Page 5 of 33
NOTES
(1) An account is given of the kingdom of Shen-shen in the 96th of the
Books of the first Han dynasty, down to its becoming a dependency of
China, about B.C. 80. The greater portion of that is now accessible
to the English reader in a translation by Mr. Wylie in the "Journal
of the Anthropological Institute," August, 1880. Mr. Wylie
says:—"Although we may not be able to identify Shen-shen with
certainty, yet we have sufficient indications to give an appropriate
idea of its position, as being south of and not far from lake Lob."
He then goes into an exhibition of those indications, which I need not
transcribe. It is sufficient for us to know that the capital city
was not far from Lob or Lop Nor, into which in lon. 38d E. the Tarim
flows. Fa-Hsien estimated its distance to be 1500 le from T'un-hwang.
He and his companions must have gone more than twenty-five miles a day
to accomplish the journey in seventeen days.
(2) This is the name which Fa-Hsien always uses when he would speak
of China, his native country, as a whole, calling it from the great
dynasty which had ruled it, first and last, for between four and five
centuries. Occasionally, as we shall immediately see, he speaks of
"the territory of Ts'in or Ch'in," but intending thereby only the
kingdom or Ts'in, having its capital, as described in the first note
on the last chapter, in Ch'ang-gan.
(3) So I prefer to translate the character {.} (sang) rather than by
"priests." Even in Christianity, beyond the priestly privilege
which belongs to all believers, I object to the ministers of any
denomination or church calling themselves or being called "priests;"
and much more is the name inapplicable to the sramanas or bhikshus of
Buddhism which acknowledges no God in the universe, no soul in man,
and has no services of sacrifice or prayer in its worship. The only
difficulty in the use of "monks" is caused by the members of the
sect in Japan which, since the middle of the fifteenth century,
has abolished the prohibition against marrying on the part of its
ministers, and other prohibitions in diet and dress. Sang and sang-kea
represent the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members,
and empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit
persons to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the
Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the communio sanctorum, or
the Buddhist order. The name is used by our author of the monks
collectively or individually as belonging to the class, and may be
considered as synonymous with the name sramana, which will immediately
claim our attention.
(4) Meaning the "small vehicle, or conveyance." There are in
Buddhism the triyana, or "three different means of salvation, i.e. of
conveyance across the samsara, or sea of transmigration, to the shores
of nirvana. Afterwards the term was used to designate the different
phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma passed, known
as the mahayana, hinayana, and madhyamayana." "The hinayana is the
simplest vehicle of salvation, corresponding to the first of the three
degrees of saintship. Characteristics of it are the preponderance of
active moral asceticism, and the absence of speculative mysticism and
quietism." E. H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.
(5) The name for India is here the same as in the former chapter and
throughout the book,—T'een-chuh ({.} {.}), the chuh being pronounced,
probably, in Fa-Hsien's time as tuk. How the earliest name for India,
Shin-tuk or duk=Scinde, came to be changed into Thien-tuk, it
would take too much space to explain. I believe it was done by the
Buddhists, wishing to give a good auspicious name to the fatherland of
their Law, and calling it "the Heavenly Tuk," just as the Mohammedans
call Arabia "the Heavenly region" ({.} {.}), and the court of China
itself is called "the Celestial" ({.} {.}).
(6) Sraman may in English take the place of Sramana (Pali, Samana;
in Chinese, Sha-man), the name for Buddhist monks, as those who have
separated themselves from (left) their families, and quieted their
hearts from all intrusion of desire and lust. "It is employed, first,
as a general name for ascetics of all denominations, and, secondly, as
a general designation of Buddhistic monks." E. H., pp. 130, 131.
(7) Tartar or Mongolian.
(8) Woo-e has not been identified. Watters ("China Review," viii.
115) says:—"We cannot be far wrong if we place it in Kharaschar, or
between that and Kutscha." It must have been a country of considerable
size to have so many monks in it.
(9) This means in one sense China, but Fa-Hsien, in his use of the
name, was only thinking of the three Ts'in states of which I have
spoken in a previous note; perhaps only of that from the capital of
which he had himself set out.
(10) This sentence altogether is difficult to construe, and Mr.
Watters, in the "China Review," was the first to disentangle more than
one knot in it. I am obliged to adopt the reading of {.} {.} in the
Chinese editions, instead of the {.} {.} in the Corean text. It seems
clear that only one person is spoken of as assisting the travellers,
and his name, as appears a few sentences farther on, was Foo Kung-sun.
The {.} {.} which immediately follows the surname Foo {.}, must be
taken as the name of his office, corresponding, as the {.} shows, to
that of le maitre d'hotellerie in a Roman Catholic abbey. I was once
indebted myself to the kind help of such an officer at a monastery in
Canton province. The Buddhistic name for him is uddesika=overseer. The
Kung-sun that follows his surname indicates that he was descended from
some feudal lord in the old times of the Chow dynasty. We know indeed
of no ruling house which had the surname of Foo, but its adoption by
the grandson of a ruler can be satisfactorily accounted for; and
his posterity continued to call themselves Kung-sun, duke or lord's
grandson, and so retain the memory of the rank of their ancestor.
(11) Whom they had left behind them at T'un-hwang.
(12) The country of the Ouighurs, the district around the modern
Turfan or Tangut.
(13) Yu-teen is better known as Khoten. Dr. P. Smith gives (p. 11) the
following description of it:—"A large district on the south-west
of the desert of Gobi, embracing all the country south of Oksu and
Yarkand, along the northern base of the Kwun-lun mountains, for more
than 300 miles from east to west. The town of the same name, now
called Ilchi, is in an extensive plain on the Khoten river, in lat.
37d N., and lon. 80d 35s E. After the Tungani insurrection against
Chinese rule in 1862, the Mufti Haji Habeeboolla was made governor of
Khoten, and held the office till he was murdered by Yakoob Beg, who
became for a time the conqueror of all Chinese Turkestan. Khoten
produces fine linen and cotton stuffs, jade ornaments, copper, grain,
and fruits." The name in Sanskrit is Kustana. (E. H., p. 60).
Yu-teen is a pleasant and prosperous kingdom, with a numerous and flourishing population. The inhabitants all profess our Law, and join together in its religious music for their enjoyment.(1) The monks amount to several myriads, most of whom are students of the mahayana.(2) They all receive their food from the common store.(3) Throughout the country the houses of the people stand apart like (separate) stars, and each family has a small tope(4) reared in front of its door. The smallest of these may be twenty cubits high, or rather more.(5) They make (in the monasteries) rooms for monks from all quarters,(5) the use of which is given to travelling monks who may arrive, and who are provided with whatever else they require.
