''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 The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou ...

detailing his twenty five-year stay in

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 ...

and

Srivijaya Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th t ...

between the years 671 and 695CE.

Name

The Chinese name ''Nánhǎi Jìguī Nèifǎ Zhuán'' literally means "An Account of the Inner Law Sent Home from the Southern Sea", in reference to Buddhism's idea of

dharma Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...

as a cosmic law and the Chinese name for the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

. The work has appeared in English under various translations of varying literalness, from ''Accounts of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Sea'' to Takakusu's ''Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago'' to ''Record of Buddhist Practices''.

Content

The book records Yijing's stay at

Nalanda Nalanda (, ) was a renowned ''mahavihara'' (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), India.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 ...

Mahāvihāra in North-eastern India, and describes the life and practices of the monks therein. It also provides geographical and religious information on countries in the South Sea area, of which there were more than ten, during the Tang dynasty. It recorded that, for example, Buddhism flourished in the countries of the South Sea, and most of these countries practiced

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

, but Buddhism in

Funan Funan (; km, ហ៊្វូណន, ; vi, Phù Nam, Chữ Hán: ) was the name given by Chinese cartographers, geographers and writers to an ancient Indianized state—or, rather a loose network of states ''(Mandala)''—located in mainla ...

had been eliminated after it was conquered. The book is divided into forty sections. Unlike his predecessor

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 ...

's travelogue, which gives descriptions of the area he visited, Yijing prefers to restrict itself to descriptions of the customs, rules, and regulations of Buddhism as it was practised in its homeland. His detailed account of monastic rules and practices is valuable for the study of Buddhism and Buddhist literature of the period as many of the sources he cited are now lost.

Editions

The first English translation was produced by Junjiro Takakusu in 1896.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Record of the Buddhist Religion As Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago Chinese prose texts Tang dynasty literature Travel books 7th-century Chinese books Chinese Buddhist texts

Name

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See also

References

External links