Is celebrated in Chinese history as one of the greatest opponents of Buddhism. He collected all the objections to it in 10 books and warned his son against it on his death bed. Giles, Biog. Dict. 589.
An important minister and apparently a man of talent but of ungovernable and changeable temper. In 639 he obtained the Emperor's leave to become a priest but soon left his monastery. The Emperor ordered him to be canonized under the name Pure but Narrow. Giles, Biog. Dict. 722. The monk Fa-Lin
also attacked the views of Fu I in two treatises which have been incorporated in the Chinese Tripitaka. See Nanjio, Cat. Nos. 1500, 1501.
[644] Subsequently a story grew up that his soul had visited hell during a prolonged fainting fit after which he recovered and became a devout Buddhist. See chap. XI of the Romance called Hsi-yu-chi, a fantastic travesty of Hsüan Chuang's travels, and Wieger, Textes Historiques, p. 1585.
This name has been transliterated in an extraordinary number of ways. See B.E.F.E.O. 1905, pp. 424-430. Giles gives Hsüan Chuang in his Chinese Dictionary, but Hsüan Tsang in his Biographical Dictionary. Probably the latter is more correct. Not only is the pronunciation of the characters variable, but the character