On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s1: Its Names
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s1
- Language
- English
Its Names
v1.c8.s1.1
The pilgrim having now arrived at the frontiers of the great country which he calls *Yin-tu* (India) gives his readers a "Pisgah-sight" of the land before taking them through its various kingdoms. And first he tells them of its name and its meaning and probable origin. His statements about the name may be roughly rendered as follows—
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We find that different counsels have confused the designations of *T'ien-chu* (India); the old names were *Shên-tu* and *Sien* (or *Hien*)-*tou*; now we must conform to the correct pronunciation and call it *Yin-tu*. The people of *Yin-tu* use local appellations for their respective countries; the various districts having different customs; adopting a general designation, and one which the people like, we call the country *Yin-tu* which means the "Moon".
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This rendering differs in some respects from that given by Julien which is neither very clear nor correct. Here, however, as in several other passages of the Records, it is not easy to make out the precise meaning of the author's statements. It is plain, however, that he is not dealing with names given to India generally but only with those used in Chinese books. Then his words would seem to indicate that he regarded *T'ien-chu*, *Shên-tu*, and *Sien-tou* as only dialectical varieties or mistaken transcriptions of *Yin-tu*, which was the standard pronunciation. Further his language does not seem to intimate, as Julien understood it to intimate, that Yin-tu was the name for all India used by the inhabitants of the country. In some other works we find it stated that Yin-tu was the native name for the whole country, and Indu-deśa given as the original Sanskrit term. Our author may have had this opinion but this does not seem to be the meaning of his statements here. On the contrary he apparently wishes us to understand that the natives of India had only designations of their own States, such as Magadha and Kausambhi, and that they were without a general name under which these could be included. It was the peoples beyond, as for example the Turks, who gave the name Yin-tu, and the Hu who gave Sin-tu, to a great territory of uncertain limits. Then the Buddhist writers of Kashmir, Gandhāra, and other countries beyond India proper, seem also to have sometimes used the name Yin-tu. But, as I-ching tells us, although this word may mean "moon" yet it was not the current name for India. In Buddhist literature India is called Jambudvipa, and portions of it Āryadeśa and Madhyadeśa.¹ One of the other names for India to be found in Buddhist literature is Indravardhana. But in the Chinese accounts of letters or missions sent by Indian rajahs to the court of China the rajahs are only represented as styling themselves kings of special countries in India. Thus the great Śīlāditya, who treated our pilgrim with great honour, is made in Chinese history to call himself king of Magadha.
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¹ Nan-hai-ch'i-kuei, ch. 25; Hunter's Ind. Emp. p. 33.
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Let us now examine in detail Yuan-chuang's statements about the terms he quotes as used in China to denote India and the history of these terms. The old name, as he tells us, is that which he, following precedent, writes Shên-tu (身毒) as the characters are now pronounced. This word emerges in Chinese history in the account which the famous envoy Chang Ch'ien (Kien) gives of his experiences in the Ta-hsia country (Bactria). In that we read that when Chang returned from his mission to the West he reported to Han Wu Ti (apparently about B. C. 123) that when in Ta-hsia he had seen bamboo poles and cloth from a district which is now comprised in the Province of Ssŭchuan. He had been told, he relates, that these commodities had been obtained at Shên-tu, as the name of the place is given in the ordinary texts of his report to the Emperor. Now Chinese writers tell us, and Western scholars have adopted and repeated the statements, that the Shên-tu of this story was India, and that all the other designations for that country in Chinese books such as Hsien-tou, Hsien-tu, Kan-tu, Küan (or Yuan)-tu, T'ien-chu, T'ien-tu, and Yin-tu are only phonetic corruptions of Shên-tu. These opinions seem to have been lightly formed and heedlessly followed, and it may be useful for us to enquire whether they have a good basis.
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In the first place then we find that there is doubt as to what was the precise form of the name of the country in Chang's statement. So instead of the character for Shên in Shên-tu given above we meet with several various readings. Such are 乾 and 犉 which probably represent one sound, something like Get or K'at. Now a foreign name like K'atu or Gachu as a name for India seems to have been in use. Then a third various reading for the Shên of Shên-tu is K'ien or Kan (乾) which may have been originally a copyist's slip for one of the characters read K'at.¹ We find also a fourth various reading for the syllable Shên of Shên-tu, viz—Küan or Yun (捐).² But the country described in Chinese literature under the name Yun-tu was evidently one to the east or north-east of all that has been called India.³ Then accepting the character now read Shên as the genuine text of Chang's report we are told that in this name it is to be pronounced like *in* or *yin*. This does not seem very improbable. But an etymological authority tells us that the character in question has, in this name, the sound *T'ien*.¹ There may be some truth in this statement. But it is not supported by authority, and seems rather fanciful.
