[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c9 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c9: Appendix B. The Chinese Pilgrims The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c9 - **Language:** English ### Appendix B. The Chinese Pilgrims ### [c9.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.2) The transliteration of Chinese names presents such difficulties, owing to many reasons, that much variation exists in practice. The name of the first pilgrim is variously spelled as Fâ-Hien (Legge) ; Fa-hian (Laidlay, Beal) ; and Fa-Hsien (Giles and Watters). In this volume Legge's spelling has been adopted, omitting the long vowel mark, which is not used by the other scholars named. ### [c9.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.3) Fa-hien's work, entitled \*Fo-kuo-ki\* (or 'Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms'), covers the period from A. D. 399 to 414.¹ ### [c9.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.4) ¹ M. Chavannes (\*Song Yun\*, p. 53) agrees with Legge and Watters that Fa-hien began his travels in A. D. 399. ### [c9.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.5) The early French version by Messrs. Rémusat, Klaproth, and Landresse (1836) was translated into English by J. W. Laidlay, and published anonymously at Calcutta in 1848, with additional notes and illustrations, which still deserve to be consulted. ### [c9.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.6) Beal issued an independent version in a small volume, entitled \*Buddhist Pilgrims\*, published in 1869, which was disfigured by many errors. His amended and much improved rendering appeared in the first volume of \*Buddhist Records of the Western World\* (Trübner's Oriental Series, Boston, 1885); but the notes to the earlier version were not reprinted in full. ### [c9.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.7) The translation by Giles, which appeared at London and Shanghai in 1877, is intermediate in date between Beal's two versions; and the notes, which are largely devoted to incisive criticisms on the early work of Beal, contain little to help the reader who desires to study the pilgrim's observations from an Indian point of view. But Giles's scarce little volume is of value as an independent rendering of the difficult Chinese text by a highly qualified linguist. Certain errors in his work were corrected by Watters in his articles 'Fa-hsien and his English Translators', in the \*China Review\*, vol. viii. ### [c9.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.8) The latest translation, that of Legge (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1886), is on the whole the most serviceable; the author having had the advantage of using his predecessors' labours. The notes, however, leave much to be desired. The final translation of Fa-hien's \*Travels\*, equipped with an up-to-date commentary adequately fulfilling the requirements of both Chinese and Indian scholarship, has not yet appeared; and the production of such a work by a single writer is almost impossible. ### [c9.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.9) The proper spelling of Hiuen Tsang's name has been the subject of considerable discussion; and the variation in practice has been, and still is, very great.² ### [c9.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.10) ² Hiouen Thsang (Julien and Wade), Huan Chwang (Mayers), Yuèn Chwàng (Wylie), Hiuen Tsiang (Beal), Hsüan Chwang (Legge), Hhuen Kwân (Nanjio), Yüan Chwâng (Rhys Davids). This list (\*J. R. A. S.\*, 1892, p. 387) might be extended. See Watters, i, 6. ### [c9.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.11) The question may be considered as settled, so far as such matters can be settled, by the ruling of Professor Chavannes that 'deux orthographes sont admissibles; ou bien l'orthographe scientifique \*Hiuen-Tsang\*, ou bien l'orthographe conforme à la prononciation pékinoise \*Hiuen-tchoang\* \[=\*chwāng\* in English\]'.³ It must, of course, be remembered that to a French reader the initial \*H\* is in practice silent. Professor de Lacouperie also held that Hiuen Tsang was the best mode of spelling the name, and I have therefore adopted it. Beal's spelling, Hiuen Tsiang, which his books have made more or less familiar to English readers, is nearly the same. ### [c9.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.12) ³ \*Religieux éminents\*, Addenda, p. 202. ### [c9.