Faxian (法顯 ; 337 CE – c. 422 CE), also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
to
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
to acquire
Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...
. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, he visited sacred Buddhist sites in
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
,
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
between 399 and 412 CE, of which 10 years were spent in India.
He described his journey in his travelogue, ''A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms'' (''Foguo Ji'' 佛國記). His memoirs are notable independent record of early Buddhism in India. He took with him a large number of Sanskrit texts, whose translations influenced East Asian Buddhism and which provide a ''
terminus ante quem
''Terminus post quem'' ("limit after which", sometimes abbreviated to TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ("limit before which", abbreviated to TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items..
A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest da ...
'' for many historical names, events, texts, and ideas therein.
[Faxian](_blank)
''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2019.
Biography
![Faxian zhuan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Faxian_zhuan.JPG)
Faxian was born in Shanxi in the 4th-century during the reign of the Eastern Jin dynasty. His original family name was Gong (), and his birth name was Sehi. He later adopted the name Faxian, which literally means "Splendor of Dharma".
In 399 CE, about age 60, Faxian was among the earliest attested pilgrims to India. He set out with nine others to locate sacred
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
texts.
Jaroslav Průšek
Jaroslav Průšek (1906–1980) was a Czech sinologist. He was considered as the founder of the Prague School of Sinology. He trained as an historian, with an interest in the history of ancient Greece, Byzantium and Roman Empire at Charles Univer ...
and Zbigniew Słupski, eds., ''Dictionary of Oriental Literatures: East Asia'' (Charles Tuttle, 1978): 35.[Tansen Sen (2006), "The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing", ''Education About Asia'', Volume 11, Number 3, pp. 24–31] He visited India in the early fifth century. He is said to have walked all the way from China across the icy desert and rugged mountain passes. He entered India from the northwest and reached
Pataliputra
Pataliputra (IAST: ), adjacent to modern-day Patna, was a city in ancient India, originally built by Magadha ruler Ajatashatru in 490 BCE as a small fort () near the Ganges river.. Udayin laid the foundation of the city of Pataliputra at the ...
. He took back with him a large number of Sanskrit Buddhist texts and images sacred to Buddhism. Upon his return to China, he is also credited with translating these Sanskrit texts into Chinese.
Faxian's visit to India occurred during the reign of
Chandragupta II
Chandragupta II (r.c. 376-415), also known by his title Vikramaditya, as well as Chandragupta Vikramaditya, was the third ruler of the Gupta Empire in India, and was one of the most powerful emperors of the Gupta dynasty.
Chandragupta continue ...
. He entered the Indian subcontinent through the northwest. His memoir describe his 10 year stay in India. He visited the major sites associated with the Buddha, as well the renowned centers of education and Buddhist monasteries. He visited Kapilvastu (
Lumbini
Lumbinī ( ne, लुम्बिनी, IPA=ˈlumbini , "the lovely") is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal. It is the place where, according to Buddhist tradition, Queen Mahamayadevi gave birth ...
),
Bodh Gaya
Bodh Gaya is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as it is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment ( pi, ...
, Benares (
Varanasi
Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world.
*
*
*
* The city has a syncretic t ...
),
Shravasti
Shravasti ( sa, श्रावस्ती, translit=Śrāvastī; pi, 𑀲𑀸𑀯𑀢𑁆𑀣𑀻, translit=Sāvatthī) is a city and district headquarter of Shravasti district in Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. It was the capital of the an ...
, and
Kushinagar
Kushinagar ( Hindustani: or ; Pali: ; Sanskrit: ) is a town in the Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is an important and popular Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha attained ''parinirvana''.
Etymo ...
, all linked to events in Buddha's life. Faxian learned Sanskrit, and collected Indian literature from Pataliputra (Patna),
Oddiyana
(also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'' or ''Udyāna'', Sanskrit: ओड्डियान, उड्डियान, उड्डायान, उद्यान; , , mn, Үржин ''urkhin''), was a small region in early medieval India, ...
, and
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...
in
Gandhara
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...
. His memoir mentions the Hinayana (Theravada) and emerging Mahayana traditions, as well as the splintering and dissenting Theravada sub-traditions in 5th-century Indian Buddhism. Before he had begun his journey back to China, he had amassed a large number of Sanskrit texts of his times.
