On the beautiful Silk Road, there are many moving stories. Zhang Qian, Ban Chao, Liu Che... Countless great names are engraved on this slow and long road. During the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty 1700 years ago, there was a monk named Faxian who traveled thousands of miles through the Silk Road to Tianzhu to seek Buddhist classics, which lasted for thirteen years, bringing back many precious Buddhist classics to Han China, which had a huge impact on the exchange of Chinese and foreign cultures and the development of Buddhism in Middle-earth.
Faxian (337–423), a native of Wuyang County, Pingyang County, Zhao (present-day Xiangyuan County, Changzhi, Shanxi) after the Sixteen Kingdoms period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. According to the "Biography of a High Monk", Faxian was originally surnamed Gong and came from an ordinary peasant family. His three older brothers all died prematurely in childhood, and Faxian himself was frail and sickly since childhood. When he was three years old, Faxian became seriously ill, and Gong Shi and his wife had no choice but to send him to the local Xiantang Temple in search of survival.
Schematic map of the situation in the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty
At that time, the Western Jin Dynasty fell, the northern nomads claimed the emperor one after another, occupied the Central Plains, and the northern China was full of wars, and the people were not happy. In this turbulent era, Buddhism spread rapidly among Chinese people because it preached reincarnation of cause and effect, happiness in the next life, and spiritual liberation for the people living in hardship at that time. It was in this atmosphere that the young Dharma Xian entered the temple, and in 340, at the age of three, the Dharma Xian became a young Shami. In 354, when Faxian was seventeen years old, the Later Zhao Dynasty collapsed, turmoil broke out, and once, some refugees wanted to rob the grain of xiantang temple, and the other Shami scattered and fled, but Faxian alone stayed, and he said to the refugees who snatched the grain: "You need grain, just take it, but you are so poor in this life, that is, the evil consequence of not giving charity in the past life, not doing good, if you rob others of their grain, you will only be poorer in the next life." The refugees who had robbed the grain were ashamed to hear his words and abandoned them all. This incident made all the monks in the temple look at the Fa Xian with astonishment. In 357, at the age of 20, Dharmakaya received the Great Ordination and became a bhikkhu monk. The Dharmakaya who practiced at Xiantang Temple always followed the buddhist precepts religiously. Faxian spent decades at Xiantang Temple, and at the same time, there were several dynastic changes outside Xiantang Temple.
Sendo-ji Temple, where the Dharma Monk's house is located
The Former Qin Dynasty, founded by the Hu people, unified the entire northern region of China. Former Qin actively promoted Buddhism, and its capital Chang'an gradually became the center of Buddhist culture throughout the north. Chang'an's strong Buddhist atmosphere and countless great monks and masters gathered here make Fa Xian fascinated. As a result, Faxian left his hometown where he had lived for more than fifty years and arrived in Chang'an. During his more than ten years in Chang'an, Fa Xian visited senior monks and studied various Buddhist scriptures, and his own Buddhist practice was greatly improved, growing from an ordinary bhikkhu monk to a highly enlightened monk. However, in the process of practicing, the Fa Xian encountered a bottleneck. At that time, Buddhism was very prosperous, and believers were spread all over the country, but there was no systematic and complete set of rules and precepts to regulate its behavior. Since Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty sent an envoy to the Western Regions and opened up the Silk Road, exchanges between the Central Plains and the Western Regions have become increasingly frequent. Dharma Xian finally decided to travel west through the Silk Road to India, the birthplace of Buddhism, to seek the true meaning of the Dharma precepts. Perhaps it is the support of devout faith that makes an old man in his old age decide to bravely take this step and move towards a magnificent and mysterious distance.
Schematic map of the ancient Silk Roads
In 399, Faxian left Chang'an and began a long journey westward, accompanied by ten like-minded Zengren. A year later, Faxian and his party left the Yumen Pass in the west and entered the vast western region. Soon, Faxian and his party encountered the first difficulty on the westbound road, the Bailongdui Desert, and in his later travelogue "The Book of the Buddha", Faxian recorded the scene when he crossed the desert: "There are no birds on the top, no animals on the bottom, looking around in the vast and unpredictable." Only the sun is quasi-things, and the human bones are marked with the way ears. There are many hot wind evil ghosts, and when they encounter them, they will die, and they will show their fate and entrust their fate, and they will pass through dangers and difficulties. In such a harsh environment, after seventeen days and nights, the group finally crossed the desert and reached the small country in the western region, Shanshan (also known as Loulan). In his travelogue, Faxian described the customs and customs of Shanshan: "Its land is rugged and barren, and the clothes of the laymen are the same as those of Han China, but they are different from felt brown. His king could have more than 4,000 monks, who studied the Hinayana teachings. Dharma Xian also found that the people here practice Indian laws and living customs, and the monks in the country use Sanskrit as their exclusive language. These discoveries strengthened Fa Xian's will and determination to continue his westward journey to learn the scriptures.
