα μοναδικά πράγματα που ενδιέφεραν τον Φα Χιεν.

Το βιβλίο είναι υποτίθεται οδοιπορικό, αλλά αποτελεί ουσιαστικά μια απαρίθμηση ναών και μοναστηριών, σχεδόν κατ' αποκλεισμό οτιδήποτε άλλου. Τα δε άγνωστα (ή πλέον χαμένα) τοπωνύμια και οι επίσης άγνωστες μονάδες μέτρησης απόστασης δεν δίνουν σχεδόν την παραμικρή ιδέα για την πορεία του οδοιπορικού, εκτός από όταν αναφέρονται τα Ιμαλάια, ο Ινδός Ποταμός και η Κεϋλάνη.

Επίσης αν κάποιος δεν ασχολείται με τον Βουδισμό, σχεδόν σίγουρα θα μπερδευτεί με τα πολλαπλά ονόματα και τίτλους για το ίδιο άτομο.

Όποιος θέλει απεγνωσμένα να εντοπίσει ορισμένα ενδιαφέροντα πράγματα στην καταγραφή του Φα Χιεν, μετά τη μέση του βιβλίου υπάρχουν ορισμένοι βουδιστικοί μύθοι που κατέγραψε από κάθε τοποθεσία και ορισμένα ημι-μυθικά ορόσημα που μπορούν ίσως ν' αποτελέσουν πηγή έμπνευσης.

Για ένα τόσο μικρό βιβλίο, πραγματικά μου φάνηκε ατελείωτο.

[Saju Pillai · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing Journey. Traveling to India almost 250 years before (the much more famous) Xuanzang, Faxian travelled for around 15 years in a round trip from Chang’an (Xi’an) to Buddhist sites in India and all the way to Ceylon and then back via sea route to Nanking and presumably back to Chang’an.

I was fortunate enough to visit some of the same Buddhist sites and walk on the ramparts of Chang’an (I was admittedly reading Xuangzang), but as a civilian fully exploiting the mundane modern miracles of cars & planes from 1800 years later —- but you could (if you really really tried) stand on the ancient city walls of Chang’an and just imagine watching Faxian and Xuanzang setting out to go to the land of the Buddha (the pedantic amongst us can just for a moment ignore the fact that the walls were Tang dynasty and post-date Faxian).

Legge’s translation is dated and my copy did not have a map or the Chinese characters that he constantly refers to in his notes, but just wow - what a solid piece of work!

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing tales, especially about Chanchamana who tried to make trouble for The Buddha. She got her just desserts. The book is filled with wonderful names, a dragon called Muchilinda, etc. There is a fold out map so Fa-Hsien's travels can be followed.

[Marcy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not at all what I thought it would be. I have read so many excerpts of Fa Hien's observations of his travels around India starting in 399 CE. I was really wanting to read a complete diary or narrative of his travels. Unfortunately, this was anything but that. It was the translator's blow-by-blow description of when he traveled where and when. That's it. Essentially it was a timeline. Very disappointing.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Footnote overdose, a lot of questionable conclusions, and not a hint of story at all.

[Mallee Stanley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fa-haien was a Buddhist monk who travelled to India in the 5th century. He journeyed overland from China passing through many countries. A century later, Xangzang repeated the same journey and also wrote of his travels. Unfortunately, unlike Xangzang, Fa-haien's work is impersonal and lacks details. Often it reads like a list of pagodas and unbelievable miracles believed to be committed by Buddha attached to sites Fa-haien visited. The only interesting part was his boat journey from Ceylon back to China which was only a few pages.
The traveller must has seen and met so many interesting people and places, yet this was a very disappointing read and not a reflection on the translator, but on Fa-hsien's often boring account.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a travel narrative recording the experiences of a Chinese monk trekking through northern India and central Asia in the early 5th century BCE. They are looking for early Buddhist documents to bring back to China for study.

Sadly, Faxian doesn't have an eye for cultural detail or descriptive fancy. We are all the worse for it, because there aren't many other non-religious texts from this period or area. If we want to know something about the period of early, normative Buddhism, Faxian provides one of the few windows.

Rewarding reading for interested parties if only because we can imagine what he is leaving out.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was glad read this history of this monk who traveled to India and Ceylon to learn more about Buddhism. I did find it confusing and in nature of literature of its day, it is mostly a short travelogue of his trip. A very worthy piece of history but enough detail for me as a modern reader.

[TheAgeofKite · Rating 3 out of 5]

It goes long into the ritual and habits of the Buddhists along his travels, I couldn't help but think of Skinner's pigeon while reading it. However it is rich in detail and quite interesting in bits and it was interesting to see the way humans perceived the world around them in that slice of time.

[Sury Vemagal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Passable,as a record of ancient times. There are not much details that reflect the times, that can provide the reader to visualise the way ordinary people of those times lived.

[Jan Pospíšil · Rating 3 out of 5]

For an otherwise practical and effective travel autobiography, there are surprisingly many dragons. Which is not a bad thing!

[Aditya Raghav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much history. Faxian recounts the Buddhist legends and miracles associated with the places he visits.

[Thukten T · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book talks mainly about different Buddhist kingdoms back then. I was keen to know more about the biography of Faxian and his arduous 15-year journey to India in search of Buddhist sutras.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Also available via Project Gutenberg