On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s1.27

v1.c8.s1.27

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.