snow, over precipices, across impetuous rivers; then, besides the dangers of nature, dangers still more certain created by men, attacks of covetous and pitiless robbers, a thousand pitfalls laid for a stranger, amid races of whose language he was yet ignorant; and, above all, the allurements of riches and power, so often exercised on the pilgrim, and always victoriously repelled. Nothing could make him lose sight, even for a day, of the object of his pursuit; and at the beginning and end of his journey we see him resisting the offers of the kings of Kao-Tch'ang and of Kanyākubja, as he had resisted the pirates of the Ganges, the hospitable monks of Nālanda, and later still the yet more seductive proposals of the Chinese Emperor. He gathered information, travelled, and translated in order to propagate the Law of the Buddha ; this was his whole life, simple and grand, humble and painstaking, disinterested as well as energetic.

In no other civilization, at no other period, even among the nations enlightened by the purer light of Christianity, can a more thorough example of zeal, courage, and self-abnegation be met with. It would be easy to find greater intellect, but difficult indeed to find a more magnanimous spirit.

One trait is particularly striking in the inner life of this soul, such as his disciples and biographers describe it, and this is the total absence of that veiled egotism, of which the Buddhist faith may with good reason be accused. HiouenThsang is not occupied with the thought of his own personal salvation; and he only dimly intimates once or twice, that he counts on the eternal reward of his labours. He never thinks of self; he thinks of the Buddha, whom he worships with all the strength of his mind and heart; above all he thinks of other men, whom he strives to enlighten and save; his life is a perpetual though apparently unconscious sacrifice; and in this absolute self-renunciation he does not seem aware that his actions are as sublime as they are ingenuous.

229 He never reflects on his own conduct. To disdain riches, honours, power, and all the enjoyments of life, is already a very rare merit; but not to think even about the eternal salvation which he firmly believed in, while doing all that was needful to be worthy of it, is a merit still more rare and refined; and there are very few, even amongst the most pious, who have carried self-denial to this extreme limit, where nothing remains but the unalloyed idea of right. Hiouen-Thsang was one of these choice beings, and it is only right and just to recognize it. The singular ideal he made for himself may provoke a smile, but the irreproachable conduct this ideal inspired ought to be reverenced. It is not only in his external actions that he ought to be admired, but also in the motives that dictated those actions, and impart to them their true value.

Studied from this point of view, Hiouen-Thsang's character is one of the most curious of problems. We are too ready to believe that the virtues we possess under our temperate climates, and which, thanks to our civilization, are the growth of three thousand years, are an exclusive right that belongs only to us; we too easily believe that other times, other races, and especially other religions have no share in them. We shall not be suspected of any partiality for Buddhism, for we have severely criticized the vices and errors that disgrace it. But it must be admitted that in the presence of such examples, we feel more indulgent towards it, and while detesting its dogmas, we cannot deny that its influence has sometimes been excellent, if not on races, at least on individuals. In the seventh century of our era, about twelve hundred years after the Buddha, amid a people for whom we have little esteem, we find one of these noble personages, one of these beautiful lives that may be held up as an example to humanity. Without holding anything in common with the strange belief that inspires it, we might

earnestly desire that the majority of men who live under a better faith, should have this purity of heart, straightforwardness of intentions, gentleness, charity, unalterable faith, boundless generosity, and elevation of sentiments which never relax under the most perilous trials.

We have hitherto only studied the personality of HiouenThsang and the principal incidents of his life. We have now to see all he can tell us about the countries he travelled through, the history of those remote times, and the condition of Buddhism in India in the seventh century of the Christian era. Of course, his testimony, sincere as it is, must be received with the greatest caution; the good pilgrim was exceedingly credulous, and it is extremely probable that he more than once played the part of a dupe. However, we may be certain of one thing, he never seeks to deceive, and when he speaks of what he has himself seen, he must be attentively listened to, only we must, if reason demands it, somewhat modify the narrative. In general, however, we may trust and be grateful to him for the valuable information he hands down to us. At the moment he visited India, before the Mussulman conquest, it was still exclusively Brahmanist and Buddhist. It is a very obscure period of its history, and Hiouen-Thsang is almost the only eyewitness who has given us any information about it.

We will now see what he has to say on that subject.

CHAPTER II.

Memoirs of Hiouen- Thsang. Sources from which the Si-yu-ki is derived. History in India and China. Descriptive method of Hiouen-Thsang. His general views on India; his itinerary in Magadha; a page from his Memoirs on the Convent of Nalanda. Testimony of Hiouen-Thsang as to the Buddha, the Nirvana, the Councils, and the kings of his day. Hiouen-Thsang at the Court of Siladitya, king of Kanyakubja and part of Central India. The great Council of the Deliverance in the Field of Happiness. Distribution of royal alms. Surprising tolerance of the Hindus.

It is not for the purpose of verifying the exact geographical position of the places Hiouen-Thsang describes, that we purpose to follow him in his long and perilous pilgrimages. This would be too special and lengthy a task for us to undertake, and we must leave it to those better fitted and more familiar with such studies1.

We shall now limit ourselves to the composition of the Si-yu-ki.

In the large catalogue in the library belonging to the Emperor Kien-Long, the authentic and complete title of Hiouen-Thsang's work reads as follows: 'Memoirs on the Western Countries (Si-yu-ki) published under the great Thangs, translated from the Sanskrit, by Imperial decree, by Hiouen-Thsang, Master of the Law of the Three Commentaries, and edited by Pien-ki, a monk of the convent of Ta-tsong-tchi.' We are to understand by translated from the Sanskrit, not a translation in the ordinary acceptation of the

1 See the excellent Mémoire of Vivien de Saint-Martin, following Hiouen-Thsang's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 254, &c., and Nouvelles Annales des Voyages. 5° Séries, 1853.

word, but a co-ordination of the Sanskrit works which HiouenThsang made use of to compose his own book.

The most important point would be to know the real nature of the Sanskrit works that Hiouen-Thsang consulted, and of which he has transmitted the substance. But it is rather difficult to form any exact idea of these works, and it is worth much even to know of their existence. The Sanskrit literature, as far as it is known to us, shows us nothing like them, and judging from the frequent quotations that HiouenThsang makes from the Sanskrit Memoirs he made use of and had under his eyes-for he often translates them word for word-it seems certain that these Memoirs bore little resemblance to the Mahāvansa written in Pāli, which Turnour has given us, nor to the Rajatarangini, which we owe to Troyer. We must therefore conclude, that in the seventh century after Christ, at the time when the Chinese pilgrim travelled over India, there were to be found in Sanskrit literature works which described more or less faithfully the history, statistics, and geography of the country; none of which have come down to us. This is doubtless a very unexpected and curious discovery, but it is no less a fact. As Hiouen-Thsang found writings of this kind all over India, from the northern kingdom of Kutch down to Magadha, where he remained many years, in order thoroughly to study them, it is evident that these works were very numerous and well known. The names Hiouen-Thsang gives them are various; sometimes he calls them Ancient Descriptions, sometimes Historical Memoirs, sometimes Collections of Annals and Royal Edicts; at other times Secular Histories, or simply Indian Books on such or such a country, or Memoirs of India, &c. Hiouen-Thsang did not confine himself to these indications, already very exact; he does not even confine himself to the quotations he gives from the Sanskrit books; he also tells us the source of these valuable books and their