The travels of Fa-Hian (400 A.D.)

by Samuel Beal | 1884 | 20,385 words | ISBN-10: 8120811070

This is the English translation of the travel records of Fa-Hian (or, Faxian): a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled by foot from China to India between A.D. 399 and A.D. 412. The full title is: The travels of Fa-Hian: Buddhist-country-records; By Fa-hian, the Sakya of the Sung (Dynasty) [Date, 400 A.D]. This work is an extract of the book “Buddhi...

Chapter III

This country is prosperous and rich (happy); the people are very wealthy, and all without exception honour the law (of Buddha). They use religious music for mutual entertainment. The body of priests number even several myriads, principally belonging to the Great Vehicle. They all have food provided for them (church-food, commons); the people live here and there. Before their house doors they raise little towers, the least about twenty feet high. There are priests’ houses for the entertainment of foreign priests and for providing them with what they need. The ruler of the country lodged Fa-hian and the rest in a sangharama. The name of the sangharama was Gomati. This is a temple of the Great Vehicle with three thousand priests, who assemble to eat at the sound of the ghanta. On entering the dining-hall, their carriage is grave and demure, and they take their seats in regular order. All of them keep silence; there is no noise with their eating-bowls; when the attendants (men) give more food, they are not allowed to speak to one another, but only to inake signs with the hand. Hwui-king, Tao-ching, Hwui-ta set out in advance towards the Kie-sha country, hut Fa-hian and the rest, desiring to see the image-procession, remained three months and some days. In this country there are fourteen great not counting the little ones. From the first day of the fourth month.they sweep and water the thoroughfares within the city and decorate the streets. Above the city gate they stretch a great awning and use every kind of adornment. This is where the king and the queen and court ladies take their place. The Gomati priests, as they belong to the Great Vehicle, which is principally honoured by the king, first of all take their images in procession. About three or four li from the city they make a four-wheeled image-car about thirty feet high, in appearance like a moving palace, adorned with the seven precious substances. They fix upon it streamers of silk and canopy curtains. The figure is placed in the car with two Bodhisattvas as companions, whilst the Devas attend on them; all kinds of polished ornaments made of gold and silver hang suspended in the air. When the image is a hundred paces from the gate, the king takes off his royal cap, and changing his clothes for new ones, proceeds barefooted, with flowers and incense in his hand, from the city, followed by his attendants. On meeting the image, he bows down his head and worships at its feet, scattering the flowers and burning the incense. On entering the city, the queen and court ladies from above the gate-tower scatter about all kinds of flowers and throw them down in wild profusion. So splendid are the arrangements for worship.

The cars are all different, and each has a day for its image-procession. They begin on the first day of the fourth month and go on to the fourteenth day, when the processions end. The processions ended, the king and queen then return to the palace.

Seven or eight li to the west of the city there is a sangharama called the Royal-new-temple. It was eighty years in finishing, and only after three kings (was it completed. It is perhaps twenty chang in height (290 feet). It is adorned with carving and inlaid work, and covered with gold and silver. Above the roof all kinds of jewels combine to perfect it. Behind the tower there is a hall of Buddha, magnificent and very beautiful. The beams, pillars, doors, and window-frames are all gold-plated. Moreover there are priests’ apartments, also very splendid, and elegantly adorned beyond power of description. The kings of the six countries east of the Ling give many of their most valuable precious jewels (this monastery), being seldom used (for personal adornment), [or, they seldom give things of common use].

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