A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Faxian

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СКАЧАТЬ kindly in his government. He was appointed governor or prefect of

       T'un-hwang by the king of "the northern Leang," in 400; and there he

       sustained himself, becoming by and by "duke of western Leang," till he

       died in 417.

       (16) "The river of sand;" the great desert of Kobi or Gobi; having

       various other names. It was a great task which the pilgrims had now

       before them—to cross this desert. The name of "river" in the Chinese

       misleads the reader, and he thinks of crossing it as of crossing

       a stream; but they had to traverse it from east to west. In his

       "Vocabulary of Proper Names," p. 23, Dr. Porter Smith says:—"It

       extends from the eastern frontier of Mongolia, south-westward to the

       further frontier of Turkestan, to within six miles of Ilchi, the

       chief town of Khoten. It thus comprises some twenty-three degrees

       of longitude in length, and from three to ten degrees of latitude

       in breadth, being about 2,100 miles in its greatest length. In some

       places it is arable. Some idea may be formed of the terror with

       which this 'Sea of Sand,' with its vast billows of shifting sands, is

       regarded, from the legend that in one of the storms 360 cities were

       all buried within the space of twenty-four hours." So also Gilmour's

       "Among the Mongols," chap. 5.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

ON TO SHEN-SHEN AND THENCE TO KHOTEN

       Table of Contents

      After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate of about 1500 le, (the pilgrims) reached the kingdom of Shen-shen,(1) a country rugged and hilly, with a thin and barren soil. The clothes of the common people are coarse, and like those worn in our land of Han,(2) some wearing felt and others coarse serge or cloth of hair;—this was the only difference seen among them. The king professed (our) Law, and there might be in the country more than four thousand monks,(3) who were all students of the hinayana.(4) The common people of this and other kingdoms (in that region), as well as the sramans,(5) all practise the rules of India,(6) only that the latter do so more exactly, and the former more loosely. So (the travellers) found it in all the kingdoms through which they went on their way from this to the west, only that each had its own peculiar barbarous speech.(7) (The monks), however, who had (given up the worldly life) and quitted their families, were all students of Indian books and the Indian language. Here they stayed for about a month, and then proceeded on their journey, fifteen days walking to the north-west bringing them to the country of Woo-e.(8) In this also there were more than four thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. They were very strict in their rules, so that sramans from the territory of Ts'in(9) were all unprepared for their regulations. Fa-Hsien, through the management of Foo Kung-sun, maitre d'hotellerie,(10) was able to remain (with his company in the monastery where they were received) for more than two months, and here they were rejoined by Pao-yun and his friends.(11) (At the end of that time) the people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner that Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards Kao-ch'ang,(12) hoping to obtain there the means of continuing their journey. Fa-Hsien and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight forward in a south-west direction. They found the country uninhabited as they went along. The difficulties which they encountered in crossing the streams and on their route, and the sufferings which they endured, were unparalleled in human experience, but in the course of a month and five days they succeeded in reaching Yu-teen.(13)

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