Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India c4.s2.t5: 4. Chinese.
Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India c4.s2.t5
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4. Chinese.
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Having discovered the use of the magnet as early as the third century A. D., the Chinese could make extensive sea-voyages. They are even alleged to have discovered what is now known as the North America in A. D. 500 (Beazly's *Dawn of Modern Geography*, pp. 489-90; 493). The conversion of this nation into Buddhism which was introduced into their country in A. D. 67 (Takakusu's Itsing, Introduction) caused a series of pilgrims to visit India—the land of Buddha—and write invaluable accounts of it.
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As the Greeks and the early Arabs visited India either in the track of some invader or as merchants, their accounts chiefly inform us of the military glories of nations or of kings little known or altogether unknown in Indian literature which is deficient in the historical sense, or of the trades of places which have long ago been deserted or buried in the silts of rivers and are no longer remembered. Hence though these sources give much information, they do not contribute much to the study of geography. Rather it requires much research to elucidate these foreign accounts.
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But the case is different with the Chinese. These pilgrims, saturated with Indian ideas, visited their holy land and described the sacred monuments of places which have been immortalized in Sanskrit or Pali literature, some of which still retain their celebrity, while the ruins of some others still exist enabling us to understand their Chinese description. This fact explains the importance of the Chinese sources.
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Of the various Chinese accounts, those of SUNG-YUN and HWI SENG (A.D. 600; translated in Beal's *Records of the Western World*, Vol. I; and in *Bull. de l'Ecole Fr. d'Extrême-Orient*, Hanoi, 1903) and of O-KUNG (A.D. 800; translated in the *Journal Asiatique*, 1895) are very short, describing a few places of North-Western India (Kabul Valley, the Punjab and Kashmir).
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ITSING landed at Tâmralipti, the then port on the Bay of Bengal, in A.D. 673 and visited Nâlandâ, Gridhra-kûta, Buddhagayâ, Vaisâlî, Kusînagara, Kapilavâstu, Srâvastî, the Deerpark, Cock Mountain, and left India from Tâmralipti. [Translated by Dr. Takakusu, C. P. S. Oxford, 1896]. His account was not accessible to [Sir] Alexander Cunningham.
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Still more important are the accounts of FA-HIAN (A.D. 399-414) and HWEN THSANG (A.D. 629-45) or YUAN-CHWANG (as Mr. Watters prefers to spell it). FA-HIAN entered India from the North-West, travelled over the whole of the Aryâvarta and left it at the port of Tâmralipti. His record (*Fo-Kue-Ki*) is truthful, clear and straight-forward. Though a devout Buddhist, he was a sensible and not often a hysterical pilgrim-traveller. The earlier part of his work is strictly geographical. But when he reached India, religion had the better of his geography. Still his geographical notices are valuable for their precision, as he generally fixed the position of every place that he visited by its bearing and distance from that which he left
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Yüan Chwang also entered India from the North-West, travelled through the whole of it and left it by the same route. His records—*Si-Yu-Ki*—are fuller than even that of Fa-Hian and it is almost impossible to exaggerate their importance.
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In utilising materials from these sources a student should note that:—
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I. In giving the direction of a place from another Fa-Hian mentions only the four principal cardinal points. [Hence his E. may mean N.E. or S.E.; and so with the other points.] Yüan Chwang also generally does the same; and very seldom does he give the direction as due N.E., etc. But still there are other points of the compass beyond these eight.
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II. In stating the distance of a place from another, Fa-Hian states it in the *yojana* and Yüan Chwang in the *yojana* and the *li* measure. Dividing the known-distance-in-miles by the number of *yojanas* which the distance covers according to these pilgrims, Cunningham asserted that a *yojana* of Yüan Chwang is 6·75 miles while that of Fa-Hian is 6·71 miles.
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Mr. V. Smith takes a *yojana* of Yüan Chwang to be 6·5 miles and one of Fa-Hian to be 7·25 miles.
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M. Julien and probably Dr. Stein take 8 miles as equal to one *yojana* of Yüan Chwang, while in the opinion of Mr. Giles a *yojana* of Fa-Hian varies from 5 to 9 miles.