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¹ Shih-chi (史記), ch. 123, Commentary. In the T'ung-chien-kang-mu, ch. 4, Yuan-shou (元狩) 1st y., this passage of the Shih-chi is quoted with the reading Kan-tu (乾篤) instead of Shên-tu. See also Kanghsi Dict. s. v. 身.
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² Han-Shu, ch. 96.
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³ T'ung-chih-liao, the Tu-yi-liao, ch. I; Han-Shu, l. c.
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¹ Wên-ch'i-tien-chu (問奇典註), *ch.* 2. p. 22. The change of Shên-tu into T'ien-tu may point to a Burmese pronunciation of Sindu as Thindu.
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The district or region which the envoy Chang reported as named, let us continue to say, Shên-tu, is briefly described by him and others of the Han period. It was several thousand *li* south-east from Bactria, near a river (or sea); its inhabitants used elephants in fighting. Some writers describe them as Buddhists; and they were in many respects like the people of Bactria, or like the Geti (Yue-ti) according to another account. Their country was about 2000 *li* south-west from what is now the Ch'êng-tu and Ning-yuan districts in Ssŭchuan, and it had a regular trade with the merchants of the Ch'êng-tu district, some of whom seem to have settled in it. Further, this country was not far from the western border of the Chinese empire in the Han time, and it was on the way from China to Bactria. So though the name Shên-tu came to be afterwards given to India yet in its first use it apparently denoted a small region in what is now Yunnan and Burmah.²
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² Han-Shu, *ch.* 95; Hou Han-Shu, *ch.* 88; Ma T. 1. *ch.* 338 gives much information about India compiled not very carefully from previous authorities; his account is translated in Julien's Mélanges p. 147.
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The name Hsien-tou was apparently applied to a region different from that designated Shên-tu.³ Like Hsien-tu (縣度), of which term it is perhaps only a variety, this name was probably used first by the Chinese for the Indus, called Sindhu in Sanskrit. The name was afterwards extended by them to a mountainous region, perhaps Ladak, through which the Indus flows. We find the Hsien-tu country mentioned in the same passages of the Han History with Shên-tu.
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³ But Hsien (Hien)-tou (縣度) came to be used as a name for India, and we find it described as a native designation for the whole country properly called Indravardhana. Su-kao-sêng-chuan, *ch.* 2. See also Fang-chih, *ch.* 1.
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We next come to T'ien-chu (天竺) and T'ien-tu (天篤) said to represent only one name pronounced something like Tendu or Tintok. We are told by one Chinese writer that the name T'ien-chu was first applied to India in the Han Ho-Ti period (A.D. 89 to 106) but the authority for the statement is not given. Another account makes Mêng K'an (about A.D. 230) the first to identify T'ien-chu with Shên-tu, but this likewise is unsupported by authority. We are also told that the chu (竺) of T'ien-chu is a short way of writing tu (篤), a statement which is open to very serious doubt.¹ This word tu occurs in the ancient classical literature, and native students declare that it represents an earlier chu. This is specially noted with reference to the occurrence of tu in a wellknown passage of the "Lun-Yü". Then as to the first part of the name there seems to have been an old and perhaps dialectical pronunciation of the character as Hien or Hin. This pronunciation is found at present in the dialect of Shao-wu foo in the Province of Fuhkeen in which 天竺 is read Hien-tu.²
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¹ Shih-chi, l. c.
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² The Chinese Recorder for September 1891, p. 408.