On Faxian's way back to China, after a two-year stay in
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, a violent storm drove his ship onto an island, probably
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. After five months there, Faxian took another ship for southern China; but, again, it was
blown off course
To be blown off course in the sailing ship era meant be to diverted by unexpected winds, getting lost possibly to shipwreck or to a new destination. In the ancient world, this was especially a great danger before the maturation of the Maritime S ...
and he ended up landing at
Mount Lao
Mount Lao, or Laoshan (), is a mountain located near the East China Sea on the southeastern coastline of the Shandong Peninsula in China. The mountain is culturally significant due to its long affiliation with Taoism and is often regarded as on ...
in what is now
Shandong
Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region.
Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...
in northern China, east of the city of
Qingdao
Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...
. He spent the rest of his life translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. These were influential to the history of Chinese Buddhism that followed.
Faxian wrote a book on his travels, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the
Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
as they were, at the turn of the 5th century CE. He wrote about cities like
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...
, Pataliputra,
Mathura
Mathura () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Mathura district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located approximately north of Agra, and south-east of Delhi; about from the town of Vrindavan, and from Govardhan. ...
, and
Kannauj
Kannauj ( Hindustani pronunciation: ənːɔːd͡ʒ is a city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is a corrupted form of the class ...
in
Madhyadesha
Madhyadesha or the "middle country" was one of the five sub-divisions of ancient India that extended from the upper reaches of the Ganga and the Yamuna to the confluence of the two rivers at Prayaga. The territory of middle region constitutes a co ...
. He also wrote that inhabitants of Madhyadesha eat and dress like Chinese people. He declared Patliputra to be a prosperous city.
He returned in 412 and settled in what is now
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
. In 414, he wrote (or dictated) ''Foguoji'' (''A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms''; also known as ''Faxian's Account''). He spent the next decade, until his death, translating the Buddhist
sutra
''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aph ...
s he had brought with him from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
Legge's biographical notes on Faxian
The following is the introduction to a 19th-century translation of Faxian's work by
James Legge
James Legge (; 20 December 181529 November 1897) was a Scottish linguist, missionary, sinologist, and translator
who was best known as an early translator of Classical Chinese texts into English. Legge served as a representative of the London ...
. The speculations of Legge below, such as Faxian visiting India at the age of 25, have been discredited by later scholarship. His introduction provides some useful biographical information about Faxian:
Faxian memoir
![Faxian at Daishō-in Temple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Faxian_at_Daish%C5%8D-in_Temple.jpg)
Faxian's memoirs are an independent record of the society and culture of places he visited, particularly ancient India around 400 CE. His translations of Sanskrit texts he took with him to China are an important means to date texts, named individuals and Buddhist traditions. They provide a ''terminus ante quem'' for many historical names, manuscripts, events, and ideas therein.
He noted that central Asian cities such as Khotan were Buddhist, with the clergy reading Indian manuscripts in Indian languages. The local community revered the monks. In Taxila (now in Pakistan), states Faxian, he mentions a flourishing Buddhist community midst non-Buddhists. He describes elaborate rituals and public worship ceremonies, with support of the king, in the honor of the Buddha in India and
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. He left India about 409 from Tamralipti – a port he states to be on its eastern coast. However, some of his Chinese companion pilgrims who came with him on the journey decided to stay in India.
;Impressions of India
; Struggles at sea during the return journey through Java
Works
* James Legge (1886, trans.), ''A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fâ-hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline'', Asian Educational Services, 1993;
* Herbert A. Giles (1877, trans.), ''Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms: Translated From the Chinese'', Cornell University Library (June 25, 2009);
See also
*
Sects of Buddhism
*
Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
Buddhism entered Han China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE. The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE via the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory bordering the ...
*
Chinese Buddhism
Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...
*
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...
*
Yijing (monk)
Yijing (635–713CE), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as or , born Zhang Wenming, was a Tang dynasty, Tang-era Chinese people, Chinese bhikkhu, Buddhist monk famed as a traveller and translator. His account of his travels is an imp ...
