IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.8 |
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Citation Information
CHAPTER IV.
OTHER PILGRIMS IN THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES.
The narratives of the sacred places of Buddha have stimulated many other pious Chinese besides FA-HIEN to visit the distant India, braving all the dangers and hardships on the way thither. As we may conclude from the scattered and sparse tradition', most of these pilgrims have taken the road of the Ts`ung-ling. Most of these narratives are only to be found in biographies, it is true , and therefore the remarks on roads which have been saved to our time, are, as a rule, very poor. Only if compared with the corresponding statements of Fa-hien and the contemporary Chinese Annals may such remarks be of some use. (Cf. also P1. I.)
1. CHIH-MENG.
As the first one CHIH-MENG 351. is mentioned. He was a native of .Hsin feng in
the neighbourhood of Hsi-an-fu. In the year 404 he called on 15 other priests to take part in the pilgrimage. After a journey full of hardships, which took him from Yang-kuan via Shan-shan on the Lop-nor and Kucha to Khotan, he soon entered the Tsung-ling. Of this part of his journey we read in the translation of CHAVANNES 2:
A partir de Yu-tien (Khotan), il marcha vers le sud-ouest pendant deux mille li. Quand on commença l'ascension des Ts ong-ling (Monts des Oignons), neuf de ses compagnons s'en retournèrent. (Tche-)mong, avec ceux qui restaient, marcha de l'avant pendant mille sept cents li et arriva au royaume de Po-louen.3 Son compagnon, l'Hindou Tao-song hi, IC, cessa alors de vivre; quand on voulut
l'incinérer, soudain on ne put plus trouver, où était son corps. (Tche-)mong, soupirant de tristesse, s'émerveilla de ce prodige.
Alors, rassemblant toutes les forces, il avança. Lui et les quatre hommes qui restaient franchirent ensemble des montagnes neigeuses, traversèrent le fleuve Sin-t`eou (Indus) et arrivèrent au royaume de Ki pin (Cachemire). Dans le royaume il y a cinq cents lo-han (arhats), qui sans cesse vont au lac A-neou-ta (Anavatapta) 4 et en reviennent. Il y eut un lo-han (arhat) de grande vertu qui, voyant arriver (Tche-) mong, en fut joyeux; (Tche-)mong l'interrogea sur le monde et il lui expliqua ce qui concerne les quatre Fils du Ciel 5; le récit en est fait au complet dans la relation de (Tche)-mong.
Cf. CHAVANNES, Note sur divers ouvrages relatifs à l'Inde qui furent publiés en Chine avant l'époque des Trang. Bull. de l'Ecole franç. d'Extrême-Orient, Vol. III, 1903, p. 43o et seq.
2 Loc. cit., p. 431 et seq.
3 Po-lun is the ancient Bolor, the modern Gilgit-Valley.
4 Chavannes has not found that the Lake of A-nou-ta or Anavatapta is the Manasarovar.
5 Cf. Vol. I, p. 81 et seq.
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