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But what was the sound originally represented by the character now read Chu in the compound T'ien-chu? It seems that no satisfactory and decisive answer can be given at present to this question. We find that in the Han period the character represented several sounds which cannot be said to be very like each other. The upper part chu meaning bamboo is not significant here, we are told, but only phonetic; and the lower part is significant, and refers the word to the category earth. The character might then be read something like du, but this account of the syllable may be doubted, as we learn also that the character was read like *tek*, an old and still current pronunciation of the word for bamboo. Then this same character was also read as *chuh*, *tuh*, *kat*, and *ko* or *gou*.¹ Something like the last was perhaps the earliest pronunciation of the character, and this is probably a corruption or abbreviation of a form like *kao* (竹) or *kung* (笁). This last form, unknown to the dictionaries apparently, occurs often in Japanese texts of Buddhist books instead of the character for *chu*. Now in the fact that *ko* or *gou* was an old sound of this character we have an explanation of a proper name found in the Tibetan version of the Buddhist "Sūtra in Forty-two Sections". One of the two Indian monks who came to China in the time of Han Ming Ti, and translated or drew up the above scripture, is styled in Chinese text *Chu Fa-lan*. These words apparently represented an Indian name like Dharma-pushpa, that is, Flower of Buddhism. Now the Tibetans transcribing the sounds of the characters for Chu Falan according to their own language wrote apparently *Go-ba-ran* and this became in the modern transcription *Gobharana*. This last word is neither Sanskrit nor Tibetan, but it has been adopted by Feer who has been followed by Beal and Eitel. That Chu in such expressions as Chu-Fa-lan (竺法蘭), is not part of the name, but means "India" or "Indian" we know from its occurrence in other expressions of a similar kind. We may also infer it, in this case, from the fact that it does not occur in some old editions of the above-mentioned scripture, which have only Fa-lan as the name of the Indian monk. So also in another Tibetan work we find him described as "Bhāraṇa Paṇḍita".² There is also another word in which we may perhaps recognize the *ko* pronunciation of our character *chu*. This word is the old "Tangut", more correctly Tan-ku, which was the Turkish-Persian designation for the country now called Tibet.¹ It is not improbable that, as some have supposed, this Tan-ku is simply the *T'ien-chu* of Chinese writers. And so this last may have been originally a Turkish term, used to denote a country immediately to the west of China, and between that country and Bactria.
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¹ Shuo-wên, ed. Kuei Fu-hsio, s. v. 竹. In the Fo-kuo-chi this character must be pronounced like *Tuh* or *Tak* as it forms the first syllable of the name Takshaśila.
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² Feer's Le Sūtra en 42 Articles p. 47; Ssŭ-shih-êrh-chang-ching, and Bun. No. 678 and Appx II. col. I; Journal Bengal A. S. No. LI. p. 89; Huth, Geschichte d. Bud. in d. Mongolei, tr. from Tibetan, S. 101.
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¹ Georgi's Alph. Tib. p. 10. In the Hai-kuo-t'u-chih it is expressly stated that *T'ien-chu* has been identified with the modern Hsi-Tsang or Tibet.
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*T'ien-tu*, on the other hand was the name of a place in the Eastern Sea mentioned in the "Shan-hai-ching" along with Chao-hsien or Korea. This place was afterwards identified wrongly with the *T'ien-chu* of writers on India and Buddhism.² But we find mention also of another *T'ien-tu* (written in the same way), a small country to the west of China, which has been supposed by some to be the Shên-tu of Chang Ch'ien.
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² Shan-hai-ching, ch. 18.
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Whatever the name *T'ien-chu* may have signified originally, however, it came to be given by the Chinese in their literature to the great extent of territory between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, and reaching from the Kapis country in the north to Ceylon in the south. Thus used it supplanted the old Shên-tu, and all other names for India among the Chinese; and it continued to be the general literary designation for that country down to the T'ang period when the new name *Yin-tu* was brought into fashion. We even find the term *T'ien-chu* used with a wider application, and it is employed as a synonym for "Buddhist countries", for example, in a title given to the "Fo-kuo-chi" of Fa-hsien. Nor has the term been quite put out of use by Yuan-chuang's correct name *Yintu*, and Yuan-chuang himself continues to use it occasionally. We find also each of its component parts sometimes made to do duty for the whole. This *Chung-T'ien* and *Hsi-T'ien* are respectively Middle and West India, while *Chu* in the Han and Ch'in periods and later was commonly used for India or Indian, a way in which *Hsi-T'ien* is also used.
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Leaving *T'ien-chu* to continue as a Chinese name for India, Yuan-chuang puts aside what he considers to be the corruptions of the term Yin-tu, and proceeds to use that form as the correct designation of the country. He goes on to suggest a reason for this word, meaning "moon", having come to be so employed. His explanation is apparently as follows—
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The unceasing revolutions of mortals' existences are a dark long night; were there not a warden of the dawn they would be like the night with its lights which succeeds the setting of the sun; although the night have the light of the stars that is not to be compared to the light of the clear moon. Hence probably India was likened to the moon as [since the sun of the Buddha set] it has had a succession of holy and wise men to teach the people and exercise rule as the moon sheds its bright influences,—on this account the country has been called Yin-tu.