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Now Yüan Chwang has himself stated (Watters, Vol. I, p. 141-2) that a *yojana* is a day's march for a Royal army; that there are three kinds of *yojanas* of 16 *li* (found in Sacred Writings), of 30 *li* (common reckoning in India) and of 40 *li* (old Chinese account). He has also stated that a *yojana* consisted of eight *krosas* (a *krosa* being originally the distance that the lowing of a cow can be heard). He has also given figures to change a *krosa* into "bows", "cubits", "fingers" and "barley-corns." Making calculations from these materials Fleet tried to prove that there were three kinds of *yojanas*:—1. MAGADHA YOJANA (used by the Buddhists) of 16000 *hastas* or 4·54 miles:
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II. GENERAL YOJANA of 32000 *hastas* or 9·09 miles : III. A THIRD YOJANA (which was according to Yüan Chwang 1⅓ of the general *yojana*) of 12·12 miles. This third *yojana* was, according to Fleet, the original *yojana* (from *yuj*, to yoke)—the yoking distance—the distance along which a pair of bullocks could draw a fully laden cart. This *yojana* was taken by the Chinese pilgrims as equal to 100 “*li*”s. [*J.R.A.S.*, 1906, p. 1011.]
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In making the above calculations Fleet took a *hasta* = ½ yard. But Major Vost has shewn from Medieval and Ancient Chinese and other sources that the *hasta* was formerly taken to be a little larger than is done now. [*J.R.A.S.*, 1903, p 65.] Hence taking his calculations the three *yojanas* will be—I = 5·288 miles or 5·3 miles very nearly ; II = 10·6 miles very nearly ; III = 14·2 miles very nearly.
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Thus 100 “*li*”s or a *yojana* denoted the distance occupied in making a *day’s journey*. The said day’s journey averaged very closely about fourteen miles. But being actually determined in each case by such considerations as the nature of the country traversed and the distance between the villages, *sarais*, *dharmsâlâs* and other convenient halting places, it might easily be anything from twelve to sixteen miles and in exceptional cases might have even a wider range in either direction.
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III. Again, as Fa-Hian gives distances in *yojanas* only and not in fractions of it, his one *yojana* may be any distance more than ½ *yojana* and less than 1½ *yojanas*. Yüan Chwang also uses round numbers, such as 500 “*li*”s, 600 “*li*”s, etc. Hence we may allow a certain margin and take his 500 “*li*”s as any distance above 450 and below 550 “*li*”s. Thus the distances of both the Chinese pilgrims can be taken only as approximations.
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IV. Yüan Chwang’s dimensions of various countries are generally taken to be exaggerations. It became a common practice of Cunningham to take his thousands as hundreds. But as Yüan Chwang has not stated these details in the decimal system of notation, he is not justified to do so. Nor can we condemn his details of this kind in general terms without considering how they can be applied. For as he usually stated these details in thousands of "li"s any one of them may be 50 miles too great or too little. Again re-entering angles may increase a perimeter very considerably, while reducing the area inside it. Conventional ideas as to the size of a country may also have caused some errors in his details. [J. R. A. S., 1907, p. 641 ff.]
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V. As the names of a country and its capital are sometimes identical [and even when not identical Yüan Chwang has not mentioned them both] and as Yüan Chwang has not always precisely stated whether by a certain place-name he means a capital or a country, the distances and directions given by him cannot precisely be traced on the map, though the best way would be to take them as from each capital to the next one
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VI. The peculiarity of Chinese phonetics caused Yüan Chwang to insert vowels between Skr. conjuncts and to use "k" for Skr. k, kh, g, gh; ch for Skr. ch, chh, j, jh; t (cerebral) for the cerebrals th, d, dh, ks, str; t (dental) for the dentals t, th, d, dh; p for p, ph, b, bh; l for r, l; f for b and u. Hence the difficulty in finding out the true Skr. form.
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VII. Again cases of discrepancy between the Records (of the Western World, written by the pilgrim himself) and the Life (of the pilgrim composed by a friend of him) and some apparent mutual contradictions and a few various readings show that the writings of Yüan Chwang have not been correctly transmitted to us.
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We thus see that even the very best of the foreign sources are not fully satisfactory and though the results arrived at from them are of great value, they cannot be taken as anything more than mere approximations.
c4.s2.t5.23
The Chinese source also includes various notes on India—in Chinese histories and specially in the Chinese translations of Indian works. M. Sylvain Lévi and his pupils have drawn the attention of Indologists to these notes.