On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c23.s21: Ku-Sa-Tan-Na (Khoten)
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c23.s21
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Ku-Sa-Tan-Na (Khoten)
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From Che-ku-ka, the narrative proceeds to relate, the pilgrim went east over mountain ranges and their valleys above 800 *li* and came to Ku-(or Kü)-sa-tan-na. This country he describes as being above 4000 *li* in circuit, more than half of it being sand-dunes; the cultivated land, which was very limited, yielded cereals and fruits of various kinds; the country produced rugs, fine felt, and silk of artistic texture, it also yielded white and black jade. The climate was genial, but there were whirlwinds and flying dust. The people were of gentle disposition, fond of the practical arts; they were in easy circumstances, and had settled occupations. The nation esteemed music and the people were fond of dance and song; a few clothed themselves in woollens and furs, the majority wearing silk and calico (or "white felt", according to some texts). The system of writing had been taken from that of India, but the structure had been slightly altered by a sort of successive changes; the spoken language differed from that of other countries. The people were Buddhists, and there were above 100 Monasteries, with more than 5000 Brethren chiefly Mahāyānists. The reigning sovereign was warlike and a Buddhist, and he claimed Vaiśravaṇa-deva as his progenitor. This is justified by the legend which follows, which also accounts for the Sanskrit name of the country. When Asoka banished the officials who had blinded Kunāla in Takshaśilā these men with their families were settled in the wild land to the west of the Kustana district. About the time this occurred, an imperial prince of China, being sent into exile, settled in the country to the east of Kustana. The Takshaśilā exiles had raised one of their number to the position of king, and the Chinese prince also called himself king, and sought to gain preeminence over the Takshaśilā chief, but could not succeed. These two princes with their retinues met on hunting expeditions, and on one occasion they disputed about their hereditary precedence and very nearly came to battle. They were kept from a pitched battle by the advice that their military prowess could not be displayed on a hunting expedition, and that they should go back to their respective districts, and after due training meet to decide their claims by battle. This was agreed to, and in due course the chiefs with their armies met and fought; the Takshaśilā chief being defeated fled, but was captured and beheaded. Then the Chinese prince decided to settle in the district between the territory which he occupied and that in which the Takshaśila people had settled. Wishing to select a site for his capital he called for one expert in Land-science whereupon a Pāśupata Tirthika appeared bearing a calabash full of water. This person described a circle on the ground with the water, and then suddenly disappeared. Here was built the capital, and although not strong the city had continued impregnable from that time down. When this king found himself an octogenarian, and still heirless, he prayed to Vaiśravaṇa for a son and heir, and the boon was granted in a miraculous manner, a child being produced from the god's forehead. Then to provide milk for the boy the god caused a teat to rise up on the face of the ground, and from it milk issued; hence came the name of the country, Ku-stana (Earth-teat).
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Above ten *li* to the south of the capital was a large monastery, built by a former king of the country for the arhat Vairochana. Before Buddhism reached this land the arhat had come to it from Kashmir, and lodging in a wood had gone into samādhi. On hearing of the peculiar stranger the king went to see him, and asked him "who he was to live alone in a dark wood". The arhat replied that he was a disciple of Ju-lai, and the king farther enquired as to the virtue and divinity of Ju-lai. To this the arhat replied—"Ju-lai has tender pity for the four classes of living creatures, and shews the right way to the three Worlds; he may appear visibly or be hidden from view; he exhibits birth and extinction; those who follow his system become exempt from life and death, while those who err from his religion are caught in the net of carnal attachment". The king became converted to Buddhism, built the monastery, and held a religious assembly; Afterwards in accordance with the arhat's prediction an image of Buddha descended from upper space, bringing a gong for the use of the monastery.
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Above twenty *li* to the south-west of the capital was the Gośringa mountain double-peaked with cliffs sheer on all sides. Between the steep mountain-side and the ravine was a monastery containing an image of Buddha which emitted a bright light.
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The Buddha had visited this place, preached here, and prophesied that a country would arise here which should reverence his religion and follow the Mahāyāna.
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In the steep side of the Gośringa mountain was a large cave in which was an arhat who had gone into the "mind-extinguishing samādhi", awaiting the coming of Maitreya, and had been respectfully served without cessation for several centuries. Within recent times a landslip had closed the entrance to the cave and the king had sent his soldiers to remove the blocking rocks. But a swarm of black wasps inflicting poisonous stings on the soldiers caused them to desist, and so the entrance to the cave remained closed.
