法苑珠林 76.68

76.68

In the twentieth year of the Zhenguan era of the Great Tang, five Brahmins from the western countries arrived at the capital. They were skilled in music, incantations, and miscellaneous entertainments: cutting tongues, extracting intestines, walking tightropes, and joining severed parts. Furthermore, from the Xianqing era onward, Wang Xuance and others were repeatedly sent as envoys to the Five Indias. The kings of the western countries arranged entertainments for the Han envoys: some leapt into the air, walking on ropes or wearing wooden clogs to walk on ropes, men and women yielding to one another, singing and performing as usual; some women juggled three weapons in their hands—swords, lances, and spears—tossing them into the air and catching them with their hands while walking on ropes without falling; others cut their tongues and tied themselves up, freeing and subduing themselves as before without the help of human effort. Such varied magical spectacles are difficult to recount in full.