*
Song Yun
Song Yun () was a Chinese Buddhist monk who was sent by the pious Buddhist Empress Hu (, ?-528 CE) of the Northern Wei Dynasty with other monastic companions including Hui Zheng, Fa Li and Zheng (or Wang) Fouze, to northwestern India to search ...
*
Hyecho
Hyecho (; 704–787), Sanskrit: Prajñāvikrama; pinyin: Hui Chao, was a Buddhist monk from Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.
Hyecho studied esoteric Buddhism in Tang China, initially under Śubhakarasiṃha and then under the famous In ...
*
Fa Hien Cave
Fa Hien Cave, also Pahiyangala Cave, is situated in the district of Kalutara, Western Province, Sri Lanka and according to a rural legend, named after an alleged resident during historical times, namely Buddhist monk Faxian (also Fa-Hien, or Fa ...
* ''
Great Tang Records on the Western Regions
The ''Great Tang Records on the Western Regions'' is a narrative of Xuanzang's nineteen-year journey from Chang'an in central China to the Western Regions of Chinese historiography. The Buddhist scholar traveled through the Silk Road regions of ...
''
* ''
A Record of Buddhist Practices Sent Home from the Southern Sea
''A Record of Buddhist Practices Sent Home from the Southern Sea'', also known as the ''Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan'' and by other translations, is a Buddhist travelogue by the Tang Chinese monk Yijing detailing his twenty five-year stay in India ...
''
* ''
Wang ocheonchukguk jeon
''Wang ocheonchukguk jeon''往 means ''go to''. 五 means ''five''. 天竺 means ''India'', originally come of Sindhu or Hindu. 國 means ''lands'' or ''countries''. 傳 means ''diary''. (; pinyin: ''wǎng wǔ tiānzhú guó zhuàn''; "An account ...
''
* ''
Journey to the West
''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the greatest Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popu ...
''
References
Bibliography
*
Beal, Samuel
Samuel Beal (27 November 1825, in Devonport, Devon – 20 August 1889, in Greens Norton, Northamptonshire) was an Oriental scholar, and the first Englishman to translate directly from the Chinese the early records of Buddhism, thus illuminating ...
. 1884. ''Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang''. 2 vols. Translated by Samuel Beal. London. 1884. Reprint: Delhi. Oriental Books Reprint Corporation. 1969. (Also contains a translation of Faxian's book on pp. xxiii–lxxxiii). Volume
1 ;
Volume 2 Volume Two, Volume 2, Volume II or Vol. II may refer to:
* '' Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life'', a 1998 album by rapper Jay-Z
* ''Volume 2'' (Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass album), 1963
* '' Vol. 2 (Breaking Through)'', by The West Coast Pop Art Experimenta ...
.
*Hodge, Stephen (2009 & 2012)
"The Textual Transmission of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana-sutra" lecture at the University of Hamburg
*
Legge, James 1886.
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline''. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Reprint: New York, Paragon Book Reprint Corp. 1965.
* Rongxi, Li; Dalia, Albert A. (2002).
The Lives of Great Monks and Nuns', Berkeley, Calif.: Numata Center for Translation and Research
* Sen, T. (2006)
"The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing" ''
Education About Asia
''Education About Asia'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Association for Asian Studies especially for middle-school and university classroom teachers. The journal covers the entire field of Asian studies, including cl ...
'' 11 (3), 24–33
* Weerawardane, Prasani (2009)
"Journey to the West: Dusty Roads, Stormy Seas and Transcendence" ''Biblioasia'' 5 (2), 14–18
*Jain, Sandhya, & Jain, Meenakshi (2011). ''The India they saw: Foreign accounts''. New Delhi: Ocean Books.
External links
*
*
Faxian and other Chinese pilgrims Columbia University Archives
,
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
''Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms (Complete HTML at web.archive.org)'' University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faxian
Chinese explorers
Chinese scholars of Buddhism
Sanskrit–Chinese translators
Jin dynasty (266–420) Buddhists
Liu Song Buddhist monks
Pilgrimage accounts
337 births
Chinese travel writers
Historiography of India
Explorers of India
422 deaths
Later Zhao Buddhist monks
Jin dynasty (266–420) translators
Liu Song translators
People from Changzhi
Writers from Shanxi
Later Qin Buddhist monks