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Above ten *li* to the south-west of the capital was the *Ti-ka-p'o-fo-na* monastery in which was a standing cemented(?) image of the Buddha which had come from Kuchih. An ambassador from Khoten had been sent to Kuchih, and while there he was a constant worshipper of the image. On his return to his native place he continued to reverence the absent image, and one night the image came over to the official, who thereupon gave up his residence, and built this monastery.
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A journey of more than 300 *li* to the west of the capital brought one to the *Po-ka-i* city in which was a sitting image of the Buddha, above seven feet high, crowned with a tiara. This image had formerly been in Kashmir, and the pilgrim relates the local account of its transfer to this place.
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Also to the west of the capital, and at a distance from it of about 150 *li* on the highway through the desert, were mounds which were inhabited by certain rodents, and the pilgrim gives the legend which related the origin of the worship paid to these animals.
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Five or six *li* from the capital, still on the west side, was the *Sha-mo-no* (Samajñā) monastery with a tope, and the pilgrim tells the legend connected with the foundation of the monastery, and the erection of the tope.
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To the south-east of the capital was a monastery which is called the *Mo-she* or *Lu-she* sanghārāma. This had been built by a queen of a former king of the country, a princess of China, in commemoration of her successful introduction of silk-culture from China. The pilgrim relates the story of the princess smuggling the seeds of the mulberry and the eggs of the silkworm out of her native land, and bringing them to this place.
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Above 100 *li* south-east from the capital was a large river flowing north-west which was used by the inhabitants for irrigating their lands. Then the legend is told about the patriotic official who, when the flow of water was cut off by the dragon of the river, appeased the dragon by giving himself up to marry his daughter.
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To the east of the capital, above 300 *li*, was a great marshy waste in which was a bare dark-red patch of some tens of *ch'ing* (a *ch'ing* being 15.13 square acres). This, according to local tradition, was the field of a great battle between armies of the "East Country" (China) and Kustana. In this battle the Chinese were completely victorious, took the king prisoner, and slaughtered all the army of Kustana; the blood which flowed dyed the ground the colour which it still presents.
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Going east from the Battle-field above 30 *li* you come to P'i-mo city which had a sandal-wood image of the Buddha more than twenty feet high. This image had supernatural powers, emitting light and effecting cures. Local tradition reported that it was made in the Buddha's life-time by Udayana, king of Kosambi, and that after Buddha's decease it went through the air to O-lao-lo-ka (Rallaka?) in the north of the Kustana country. The people of that city were not Buddhists, and did not reverence the image. An arhat worshipped the image, and the king subjected the saint to the ignominy of being covered with sand and mud. A few days afterwards, as the arhat predicted, the city was overwhelmed by a great shower of sand and mud, which buried it completely. The image escaped to P'i-mo, and Rallaka had remained a waste. Two days after the arhat had gone away there fell a shower of precious substances in the streets of the city; these were buried by the subsequent sand and mud; in after times, when various rulers tried to excavate for the precious substances, violent storms arose, and dense mists made it impossible to keep the path.
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From the P'i-mo valley going east into the desert you travel for above 200 *li* and reach the Ni-jang city. This was three or four *li* in circuit and was situated in a great marsh. The hot watery nature of this district, and its wastes of reeds, made it impassable except by the road through the city. This was regarded as the eastern frontier barrier of Kustana.
