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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

FA-HIEN.

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through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests on them both winter and summer. There are also among them venomous dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of snow and storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his life. The people of the country call the range by the name of 'The Snow mountains'. When (the travellers) had got through them, they were in North India, and immediately on entering its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called T`o-li .... The travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at the foot of the mountains, and) following the course of their range. The way was difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank exceedingly precipitous which rose up there, a hill -like wall of rock, i o 000 cubits from the base. When one approached the edge of it, his eyes became unsteady; and if he wished to go forward in the same direction, there was no place on which he could place his foot; and beneath were the waters of the river called the Indus. In former times men had chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its banks being there eighty paces apart ... After crossing the river, (the travellers) immediately came to the kingdom of Wu-ch`ang, which is indeed (a part) of

North India . . . .I

The principal Stations, distances in time , and directions which we have especially to remember, are the following :

I. From Khotan 25 days to Tzú-ho.

2. Thence 4 days south through the Ts ung-ling mountains and thence to Yü-mo (Yü-hui).

3. Thence 25 days among the hills to Chieh - ch` a situated in the midst of the

Ts ung-ling.

4. Thence westwards one month including the crossing of the Ts ung-ling and the Snow mountains, To-li in North India was reached.

5. Thence south-west 15 days within the mountains and finally crossing the Indus to Wu-ch`ang.

At the first sight these data seem to be sufficient for the sketching of the pilgrims' route on the map. KLAPROTH on his map in the Foe Kouë Ki makes it cross the flung-ling mountains in the Kara-korum Pass, then continue south-east-wards, east of the Shayok, and finally turn westwards to Ladak. RICHTHOFEN on his Pl. 9, China I, has drawn it from Khotan straight west to Tzú-ho, which is situated south of Yarkand. From that place he continues Fa-hien's route S. E. to the Kara-korum Pass, and thence further on the Saser road to Leh, where he makes it end, obviously in uncertainty of the pilgrims, further progress. On Richthofen's map Ts ung-ling is the same as the Kara-korum Range, whereas the range north of it is called » Westlicher Kwen-lun».

The problem would be easy, if we only knew what Fa-hien meant with his Ts ung-ling. The only thing that appears perfectly clear, and which Richthofen has pointed out, is that

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I JAMES LEGGE, 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 1886, p. 18 et seq. The names are changed in Wade's transcription. The literature regarding Fa-hien vide CURZON : The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Reprint from the Geogr. Journ. for July, August and September, 1896, p. 63. — VINCENT A. SMITH expresses the following opinion of Legge's translation: The latest translation, that of LEGGE, is on the whole the most serviceable • the author having had the advantage of using his predecessors' labours. The notes, however, leave much to be desired. The final translation of Fa-hien's Travels, equipped with an up-to-date commentary adequately fulfilling the requirements of both Chinese and Indian scholarship, has not yet appeared, and the production of such a work by a single writer is almost impossible.» The Early History of India, etc. Third Edition, Oxford 1914, p. 119.