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  • On Chinese Travellers That Visited India: Submitted By: Jatin Roll No. 10

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    Fa Xian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India between 399-412 CE to acquire Buddhist scriptures. He visited important sites like Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha. Upon his return to China, his ship was driven to Java by a storm. He later translated the scriptures he collected. His travelogue provides valuable accounts of early Buddhism and geography in countries along the Silk Road.

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    Fa Xian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India between 399-412 CE to acquire Buddhist scriptures. He visited important sites like Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha. Upon his return to China, his ship was driven to Java by a storm. He later translated the scriptures he collected. His travelogue provides valuable accounts of early Buddhism and geography in countries along the Silk Road.

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    17 views8 pages

    On Chinese Travellers That Visited India: Submitted By: Jatin Roll No. 10

    Uploaded by

    Kuldeep Kumar
    Fa Xian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India between 399-412 CE to acquire Buddhist scriptures. He visited important sites like Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha. Upon his return to China, his ship was driven to Java by a storm. He later translated the scriptures he collected. His travelogue provides valuable accounts of early Buddhism and geography in countries along the Silk Road.

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    of 8

    PPT ON

    CHINESE TRAVELLERS THAT

    VISITED INDIA
    SUBMITTED BY:
    JATIN
    Roll no. 10
    INTRODUCTION

    • Fa Xian (traditional Chinese: 法顯 ; simplified Chinese: 法显 ; pinyin: Fǎxiǎn; also romanized


    as Fa-Hien or Fa-hsien) (337 – c. 422 CE) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Nepal,
    India, and Sri Lanka to acquire Buddhist scriptures between 399 and 412. His journey is
    described in his important travelogue, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by
    the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books
    of Discipline. He is most known for his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha

    • On Fa Xian's return to China, after a two-year stay in Ceylon, a violent storm drove his ship
    onto an island that was probably Java. Faxian landed at Laoshan in what is now Shandong
    province, 30 km east of the city of Qingdao and went to Shandong's then-capital, Qingzhou,
    where he remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he had collected.

    • His work is a travel book, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and
    history of numerous countries along the Silk Roads at the turn of the 5th century CE.
    • Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-hien in addition to what may be
    gathered from his own record of his travels. I have read the accounts of him in the
    Memoirs of Eminent Monks, compiled in A.D. 519, and a later work, the Memoirs
    of Marvellous Monks, by the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1403-1424),
    which, however, is nearly all borrowed from the other; and all in them that has an
    appearance of verisimilitude can be brought within brief compass.
    • His surname, they tell us, was Kung, and he was a native of Wu-yang in P’ing-Yang,
    which is still the name of a large department in Shan-hsi. He had three brothers
    older than himself; but when they all died before shedding their first teeth, his
    father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist society, and had him entered as
    a Sramanera, still keeping him at home in the family. The little fellow fell
    dangerously ill, and the father sent him to the monastery, where he soon got well
    and refused to return to his parents.
    • When he was ten years old, his father died; and an
    uncle, considering the widowed solitariness and
    helplessness of the mother, urged him to renounce the
    monastic life, and return to her, but the boy replied, "I
    did not quit the family in compliance with my father’s
    wishes, but because I wished to be far from the dust
    and vulgar ways of life. This is why I chose monkhood."
    The uncle approved of his words and gave over urging
    him. When his mother also died, it appeared how great
    had been the affection for her of his fine nature; but
    after her burial he returned to the monastery.
    • On one occasion he was cutting rice with a score or
    two of his fellow-disciples, when some hungry thieves
    came upon them to take away their grain by force. The
    other Sramaneras all fled, but our young hero stood his
    ground, and said to the thieves, "If you must have the
    grain, take what you please. But, Sirs, it was your
    former neglect of charity which brought you to your
    present state of destitution; and now, again, you wish
    to rob others. I am afraid that in the coming ages you
    will have still greater poverty and distress;—I am sorry
    for you beforehand." With these words he followed his
    companions into the monastery, while the thieves left
    the grain and went away, all the monks, of whom there
    were several hundred, doing homage to his conduct
    and courage.
    • When he had finished his noviciate and taken
    on him the obligations of the full Buddhist
    orders, his earnest courage, clear intelligence,
    and strict regulation of his demeanour were
    conspicuous; and soon after, he undertook his
    journey to India in search of complete copies
    of the Vinaya-pitaka. What follows this is
    merely an account of his travels in India and
    return to China by sea, condensed from his
    own narrative, with the addition of some
    marvelous incidents that happened to him, on
    his visit to the Vulture Peak near Rajagriha.
    • It is said in the end that after his return to China,
    he went to the capital (evidently Nanking), and
    there, along with the Indian Sramana
    Buddha-bhadra, executed translations of some of
    the works which he had obtained in India; and
    that before he had done all that he wished to do
    in this way, he removed to King-chow (in the
    present Hoo-pih), and died in the monastery of
    Sin, at the age of eighty-eight, to the great sorrow
    of all who knew him. It is added that there is
    another larger work giving an account of his
    travels in various countries.
    • Such is all the information given about our author, beyond
    what he himself has told us. Fa-hien was his clerical name,
    and means "Illustrious in the Law," or "Illustrious master of
    the Law." The Shih which often precedes it is an abbreviation
    of the name of Buddha as Sakyamuni, "the Sakya, mighty in
    Love, dwelling in Seclusion and Silence," and may be taken as
    equivalent to Buddhist. It is sometimes said to have belonged
    to "the eastern Tsin dynasty" (A.D. 317-419), and sometimes
    to "the Sung," that is, the Sung dynasty of the House of Liu
    (A.D. 420-478). If he became a full monk at the age of twenty,
    and went to India when he was twenty-five, his long life may
    have been divided pretty equally between the two dynasties.

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