Le Hâo,[15] the prefect of Tʽun-hwang, had supplied them with the means of crossing the desert (before them), in which there are many evil demons and hot winds. (Travellers) who encounter them perish all to a man. There is not a bird to be seen in the air above, nor an animal on the ground below. Though you look all round most earnestly to find where you can cross, you know not where to make your choice, the only mark and indication being the dry bones of the dead (left upon the sand).[16]
[1] Chʽang-gan is still the name of the principal district (and its city) in the department of Se-gan, Shen-se. It had been the capital of the first empire of Han (B.C. 202–A.D. 24), as it subsequently was that of Suy (A.D. 589–618). The empire of the eastern Tsin, towards the close of which Fâ-hien lived, had its capital at or near Nanking, and Chʽang-gan was the capital of the principal of the three Tsʽin kingdoms, which, with many other minor ones, maintained a semi-independence of Tsin, their rulers sometimes even assuming the title of emperor.
[2] The period Hwăng-che embraced from A.D. 399 to 414, being the greater portion of the reign of Yâo Hing of the After Tsʽin, a powerful prince. He adopted Hwăng-che for the style of his reign in 399, and the cyclical name of that year was Kăng-tsze. It is not possible at this distance of time to explain, if it could be explained, how Fâ-hien came to say that Ke-hâe was the second year of the period. It seems most reasonable to suppose that he set out on his pilgrimage in A.D. 399, the cycle name of which was Ke-hâe, as 二, the second year, instead of 一, the first, might easily creep into the text. In the ‘Memoirs of Eminent Monks’ it is said that our author started in the third year of the period Lung-gan of the eastern Tsin, which was A.D. 399.
[3] These, like Fâ-hien itself, are all what we might call ‘clerical’ names, appellations given to the parties as monks or Śramaṇas.
[4] The Buddhist tripiṭaka or canon consists of three collections, containing, according to Eitel (p. 150), ‘doctrinal aphorisms (or statements, purporting to be from Buddha himself); works on discipline; and works on metaphysics:’—called sûtra, vinaya, and abhidharma; in Chinese, king (經), leŭh (律), and lun (論), or texts, laws or rules, and discussions. Dr. Rhys Davids objects to the designation of ‘metaphysics’ as used of the abhidharma works, saying that ‘they bear much more the relation to “dharma” which “by-law” bears to “law” than that which “metaphysics” bears to “physics”’ (Hibbert Lectures, p. 49). However this be, it was about the vinaya works that Fâ-hien was chiefly concerned. He wanted a good code of the rules for the government of ‘the Order’ in all its internal and external relations.
[5] Lung embraced the western part of Shen-se and the eastern part of Kan-sŭh. The name remains in Lung Chow, in the extreme west of Shen-se.
[6] Kʽeen-kwei was the second king of ‘the Western Tsʽin.’ His family was of northern or barbarous origin, from the tribe of the Seen-pe, with the surname of Kʽeih-fuh. The first king was Kwo-jin, and received his appointment from the sovereign of the chief Tsʽin kingdom in 385. He was succeeded in 388 by his brother, the Kʽeen-kwei of the text, who was very prosperous in 398, and took the title of king of Tsʽin. Fâ-hien would find him at his capital, somewhere in the present department of Lan-chow, Kan-sŭh.
[7] Under varshâs or vashâvasâna (Pâli, vassa; Spence Hardy, vass), Eitel (p. 163) says:—‘One of the most ancient institutions of Buddhist discipline, requiring all ecclesiastics to spend the rainy season in a monastery in devotional exercises. Chinese Buddhists naturally substituted the hot season for the rainy (from the 16th day of the 5th to the 15th of the 9th Chinese month).’
[8] During the troubled period of the Tsin dynasty, there were five (usurping) Leang sovereignties in the western part of the empire (五 凉). The name Leang remains in the department of Leang-chow in the northern part of Kan-sŭh. The ‘southern Leang’ arose in 397 under a Tŭh-făh Wû-kû, who was succeeded in 399 by a brother, Le-luh-koo; and he again by his brother, the Now-tʽan of the text, in 402, who was not yet king therefore when Fâ-hien and his friends reached his capital. How he is represented as being so may be accounted for in various ways, of which it is not necessary to write.
[9] Chang-yih is still the name of a district in Kan-chow department, Kan-sŭh. It is a long way north and west from Lan-chow, and not far from the Great Wall. Its king at this time was, probably, Twan-yeh of ‘the northern Leang.’