Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN
FA-HIEN
CHAPTER I
From Ch'ang-gan to the Sandy Desert
had been living in Ch'ang-gan.^ Deploring
the mutilated and imperfect state of the collection of
the Books of Discipline, in the second year of the
period Hwang-che, being the Ke-hae year of the cycle,^ he
entered into an engagement with Hwuy-king, Tao-ching,
Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei, that they should go to India and
seek for the Disciplinary Rules.
After starting from Ch'ang-gan, they passed through Lung,'
and came to the kingdom of K'een-kwei,* where they stopped
for the summer retreat. When that was over, they went forward
to the kingdom of Now-t*an, crossed the mountain of
Yang-low, and reached the emporium of Chang-yih.^ There
they found the country so much disturbed that travelling on
the roads was impossible for them. Its king, however, was
very attentive to them, kept them in his capital, and acted the
part of their danapati.®
\ Ch'ang-gan is still the name of the third year of the period Lung-gan of the
principal district (and its city) in the Eastern Ts'in, which was a.d. 399.
department of Se-gan, Shen-se. It had ^ Lung embraced the western part of
been the capital of the first empire of Shen-se and the eastern part of Kan-
Han (B.C. 202 A.D. 24), as it subse- suh. The name remains in Lung Chow,
quently was that of Suy (a.d. 589-618). in the extreme west of Shen-se.
* The period Hwang-che embraced * K'een-kwei was the second king of
from A.D. 399 to 414, being the greater " the Western Ts'in." Fa-hien would
portion of the reign of Yao Hing of the find him at his capital, somewhere in
After Ts'in, a powerful prince. He the present department of Lan-chow,
adopted Hwang-che for the style of his Kan-suh.
reign in 399, and the cyclical name of ^ Chang-yih is still the name of a disthat
year was Kang-tsze. It is not pos- trict in Kan-chow department, Kan-suh.
sible at this distance of time to explain, It is a long way north and west from
if it could be explained, how Fa-hien Lan-chow, and not far from the Great
came to say that Ke-hae was the second Wall. Its king at this time was, probayear
of the period. It seems most rea- blv. Twan-yeh of " the northern Leang."
sonable to suppose that he set out on * Dana is the name for religious
his pilgrimage in a.d. 399, the cycle charity, the first of the six paramitas, or
name of which was Ke-hae. In the means of attaining to nirvana; and a
" Memoirs of Eminent Monks " it is danapati is " one who practises dana
said that our author started in the and thereby crosses the sea of misery."
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