On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.36

v1.c5.36

The names of the four great Islands of this passage are not all known as divisions of the world to orthodox Indian writers, but they are found in Buddhist treatises. Our pilgrim calls the first *chou* or Dvīpa (Island) Pi-t'i-ha restored as Videha. This name is properly used to designate a particular district in India corresponding to the modern Tirhut in Behar. But here it is the Pūrva-Videha, (in Pali Pubbavideho), the Eastern Continent or great Island of Buddhist cosmogony. Our pilgrim in his translation of a śāstra renders the word Videha by Shêng-shên (勝身) or “Superior body”, and the Tibetan rendering is Lus-hp’ags with a similar meaning. But the old transcriptions for the name of the East Island as given in a note to our text are Fu-p’o-t’i (弗婆提) and Fu-yü-ti (弗于逮) which seem to point to an original like Pubbadik or “East Region”. It is the Fu-p’o-t’i of this note which is given as the name in the “Fo-shuo-ch’u-chia-kung-tê-ching” translated in the 4th century A. D. (No. 776).