As you go forward from these mountains, the plants, trees, and fruits are all different from those of the land of Han, excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate1, and sugar-cane.

CHAPTER VI.

ON TOWARDS NORTH INDIA. DARADA. IMAGE OF MAITREYA

BODHISATTVA.

FROM this (the travellers) went westwards towards North India, and after being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting across and through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests on them both winter and summer. There are also among them venomous dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of snow and storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his life. The people of the country call the range by the name of 'The Snow mountains.' When (the travellers) had got through them, they were in North India, and immediately on entering its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called T'o-leih, where also there were many monks, all students of the hînayâna.

In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan3, who by his supernatural

1 Giles thinks the fruit here was the guava, because the ordinary name for 'pomegranate' is preceded by gan (); but the pomegranate was called at first Gan Shih-lâu, as having been introduced into China from Gan-seih by Chang K'een, who is referred to in chapter vii.

2 Eitel and others identify this with Darada, the country of the ancient Dardae, the region near Dardus; lat. 30° 11′ N., lon. 73° 54′ E. See E. H., p. 30. I am myself in more than doubt on the point. Cunningham ('Ancient Geography of India,' p. 82) says, 'Darel is a valley on the right or western bank of the Indus, now occupied by Dardus or Dards, from whom it received its name.' But as I read our narrative, Fâ-hien is here on the eastern bank of the Indus, and only crosses to the western bank as described in the next chapter.

Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat are all designations of the perfected Arya, the disciple who has passed the different stages of the Noble Path, or eightfold

power1 took a clever artificer up to the Tushita2 heaven, to see the height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva3, and then return and make an image of him in wood. First and last, this was done three times, and then the image was completed, eighty cubits in height, and eight cubits at the base from knee to knee of the crossed legs. On fast-days it emits an effulgent light. The kings of the (surrounding) countries vie with one another in presenting offerings to it. Here it is, to be seen now as of old 4.

excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is not to be reborn again. Arhatship implies possession of certain supernatural powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but implies the fact of the saint having already attained nirvana. Popularly, the Chinese designate by this name the wider circle of Buddha's disciples, as well as the smaller ones of 500 and 18. No temple in Canton is better worth a visit than that of the 500 Lo-han.

1 Riddhi-sâkshâtkriyâ, 'the power of supernatural footsteps,'='a body flexible at pleasure,' or unlimited power over the body. E. H., p. 104.

2 Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn before

finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita 4000 years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to 400 years on earth. E. H., p. 152.

Maitreya (Spence Hardy, Maitri), often styled Ajita, 'the Invincible,' was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed, of Śâkyamuni's retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary (historical) disciples, nor is anything told of his antecedents. It was in the Tushita heaven that Śâkyamuni met him and appointed him as his successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of 5000 years. Maitreya is therefore the expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing at present in Tushita, and, according to the account of him in Eitel (H., p. 70), already controlling the propagation of the Buddhistic faith.' The name means 'gentleness' or 'kindness;' and this will be the character of his dispensation.

The combination of in the text of this concluding sentence, and so frequently occurring throughout the narrative, has occasioned no little dispute among previous translators. In the imperial thesaurus of phraseology (P'ei-wan Yun-foo), under, an example of it is given from Chwang-tsze, and a note subjoined that is equivalent to anciently and now.'

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CHAPTER VII.

CROSSING OF THE INDUS. WHEN BUDDHISM FIRST CROSSED THE

RIVER FOR THE EAST.

THE travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at the foot of the mountains, and) following the course of their range. The way was difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank exceedingly precipitous, which rose up there, a hill-like wall of rock, 10,000 cubits from the base. When one approached the edge of it, his eyes became unsteady; and if he wished to go forward in the same direction, there was no place on which he could place his foot; and beneath were the waters of the river called the Indus1. In former times men had chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its banks being there eighty paces apart2. The (place and arrangements) are to be found in the Records of the Nine Interpreters3,

1 The Sindhu. We saw in a former note (2, p. 14), that the earliest name in China for India was Shin-tuh. So, here, the river Indus is called by a name approaching that in sound.

