On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.57

v1.c5.57

In the next paragraph Julien apparently understood his author to state that there existed documents in their own countries on the peoples of the Horse Lord (i. e., the northern tribes) and those of the Lord of Precious substances (i. e., the nations to the south-west of China). But the writer has in his mind here only Chinese literature. So also his *fang-chih* (方志) are not "des descriptions locales" of India. They are the books of travel or topographies of Chinese literature. The term is applied to such treatises as the "Hsi-yü-chi" which in fact is called a *fang-chih*. Our author states that Chinese topographies have little about India, and that consequently he had no native authorities to quote or refer to. Other writers of the same period make similar complaints; and there was some reason for the complaint. Even the information communicated by the pilgrims who had preceded Yuan-chuang had not been incorporated in the national histories.