He does not hint at persecution though he once or twice mentions that the Brahmans were jealous of the Buddhists.  Neither does he indicate that any strong animosity prevailed between Maha and Hinayanists.  But the two parties were distinct and he notes which prevailed in each locality.  He left China by land and found the Hinayana prevalent at Shen-shen and Wu-i (apparently localities not far from Lob-Nor) but the Mahayana at Khotan.  Nearer India, in countries apparently corresponding to parts of Kashmir and Gilgit, the monks were numerous and all Hinayanist.  The same was the case in Udyana, and in Gandhara the Hinayanists were still in the majority.  In the Panjab both schools were prevalent but the Hinayana evidently strong.  In the district of Muttra the Law was still more flourishing, monasteries and topes were numerous and ample alms were given to the monks.  He states that the professors of the Abhidharma and Vinaya made offerings to those works, and the Mahayanists to the book Prajna-paramita, as well as to Manjusri and Kwan-shih-yin.  He found the country in which are the sacred sites of Sravasti, Kapilavastu and Kusinara sparsely inhabited and desolate, but this seems to have been due to general causes, not specially to the decay of religion.  He mentions that ninety-six[237] varieties of erroneous views are found among the Buddhists, which points to the existence of numerous but not acutely hostile sects and says that there still existed, apparently in Kosala, followers of Devadatta who recognized three previous Buddhas but not Sakyamuni.  He visited the birth-places of these three Buddhas which contained topes erected in their honour.

He found Magadha prosperous and pious.  Of its capital, Patna, he says “by the side of the topes of Asoka has been made a Mahayana monastery very grand and beautiful, there is also a Hinayana one, the two together containing 600 or 700 monks.”  It is probable that this was typical of the religious condition of Magadha and Bengal.  Both schools existed but the Mahayana was the more flourishing.  Many of the old sites, such as Rajagriha and Gaya, were deserted but there were new towns near them and Bodh Gaya was a place of pilgrimage with three monasteries.  In the district of Tamralipti (Tamluk) on the coast of Bengal were 22 monasteries.  As his principal object was to obtain copies of the Vinaya, he stayed three years in Patna seeking and copying manuscripts.  In this he found some difficulty, for the various schools of the Vinaya, which he says were divided by trivial differences only, handed down their respective versions orally.  He found in the Mahayanist monastery one manuscript of the Mahasanghika rules and considered it the most complete, but also took down the Sarvastivadin rules.