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The *Ku* (or *Ku*)-sa-tan-na of this passage is translated into Chinese by *Ti-ju* (地乳) or "Earth-teat", and it is supposed to be the transcription of a Sanskrit word Kustana composed of *ku*, earth and *stana*, a woman's breast, an udder. By this name the pilgrim designates a region, with its capital, which corresponds in some measure to the modern Khoten, and the latter may be substituted for his *Ku-sa-tan-na*. In the Chinese note to the text we are also told that other names for the district were Huan-na the native designation, their elegant (or according to one text, incorrect) name; Yü (in some texts Ch'ien)-tun used by the Hiung-nu, K'i (or Huoh)-tan by the Tartars, K'ü-tan by the Hindus, and Yü-t'ien the old incorrect Chinese name.¹ We are told in a glossary on this chuan that all these terms denoted different places in the Khoten region, but this is evidently a mistake. The names K'ü-tan and Yü-t'ien seem to point to a word like Go-dan or Gothān. The former is found in Türki, and the latter in the Indian vernacular, and they represent the Sanskrit Gosthāna. These words denote a place or station for cattle. A mispronunciation of Gosthāna in the monasteries of the country may have led to the sound Kustana, and the silly legend invented to account for the name.² That the name which the pilgrim here transcribes was Gosthāna appears probable from the character which gives the first syllable, viz. Kü (瞿) which he uses to write Go- in Gośringa. The Hiung-nu name Yü-tun may have been the word which is now pronounced Atun by the Manchus, and denotes a station or inclosure for cattle. For the Chinese, however, Yü-t'ien has always been the recognized name for the country and its capital, and the Ho-t'ien or Khoten of the present dynasty has replaced it only in official or government writings. This Ho-tien is perhaps the Tartar Huoh-tan and means simply the city.³ The capital is now called Ilchi or Ilichi or *Ngo-li-chi* (額里齊). As Mr. Rockhill has shewn, the Tibetan name for Khoten is Li-yul which is explained as meaning "Bell-metal (Li, the Sanskrit Riti) Country (Yul)".¹ But the first part of this name may be the Chinese word *Li* (犛) which denotes "the Yak". This animal, in Tūrki Kotas, is still found wild in the Khoten region. Then "U-then", the great city of Li-yul in the Tibetan scriptures, is evidently the Chinese *Yü-t'ien* and not, as Mr. Rockhill thinks "a modern corruption of Kusthana".
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¹ These names are—Huan-na (渙那), Yü-tun (于遁) or Ch'ien (于)-tun, Huoh or K'i-tan (豁 or 谿且), Ku-tan (屈丹), Yü-tien (于闐). This last is the term used in the Ta-fang-têng-ta-chi-ching, ch. 55. The other forms of the name or names are seldom met with in any variety of Chinese literature.
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² In the "Dsam-ling-Gyeshe" as translated by Babu Sarat Chandra Dás C. I. E. we find the following statement—"To the south of Yarkhan there is a desert which having crossed, we arrive at the country called Gosthan, or place of virtue now, vulgarly called Khothan (or Khoten), which contains the mountain of Langri (Goshirsha) mentioned in the religious work called Langri Lungtan". J. A. S. Ben. Vol. LV, l. c. The name Lang (or Glang)-ri means "Ox-mountain".
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³ But this explanation of the name is not accepted.
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¹ Rockhill, 'Life,' ch. VIII. See also Mr. Sarat Chandra Dás in J. A. S. Ben. l. c.
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Our pilgrim's story of the first king of this country being one of the officials in Takshaśilā who took out the eyes of Kunāla does not agree with the Life. There it is Kunāla himself who is the founder of the colony. So also in the Tibetan work from which Mr. Rockhill gives extracts it is a son of Asoka named "Kusthana" who is the founder of Khoten.
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The story here told about the arhat Vairochana for whom a monastery was built is very interesting. This arhat does not seem to be known to the Buddhist scriptures, but he is evidently the Bodhisattva Manjuśrī of the Tibetan books when he came as a man, with the name Vairochana, to teach the Tibetan vernacular to the peasants, and also to introduce Buddhism. The monastery built for him by the king is the Ts'arma Vihāra of the Tibetan text. In the passage now under consideration the arhat gives the king a description of the Julai or Tathāgata which is Lokottaravādin or even Mahāyānist. According to these Schools the Julai does not really pass through the Jātakas of the books, and he is not actually born as a human being, and does not suffer death—"He is visible or invisible, he exhibits (示) birth and death". This description is at utter variance with the answer which the arhat gives the king in the Life. There the Julai is the Buddha of the scriptures, the prince who was son of Suddhodana, and gave up his royal inheritance to save the world. This orthodox account of the Buddha was the natural one to give to an ignorant enquirer, and we should regard the words put into the mouth of the arhat in the Records as an interpolation by some sectarian editor. It will be seen that Yuan-chuang like Fa-hsien represents the Buddhists of this district as being for the most part Mahāyānists.¹ But there was at least one establishment of the Sarvāstivādins,² and there may have been some Brethren of other schools.
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¹ Fo-kuo-chi, ch. 3.
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² It was in a monastery of Brethren belonging to this School that our pilgrim lodged while at Khoten.
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The Gośringa or Ox-horn hill, which was to the south-west of the capital, is apparently, as Mr. Rockhill suggests, the Gośirsha of his Tibetan book. But we have no canonical record of the Buddha having visited this country and sojourned on this mountain.
