[Footnote 1:  Lo-e, or Rohi, or Afghanistan; only a portion of it can be intended.]

[Footnote 2:  We are now therefore in A.D. 404.]

CHAPTER XV

Sympathy of Monks with the Pilgrims

After they had crossed the river, there was a country named Pe-t’oo, where Buddhism was very flourishing, and the monks studied both the mahayana and hinayana.  When they saw their fellow-disciples from Ts’in passing along, they were moved with great pity and sympathy, and expressed themselves thus:  “How is it that these men from a border-land should have learned to become monks, and come for the sake of our doctrines from such a distance in search of the Law of Buddha?” They supplied them with what they needed, and treated them in accordance with the rules of the Law.

CHAPTER XVI

Condition and Customs of Central India

From this place they travelled southeast, passing by a succession of very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks, who might be counted by myriads.  After passing all these places, they came to a country named Ma-t’aou-lo.  They still followed the course of the P’oo-na river, on the banks of which, left and right, there were twenty monasteries, which might contain three thousand monks; and here the Law of Buddha was still more flourishing.  Everywhere, from the Sandy Desert, in all the countries of India, the kings had been firm believers in that Law.  When they make their offerings to a community of monks, they take off their royal caps, and along with their relatives and ministers, supply them with food with their own hands.  That done, the king has a carpet spread for himself on the ground, and sits down on it in front of the chairman;—­they dare not presume to sit on couches in front of the community.  The laws and ways, according to which the kings presented their offerings when Buddha was in the world, have been handed down to the present day.

All south from this is named the Middle Kingdom.  In it the cold and heat are finely tempered, and there is neither hoarfrost nor snow.  The people are numerous and happy; they have not to register their households, or attend to any magistrates and their rules; only those who cultivate the royal land have to pay a portion of the gain from it.  If they want to go they go; if they want to stay on, they stay.  The king governs without decapitation or other corporal punishments.  Criminals are simply fined, lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances of each case.  Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, they only have their right hands cut off.  The king’s body-guards and attendants all have salaries.  Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic.  The only exception is that of the Chandalas.  That is the name for those who are held to be wicked