[Footnote 2:  Less is known of Kan Ying than of Chang K’een.  Being sent in A.D. 88 by his patron Pan Chao on an embassy to the Roman empire, he only got as far as the Caspian sea, and returned to China.  He extended, however, the knowledge of his countrymen with regard to the western regions.]

[Footnote 3:  “The precious Buddha,” “the precious Law,” and “the precious Monkhood”; Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the whole being equivalent to Buddhism.]

CHAPTER VIII

Woo-chang, or Udyana—­Traces of Buddha

After crossing the river, the travellers immediately came to the kingdom of Woo-chang, which is indeed a part of North India.  The people all use the language of Central India, “Central India” being what we should call the “Middle Kingdom.”  The food and clothes of the common people are the same as in that Central Kingdom.  The Law of Buddha is very flourishing in Woo-chang.  They call the places where the monks stay for a time or reside permanently Sangharamas; and of these there are in all five hundred, the monks being all students of the hinayana.  When stranger bhikshus [1] arrive at one of them, their wants are supplied for three days, after which they are told to find a resting-place for themselves.

There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he came at once to this country, and that here he left a print of his foot, which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder on the subject.  It exists, and the same thing is true about it, at the present day.  Here also are still to be seen the rock on which he dried his clothes, and the place where he converted the wicked dragon.  The rock is fourteen cubits high, and more than twenty broad, with one side of it smooth.

Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and Tao-ching went on ahead towards the place of Buddha’s shadow in the country of Nagara; but Fa-hien and the others remained in Woo-chang, and kept the summer retreat.  That over, they descended south, and arrived in the country of Soo-ho-to.

[Footnote 1:  Bhikshu is the name for a monk as “living by alms,” a mendicant.  All bhikshus call themselves Sramans.  Sometimes the two names are used together by our author.]

CHAPTER IX

Soo-ho-to—­Legends of Buddha

In that country also Buddhism is flourishing.  There is in it the place where Sakra, [1] Ruler of Devas, in a former age, tried the Bodhisattva, by producing a hawk in pursuit of a dove, when the Bodhisattva cut off a piece of his own flesh, and with it ransomed the dove.  After Buddha had attained to perfect wisdom, and in travelling about with his disciples arrived at this spot, he informed them that this was the place where he ransomed the dove with a piece of his own flesh.  In this way the people of the country became aware of the fact, and on the spot reared a tope, adorned with layers of gold and silver plates.