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To the south-west of the capital, according to our text, was a Buddhist monastery called *Ti-ka-p'o-fo-na*. This is doubtfully restored by Julien as Dīrghabhāvanā, but the characters *Ti-ka* (地迦) seem to require rather Tikabhāvana. This name gives a show of meaning as the image had *changed* its abode having flown from Kuchih to Khoten. Our pilgrim describes this image as a *Ka-chu* (夾紵) "standing image of Buddha". Julien translates *Ka-chu* by "couverte d'un double tissu de soie", but this rendering violates the meaning and cannot be accepted. I have proposed "cemented" as the meaning, taking the author to indicate that the image was not carved from one piece of wood, but was made up of parts cemented together. This interpretation is apparently in accordance with a glossary which explains *Ka-chu* as "made with cemented edges". The word seems to be a foreign one, and it may be connected with the Tūrki word *gaj*, and the Hindu *gach*, which mean cement or mortar. It is applied to the plastering of wooden tiles to make the roof of a temple in China,³ but it is not of frequent occurrence. It was apparently a strange term to the editors of the Han-shan edition of these Records, for they state in a note that they had found *Kachu* to be what was called in their time *t'ê* (or *t'ok*)-sha (脫沙).
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³ T'ang-Shu, ch. 13.
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In the passage under consideration the pilgrim's description places the city *Po-ka-i* (孛伽夷) 300 *li* to the west of the capital. In the Life this was the first city in Khoten which Yuan-chuang reached on his way through the country. Julien suggests "Pogaï" as the original form, but this may have been a word like Bhāgya.
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The name of the monastery five or six *li* to the west of the capital which Yuan-chuang here gives as *Sha-mo-joh* (or *noh*) (娑摩若) is restored by Julien as "Samājñā", and he takes this to have been the name of the arhat on whose behalf the monastery was built. This may have been so, but the text does not give any indication as to the arhat's name. If we take it to have been Samājñā that word has the meaning of fame or reputation, and Yaśas, the name of the great arhat in Asoka's time, and of the minister of Asoka who led a colony to Khoten, also means fame or reputation.
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Then we have the monastery five or six *li* to the south-east of the capital which in some texts is called Lu-she (or ye) (鹿射). But instead of this the D text has *Mo* (摩)-she, and C has *Shu* (庶)-she. We find in other books a story about the introduction of the silk-worm into Khoten very similar to that given in this passage, but the Princess is only from a "neighbouring country" without any mention of China.¹ In Mr. Rockhill's Tibetan texts she is Pu-nye-shar a daughter of the ruler of China. The Ma-dza of these texts is evidently the Mo-she of the D edition of our Records, the place in Khoten where the Princess commenced the rearing of the silk-worm.
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¹ Ma. T. l., ch. 337.
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The *Pi-mo* (毗摩) that is Bhīmā city, which the passage under consideration places above 330 *li* to the east of the capital of this country, was visited by the pilgrim on his way from the capital towards China. He applies the name to the city, and to the valley or river-course in which it was situated. This Bhīmā is Durgā and she is the Śrī-Mahādevī mentioned in Tibetan books as worshipped in this country. In other works we read of a monastery called Pi-mo (比摩), which was 500 *li* to the west of Khoten city. It was here that Lao-tzü left earth for Heaven preparatory to his descent in India to become the Buddha.¹ It is strange to find Yuan-chuang here representing Udayana's sandal-wood image of the Buddha as having flown from Kosambi to Khoten. This is not in agreement with other accounts of the fortunes of that image, or his own statements in *Chuan* V. The Rallaka or Stag city in the north of Khoten, which was the first abode of the image in this country, became as we are told here, buried under sand and mud. Its fate in this respect is quoted in later works as an example of what has befallen cities and towns in the great desert region east of the Ts'ung-Ling.²
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¹ Wei-Shu, *ch*. 102.
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² e. g. in Shêng-wu-chi, *ch*. 4.
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The Ni-jang (or -yang) city of our pilgrim, which was 200 *li* east from Bhīmā in the desert, has been identified with the present Niya. Mr. Sven Hedin writing about it with reference to Yuan-chuang's account tells us that "the Chinese traveller's description of Niya and its situation agrees in all particulars with the actual state of things, as I myself was able to verify".³
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³ Through Asia p. 783, and see Chs. LX and LXII for much about Khoten. Prejevalsky identifies Pi-mo with Marco Polo's Pein (or Peym) and Ni-jang with the modern Kiria. See his "From Kulja across the Tian-shan to Lob-nor" p. 156.