White Dragon Pile desert landscape
Ruins of Loulan Ancient City
After a month's rest, he continued on his way, passing through the Yanyi Kingdom, where the people of the country "did not practice etiquette and righteousness, and the guests were very thin." After that, Fa Xian continued to move on to Khotan, which is an ideal place for travelers who have to trekked to shelter from the wind and rain. Faxian described the situation in the country: "The country is rich and happy, the people are prosperous, and they all follow the law and entertain each other with the music of the law." The monks are tens of thousands, and no matter how many multiplications are learned, they all have many food. The people of other countries live in the stars, and there are small towers in front of the house, and the smallest one can be two feet tall. Make a four-square monk's room, and provide the guest monks and the rest of the needs. "The time when the Dharma Xian arrived in Khotan coincided with the country's annual Buddha's Birthday (the legendary birthday of the Buddha), during which a grand Buddha statue parade ceremony was held, and this large-scale Ritual Buddha ceremony left a profound impact on the Fa Xian. At the local Qumodi Monastery in Khotan, the sixty-four-year-old Faxian discovered several Buddhist classics that were not found in the Central Plains. After three months of rest in Khotan, Faxian and the others continued to travel westward, passing through the sub-united country, and through the dangerous and "flying sand and gravel" green ridges in the country of Qi, the country of exhaustion, and the group finally arrived at their destination, Tianzhu .
Statue of King Khotan in the murals of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang
At the beginning of the fifth century, the Tianzhu region consisted of more than thirty large and small countries, and its territory included today's India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries. After entering Tianzhu, Faxian and his party first entered the Kingdom of Dzogchen and visited the statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva here. After continuing to the southwest, it came to the Indus Valley, where The Indus River records in Faxian's Book of the Buddha that the Indus River "has a difficult road, a dangerous cliff bank, its mountains are only rocky, the walls are thousands of feet, the eyes are dazzled, and if you want to enter, you will have nothing to do." There is water under it, named Xintou River, and the people of the past have chiseled stone passages to cast ladders, and there are seven hundred degrees. The degree ladder has been, and the suspension is suspended across the river. The banks of the river go together by eighty steps. According to the Nine Translations, Zhang Qian and Gan Ying of Han are not here. Soon after crossing the Indus River, Faxian and his party came to the kingdom of Uran and Suhe and began their activities in India to seek the true scriptures and visit the holy relics. The Dharma Manifest ceremony paid homage to the footprints of the Buddha in the Uchiha Kingdom, the place where the clothes were dried, and the place where the evil dragon was, the stupas of the many countries of Suhe, the Buddha of Gandhara country who "gave to people with his eyes" and his stupa, the Buddha's previous life "place where the buddha gave the tiger with his body" in the country of Zhu Cha luoguo, and the stupa built on his ruins. The Dharmakaya was originally to search for Buddhist precepts, but the Buddhist precepts in the Northern Tianzhu area were orally taught by local senior monks on behalf of others, and there are no scriptures to copy. Dharma decided to move on, to the birthplace of Buddhism, Central India, in search of the true precepts. However, there was a major diversion in Fa Xian's party, some of them left to return to the Central Plains, others went elsewhere to seek the Fa on their own, and only two monks, Hui Jing and Dao Quan, were left with Fa Xian.
The giant Maitreya of the Kingdom of Tuoli is imagined
At the end of 402, the sixty-six-year-old Fa Xian continued to move forward, came to the country of Naru, and paid homage to the famous "Shadow of the Buddha", where "the view is like the true form of the Buddha, the gold is good, the light is shining, and it turns closer and fainter, as if there is one." After Faxian and the other three left the exhausted country, nandu Xiaoxue mountain, accompanied by the high monk Hui jing died here, Faxian was very sad, after burying Huijing, Faxian and Daozhen continued to move forward, and finally entered the birthplace of Buddhism - the territory of Central India. Faxian introduced the area: "Cold and summer are harmonized, and there is no frost or snow. The people are happy, there is no household registration official law, only those who cultivate the king's land are losing land interests, they want to go, they want to live... There are no pigs or chickens in the country, no raw mouths are sold, and there are no slaughterers and drunkards in the city. For easy goods, shell teeth are used. "Because almost no historical record has survived, the ancient Indian account in the Book of the Buddha's Kingdom of The Buddha has become the most important historical material for the study of this region.
