As an instance of his unreliability they refer to his account of the Buddhism of Khoten, whereas it is well-known, they say, that the Khoteners from ancient times till now have been Mohammedans;—­as if they could have been so one hundred and seventy years before Mohammed was born, and two hundred twenty-two years before the year of the Hegira!  And this is criticism in China.  The catalogue was ordered by the K’ien-lung emperor in 1722.  Between three and four hundred of the “Great Scholars” of the empire were engaged on it in various departments, and thus egregiously ignorant did they show themselves of all beyond the limits of their own country, and even of the literature of that country itself.

Much of what Fa-hien tells his readers of Buddhist miracles and legends is indeed unreliable and grotesque; but we have from him the truth as to what he saw and heard.

In concluding this introduction I wish to call attention to some estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world which have become current, believing, as I do, that the smallest of them is much above what is correct.

In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes (1854), General Cunningham says:  “The Christians number about two hundred and seventy millions; the Buddhists about two hundred and twenty-two millions, who are distributed as follows:  China one hundred and seventy millions, Japan twenty-five millions, Anam fourteen millions, Siam three millions, Ava eight millions, Nepal one million, and Ceylon one million.”  In his article on M.J.  Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire’s “Le Bouddha et sa Religion,” republished in his “Chips from a German workshop,” vol. i. (1868), Professor Max Mueller says, “The young prince became the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand years, is still professed by four hundred and fifty-five millions of human beings,” and he appends the following note:  “Though truth is not settled by majorities, it would be interesting to know which religion counts at the present moment the largest numbers of believers.  Berghaus, in his ‘Physical Atlas,’ gives the following division of the human race according to religion:  ’Buddhists 31.2 per cent., Christians 30.7, Mohammedans 15.7, Brahmanists 13.4, Heathens 8.7, and Jews O.3.’  As Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China from the followers of Confucius and Laotse, the first place on the scale belongs really to Christianity.  It is difficult in China to say to what religion a man belongs, as the same person may profess two or three.  The emperor himself, after sacrificing according to the ritual of Confucius, visits a Tao-tse temple, and afterwards bows before an image of Fo in a Buddhist chapel.” ("Melanges Asiatiques de St. Petersbourg,” vol. ii. p. 374.)