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.13) M. Stanislas Julien's great work, which included a French version of both the \*Life\* and \*Travels\* of Hiuen Tsang (3 vols., Paris, 1853–8), has never been superseded; but it is now very scarce and difficult to obtain. Beal's English version of the \*Travels\* appeared in 1885 in the volumes already cited; and was followed in 1888 by a translation of the \*Life\*. The notes were supplied to a large extent by Burgess. The student of Indian history finds himself compelled sometimes to consult both the French and English versions. The commentary in both is now out of date; but the deficiencies have been supplied in considerable measure by a work compiled by Watters, entitled \*On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India\* (R. As. Soc., 1904–5, 2 vols.). An adequate annotated translation of the \*Life\* and \*Travels\* of Hiuen Tsang would require the co-operation of a syndicate of scholars. The first draft of his book, the \*Ta T'ang-Hsi-yü-chi\*, 'Records of Western Lands of the Great T'ang Period', was presented to the Emperor in 646, but the book, as we have it now, was not completed until 648. It was apparently copied and circulated in MS. in its early form during the author's life, and for some time after. There are several editions, which present considerable variations in both the text and the supplementary notes and explanations. The 'Han-shan' recension, which seems to be the only one hitherto known to Western scholars, is substantially a modern Soochow reprint of an edition of the Ming period. Three other editions were consulted by Watters, who has noted the more important variant readings (\*On Yuan Chwang\*, ch. 1). The pilgrim's route can be traced by the help of the Itinerary and maps added by the author of this history to the second volume of Watters's book. ### [c9.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.14) Students should not forget the fact that Bks. (\*chuan\*) x, xi, and xii of Hiuen Tsang's \*Travels\* are far inferior in authority to the earlier books. Watters's observations are as follows:—'According to the \*Records\* the pilgrim proceeded from Malakuṭa to Seng-ka-lo or Ceylon, but the \*Life\* represents him as merely hearing of that country. If we had only the \*Records\* we should be at liberty to believe that he proceeded to Ceylon, and returned thence to Draviḍa. But it is perhaps better to regard him as writing about Malakoṭṭa and Ceylon from information given to him in Draviḍa, and from books. There seems to be much in \*Chuan\* x and xi that is not genuine, and it may be observed that in certain old texts like C these two \*chuan\* are given without mention of Pien-chi as compiler. They are also, together with \*Chuan\* xii, marked by the character \*yi\*, meaning \*doubtful\*. It does not seem, therefore, to be necessary to dwell much on the curious legends and descriptions given in this part of the \*Records\*’ (vol. II, p. 233). ### [c9.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.15) The small work descriptive of the mission of Song-yun and Hwei-Săng, early in the sixth century, has been translated by Beal in the first volume of \*Records\*. A revised critical translation in French, fully annotated, has been published by Chavannes.¹ ### [c9.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.16) ¹ \*Voyage de Song Yun dans l’Udyāna et le Gandhāra (518–22 p. C.)\*, in \*Bull. de l’École Fr. d’Extrême-Orient\* (Hanoi, 1903). This excellent work contains notices of many other early pilgrims, including Che-mong (Tche-mong), who quitted China in A. D. 404 only five years later than Fa-hien (p. 14); and Fa-yong, who started in A. D. 420. ### [c9.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.17) The itinerary of Ū-k’ong (Ou-k’ong), who travelled in the eighth century, has been translated by Sylvain Lévi and Chavannes.² ### [c9.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.18) ² \*Journal Asiatique\*, 1895. ### [c9.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.19) The latter scholar has published (Paris, 1894) an admirably edited version of a work by I-tsing (Yi-tsing), entitled \*Les Religieux éminents qui allèrent chercher la loi dans les pays d’occident\*, which gives an account of no less than sixty Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who visited India in the latter half of the seventh century. ### [c9.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.20) I-tsing, who died in A. D. 713, at the age of seventy-nine, was himself a pilgrim of no small distinction. ‘This great monk, no less famous in the Buddhist world of China than Hiuen Thsang with whom we are more familiar, was pre-eminently a scholar and the best Sanskritist amongst the Chinese pilgrims whose writings have yet reached us. His stay at the centres of learning in the Hindu colonies of Sumatra, and ten years’ study at the university of Nalanda under the greatest professors of the time, gave him an intimate knowledge of the methods of the teaching of Sanskrit and the complete curriculum in vogue in those days, and enabled him to describe them in faithful detail. The unique treatment of the subject forms the thirty-fifth chapter of \*The Records of Buddhist Practices in India\*.’³ His interesting work, \*A Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago\* (A. D. 671–95), has been skilfully translated by J. Takakusu (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1896). This book, while invaluable for the history of Buddhism and Sanskrit literature, contributes little to the materials for political history. ### [c9.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9.21) ³ \*J. and Proc. A. S. B.\*, 1911, p. 309. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c9) · Pramāṇa