In 404, Dharma Xian arrived at the Acropolis of Kavilla, the birthplace of Shakyamuni, which had lost its former glory as the Buddha, "There are no kings and people in the city, even like the hills, only dozens of monks and households... The people are sparse, and the roads are afraid of white elephants and lions, and they must not be reckless. In 405, the lost Dharmakaya arrived at the capital of capricorn, Balenfer, where the most famous monk lived in the Mahayana monastery, named Rovo's private wife, who was very accomplished in Buddhism, and it was with his help that he finally found the Dharma precepts of his dreams. From 405 to 407, Dharmakaya lived in the Mahayana monastery of Balenfu, studying Sanskrit and copying sutras. Faxian copied a large number of Buddhist scriptures and treatises that had never been transmitted to Middle-earth, and he was like a baby waiting to be fed, tirelessly copying the scriptures, and eagerly absorbing the knowledge in the scriptures.
The Book of the Kingdom of Buddha
When Faxian was ready to return home with the copied scriptures, the fellow monk Dao was reluctant to return to China, so Faxian had to embark on the return journey alone, when he was seventy years old. At this time, Fa Xian was old and it was difficult to withstand the arduous trek by land, and he finally decided to choose the sea route to return to China. On his way home, Hexian came to the Tama Lydi kingdom at the eastern tip of the Ganges Delta, where he lived for two years, copied a large number of Buddhist scriptures, and learned to draw Buddha statues. In 409, Dharma Xian left the Kingdom of Tama Lydhi and sailed to the Lion Kingdom (present-day Sri Lanka) in the Indian Ocean, where he found many precious precepts in the Fearless Mountain Monastery and stayed for another two years to study and copy these scriptures.
The Dauntless Mountain Temple in Sri Lanka
By 411, a 12-year journey to learn the sutras had enabled him to find the most complete precepts in the Buddhist world. Since then, Fa Xian has obtained all the true scriptures and has finally officially embarked on the road back. In August of the same year, Fa Xian returned from a merchant ship to Middle-earth, at the age of 74. The weather at sea was unpredictable, "on the second day of the east, it was a strong wind, and the ship leaked", and Faxian had to throw his belongings into the water, but he vowed to die and did not want to discard the true scriptures he had worked so hard to obtain. Later, the ship reached the kingdom of Yebati, rested, and set off again five months later. After several days of sailing, the ship encountered another storm, and the Brahmin merchants on board gathered and prepared to throw the Dharma into the sea as a tribute to the god of the sea. They believed that the ship's misfortune was caused by the infidel from China on board. At this time, a Middle-earth merchant stepped forward, and the protection law was comprehensive. He said to these people, "Ru is now this bhikkhu, and he is also coming down with me!" No, bento kill me! Ru Qi descended to this bhikkhu, and I went to the Han Dynasty, and when I spoke to the king, Ru Ye. The King of Han China also believed in Buddhism and was a bhikkhu monk. The Brahmin merchant on the ship knew what was at stake and gave up plotting to kill the Dharma, and a fatal crisis was resolved. After three months of sailing, the ship finally arrived in Middle-earth, when the Fa Xian was 75 years old. Faxian's sailing experience has left a precious record for the maritime history of China and even the world.
Fa Xian traveled west to learn the scriptures, traveled through more than 30 countries on the way, lasted 13 years, and finally returned. He brought back twelve books, more than sixty volumes, and millions of words. In order to complete the task of translating the classics, he did not return to Chang'an, which was severely damaged by the war, but went to Jiankang (present-day Nanjing), the capital of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. At the dojo monastery here, Dharma Xian and the buddhist Monk Buddha Padmasambhava from Nepal translated the scriptures together, and the translation of the western texts greatly enriched the content of the Middle-earth Buddhist Vinaya and made great contributions to the rectification of the Chinese Buddhist precepts. In 414, Faxian left the Dojo Temple and went to practice at the Xin Monastery in Jiangling, Jingzhou, where faxian wrote one of the most important works of his life, the Book of the Buddha's Kingdom, in which he wrote all his 13 years of westward journey to seek the Dharma. In 423, Fa Xian died in this monastery at the age of eighty-six.
Schematic diagram of the route taken by the Fa Xian
Faxian was not only an outstanding Buddhist scholar, traveler, and translator, but also a great adventurer and pioneer, and it was his great exploration that enriched the geographical knowledge of the Chinese people, expanded their horizons, triggered the climax of the westward journey of Xuanzang and others to seek the Dharma, and promoted friendly exchanges between China and South Asia and other places. Faxian's "Records of the Buddha's Kingdom" has been passed down from generation to generation, and has been translated into English, French, Indian, Japanese and other multinational versions, leaving precious relics for the historical process of ancient Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges.
Shanxi Xiangyuan Xiantang Mountain Law shows a bronze statue
Graphic | National History of China