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The comparison and explanation of our author, it must be admitted, are sorry things; and they are not improved in any of the translations. But the passage has probably some copyist's mistakes, and we must at least supply a clause which apparently has dropt out of the text. This clause is the important phrase *Fo-jih-chi-yin* (佛日既隱) which means "when the sun of the Buddha set". I have restored these words within square brackets in the body of the pilgrim's explanation, but it is probable that they occurred at the head of it also. The "long night" of the text is the interminable succession of renewed existences to non-Buddhists, and to the Buddhists the period between the death of one Buddha and the advent of another, but it is rather a state of affairs than a tract of time. It denotes a condition of spiritual darkness to mankind, an endless repetition of mortal life in many varieties; each life ignorant of the one before, and without any hint of the one to follow. There is no Buddha in the world; and so there is no one to end the night, and bring in the dawn of Nirvāna. The Buddha is the *Ssŭ-ch'ên* (司 晨) or Warden of the Dawn, the officer in charge of daybreak who ushers in the light of intelligence and the perfect way.
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Now on earth, when the "lights of night" succeed the setting of the sun, there are stars, and there is the moon. The stars, however, have only a shining, the brightness of a glow. But the moon has a light which illuminates and influences the world, and which transcends in brightness all other lights of the night. So other lands have had sporadic sages who made a glory for themselves revolving each in his own peculiar eccentric orbit. But India had a regular succession of great Sages who 'followed the great wheel' of ancient authority, each successor only expounding, renewing, or developing the wise teachings of his divine or human predecessors; thus keeping the light of primitive revelation shining among mortals. In Buddhist writings the Buddha is often compared to the moon, while the stars are sometimes the rival teachers of his time, and occasionally his own great disciples.
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A later Chinese writer, apparently under the impression that he had the authority of Yuan-chuang for the statement, tells us that *T'ien-chu* means moon. But he, like several other authors, explains the giving of this name to India in a different way from that described by the pilgrim. He says that the country was called *T'ien-chu* or Moon because it was as great and distinguished above the other countries of the world, as the moon is great among the stars of night—"velut inter ignes Luna minores". Other writers, like I-ching for example, are more discreetly wise, and refrain from proposing any explanation of the names for India. Admitting, they say, *Yin-tu* to be a Sanskrit term denoting the moon, yet it was not for that reason that the Chinese gave it as a name to the country, nor is the name the universal one. *Yin-tu* is the Chinese name for India as *Chi-na* and *Chen-tan* are terms used in that country to denote China, and apart from such use these names have no signification.¹ This is going too far, and the word India at least has a satisfactory explanation. When our pilgrim enquired about the size and form of the country, he was told that it was shaped like a crescent or, as it is in the text, a half-moon. The term used was apparently Indu-kalā, transcribed Yin-t'ê-ka-lo (印特伽羅).² This word means a digit of the moon or a crescent, but it is rendered in Chinese simply by yueh or moon. It was perhaps this fact which led to the absurd comparison and explanation of our text.
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¹ Nan-hai-ch'i-kuei l. c.
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² Supplement to I-ch'ie-ching-yin-yi, ch. 3. This of course is not the origin of the name for India, but it may account for the Chinese use of Yin-tu as a designation for the country.
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Our author in this passage mentions another general name for India, viz—Country of the brahmins (P'o-lo-mên-kuo).
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Among the various castes and clans of the country the brahmins, he says, were purest and in most esteem. So from their excellent reputation the name "Brāhmaṇa-country" had come to be a popular one for India.
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Now this is also a foreign designation, and one used by the Chinese especially. It does not seem to have been ever known, or at least current, in India. In Chinese literature we find it employed during the Sui period (A.D. 589 to 618) but it is rather a literary than a popular designation. In the shortened form Fan kuo (梵國), however, the name has long been in common use in all kinds of Chinese literature.
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The territory which Yuan-chuang calls Yin-tu was mapped off by him, as by others, into five great divisions called respectively North, East, West, Central, and South Yin-tu. The whole territory, he tells us,
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was above 90 000 li in circuit, with the Snowy Mountains (the Hindu Kush) on the north and the sea on its three other sides. It was politically divided into above seventy kingdoms; the heat of summer was very great, and the land was to a large extent marshy. The northern region was hilly with a brackish soil;
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the east was a rich fertile plain; the southern division had a luxuriant vegetation; and the west had a soil coarse and gravelly.