2 Both Beal and Watters quote from Cunningham (Ladak, pp. 88, 89) the following description of the course of the Indus in these parts, in striking accordance with our author's account:-'From Skardo to Rongdo, and from Rongdo to Makpou-i-shang-rong, for upwards of 100 miles, the Indus sweeps sullen and dark through a mighty gorge in the mountains, which for wild sublimity is perhaps unequalled. Rongdo means the country of defiles. . . . Between these points the Indus raves from side to side of the gloomy chasm, foaming and chafing with ungovernable fury. Yet even in these inaccessible places has daring and ingenious man triumphed over opposing nature. The yawning abyss is spanned by frail rope bridges, and the narrow ledges of rocks are connected by ladders to form a giddy pathway overhanging the seething caldron below.'

The Japanese edition has a different reading here from the Chinese copies, one which Rémusat (with true critical instinct) conjectured should take the place of the more difficult text with which alone he was acquainted. The Nine Interpreters' would be a general name for the official interpreters

but neither Chang K'een1 nor Kan Ying 2 nor Kan Ying2 had reached the spot.

The monks asked Fâ-hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha first went to the east. He replied, 'When I asked the people of those countries about it, they all said that it had been handed down by their fathers from of old that, after the setting up of the image of Maitreya Bodhisattva, there were Śramans of India who crossed this river, carrying with them Sutras and Books of Discipline. Now the image was set up rather more than 300 years after the nirvâṇa* of Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P'ing of the Chow dynasty. According

attached to the invading armies of Han in their attempts to penetrate and subdue the regions of the west. The phrase occurs in the memoir of Chang K'een, referred to in the next note.

1 Chang K'een, a minister of the emperor Woo of Han (B.c. 140–87), is celebrated as the first Chinese who 'pierced the void,' and penetrated to 'the regions of the west,' corresponding very much to the present Turkestan. Through him, by B.C. 115, a regular intercourse was established between China and the thirty-six kingdoms or states of that quarter;-see Mayers' Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 5. The memoir of Chang K'een, translated by Mr. Wylie from the Books of the first Han dynasty, appears in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, referred to already (note 3, p. 12).

2 Less is known of Kan Ying than of Chang K'een. Being sent in A.D. 88 by his patron Pan Châo on an embassy to the Roman empire, he only got as far as the Caspian sea, and returned to China. He extended, however, the knowledge of his countrymen with regard to the western regions;see the memoir of Pan Châo in the Books of the second Han, and Mayers' Manual, pp. 167, 168.

Where and when? Probably at his first resting-place after crossing the Indus.

This may refer to Śâkyamuni's becoming Buddha on attaining to nirvâna, or more probably to his pari-nirvâna and death.

As king P'ing's reign lasted from B. c. 750 to 719, this would place the death of Buddha in the eleventh century B. C., whereas recent inquirers place it between B. C. 480 and 470, a year or two, or a few years, after that of Confucius, so that the two great Masters' of the east were really contemporaries. But if Rhys Davids be correct, as I think he is, in fixing the date of Buddha's death

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to this account we may say that the diffusion of our great doctrines (in the east) began from (the setting up of) this image. If it had not been through that Maitreya', the great spiritual master2 (who is to be) the successor of the Śâkya, who could have caused the "Three Precious Ones 3" to be proclaimed so far, and the people of those border lands to know our Law? We know of a truth that the opening of (the way for such) a mysterious propagation is not the work of man; and so the dream of the emperor Ming of Han had its proper cause.'

CHAPTER VIII.

WOO-CHANG, OR UDYÂNA. MONASTERIES, AND THEIR WAYS. TRACES

OF BUDDHA.

AFTER crossing the river, (the travellers) immediately came to the kingdom of Woo-chang5, which is indeed (a part) of North India. 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. The Law of Buddha is very (flourishing in Woo-chang). They call the places where the monks stay (for a time) or reside permanently Sanghârâmas; and of these there are in all 500, the monks being all students of the

within a few years of 412 B.c. (see Manual, p. 213), not to speak of Westergaard's still lower date, then the Buddha was very considerably the junior of Confucius. 1 This confirms the words of Eitel (note 3, p. 23), that Maitreya is already controlling the propagation of the Faith.

2 The Chinese characters for this simply mean 'the great scholar or officer;' but see Eitel's Handbook, p. 99, on the term purusha.

3

"The precious Buddha,' 'the precious Law,' and 'the precious Monkhood;' Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the whole being equivalent to Buddhism. Fâ-hien 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.

Udyâna, meaning 'the Park;' just north of the Punjâb, the country along the Subhavastu, now called the Swat; noted for its forests, flowers, and fruits (E. H., p. 153).

See note 3, p. 17.