On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c22.s3: Po-Lu-Ka-Che-P'O (Bharoch)
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c22.s3
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Po-Lu-Ka-Che-P'O (Bharoch)
v2.c22.s3.1
Going on with his narrative the pilgrim relates that "from this he went west above 1000 *li* (about 200 miles), crossed the *Nai-mo-t'ê* river, and came to the *Po-lu-kie'ka-che-p'an* (or *p'o*) country. This was 2400 or 2500 *li* in circuit, and its capital above twenty *li*; the soil was brackish and vegetation was sparse; salt was made by boiling sea-water, and the people were supported by the sea; they were mean and deceitful, ignorant and believers in both orthodoxy and heterodoxy. There were above ten Buddhist monasteries with 300 Brethren, all students of the Mahāyānist Sthavira school.
v2.c22.s3.2
The *Life* makes the pilgrim travel north-west from Mahārāṣṭra, and this is probably more correct than the west of the above passage. The name of the country here transcribed was restored by Julien as "Barou-gatchéva" which St. Martin made "Varoukatcheva",² and Cunningham regarded it as the "Bhārukachha" of the old inscriptions.³ This country is no doubt the Bharukaccha of the Dīpavamsa, and later Pali books,⁴ but in the form Bharukacchapa as found in the Bṛihat Samhitā.⁵ It is the modern Bharōch or Broach at the mouth of the Narbada, the *Nai-mo-t'ê* of our pilgrim. From Ajaṇṭā to Broach the distance is about 200 miles, and the direction is north-westerly. So we are perhaps justified in regarding the "from this" of the text as meaning from the mountain of Āchāra's monastery, a place to which the pilgrim would naturally be attracted, and at which he may have spent some days.
v2.c22.s3.3
² Julien, III, p. 400 ff.
v2.c22.s3.4
³ A. G. I. p. 326.
v2.c22.s3.5
⁴ Dīpavamsa IX, 26; Jātaka passim, See Index at VII, 116.
v2.c22.s3.6
⁵ See Böhtlingk-Roth, *sub voce*.