Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29: Chapter XXI: Education in the Fifth Century A.D. (Account of Fa-Hien)

Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29

Language: English

Chapter XXI: Education in the Fifth Century A.D. (Account of Fa-Hien)

**Value of the Account of a Foreigner, and an Eye-witness.** From the account of education as built up on the basis of the materials and indirect allusions scattered through the Buddhist sacred texts, we now turn to that given by an eye-witness himself from his first-hand observation of the working of the educational institutions then flourishing at the chief centres of Buddhist learning in India. Such an account would be doubly interesting and trustworthy when it proceeds from an eye-witness who is a foreigner. We have no means of positively ascertaining how far the educational conditions referred to in the sacred texts, were in actual existence, for the sacred texts are naturally more concerned with the exposition of the *ideal* conditions, precepts, and maxims, with what *ought* to be than with what *is*. The evidence of Fa-Hien is, therefore, all the more valuable, because, as picturing the existing conditions and realities, it helps us to obtain a confirmation of the sacred evidence which, by itself, cannot lead to definite and positive conclusions.

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**India drawing Pilgrims from China as its Holy Land.** We must, however, consider the evidence of Fa-Hien in its proper setting. The very fact of the pilgrimage of Chinese scholars like Fa-Hien or Hiuen Tsang to India testifies to the tribute paid by China to the sovereignty of Indian thought and culture which made its influence felt beyond the bounds of India itself in distant countries which might be well regarded as then constituting a sort of a Greater India. India was in those days the holy land of China and other countries, teeming with centres of Buddhist faith and learning, to which the devout youth of the foreign countries were flocking for their instruction, to return home later as fully equipped and trained missionaries. Fa-Hien, or, for the matter of that, Hiuen Tsang, or I-Tsing, were but individual members of noble bands of missionaries who during the period of wellnigh ten centuries (from Kanishka to Dharmapāla) came to India on religious and literary pilgrimage to drink at the very fountains of the culture they professed.

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**The precise Object of their Mission.** Fa-Hien himself was only one of a company of pilgrims who embarked upon a common holy mission. We read in his *Travels* [Legge's ed., p. 9]: "Deploring the mutilated and imperfect state of the collection of the Books of Discipline . . . he entered into an engagement with Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei, that they should go to India and seek for the Disciplinary Rules."¹ This passage also defines the objects of the mission. They were to collect in India the Vinaya texts for the purposes of the Buddhist Saṅghas of China. We are also to understand from this the limitations of the evidence of Fa-Hien who confines his observations only to that aspect of Indian thought and life which are associated with Buddhism. But within this limited range of inquiry, the information given by Fa-Hien is refreshingly realistic, positive, and concrete, being drawn from his first-hand observation and personal experience of actually existing conditions. What is thus lost in the scope of his evidence is amply compensated by its greater objectivity and trustworthiness.

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¹ Even on his way Fa-Hien came across another fellow-pilgrim to India, "a Tartar who was an earnest follower of the Law" and another band of five pilgrims who had preceded him on the same journey [pp. 21 and 11].

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**Fa-Hien's Account limited to Buddhist India.** Fa-Hien's evidence thus brings us into touch with Buddhist India, the chief centres of its learning, the actual working of its institutions, their internal conditions, rules, and regulations.

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**Its Extent.** Buddhist India in Fa-Hien's time embraced a large area, extending from Udyāna on the north-western frontiers to Tāmalipti on the east, and was noted for the abundance of its monasteries, those strongholds and distributing centres of Buddhist culture which enabled it to maintain its hold upon the country, and helped to spread it evenly among the different parts thereof. In Udyāna (modern Swat) alone, where Buddhism was "very flourishing", Fa-Hien noticed no less than 500 Saṅghārāmas or monasteries peopled by monks of the Hīnayāna school (p. 28). In Pe-too or the Panjab, also, he found Buddhism very flourishing and represented by both its schools, Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna (p. 41). From this place, as he travelled south-east, he passed "by a succession of very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks who might be counted by myriads" (p. 42), until he came to Mathurā. Thence, following the course of the Yamunā river, he found, on both banks of the river, "twenty monasteries which might contain 3,000 monks"; for there "the Law of Buddha was very flourishing". Indeed "everywhere, from the Sandy Desert, in all the countries of India, the kings had been firm believers in that Law" (p. 42). But Buddhism in Fa-Hien's time had not merely an extensive but also an intensive growth. He mentions the eighteen Schools of Buddhism, of which "each one has the views and decisions of its own masters" (p. 98), while he names only three of them, viz. the Mahāsaṁghika, the Sabbatthivāda (ib.), and the Mahīṁsāsaka (p. 111).

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**Account of Monasteries as seen by Fa-Hien.** We shall now give Fa-Hien's accounts of the individual monasteries he himself visited in the course of his travels.

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Fa-Hien does not mention any monasteries in Takshaśilā which figures so largely in the Buddhist Literature as a centre of learning (p. 32).

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Purushapura (Peshawar) had a monastery where "there may be more than 700 monks" (p. 35).

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In the city of He-lo (Hidda, west of Peshawar) was a Vihāra where the flat-bone of Buddha's skull is said to have been deposited, which is regularly worshipped with offerings by the kings of the country, his attendants, and the chiefs of the Vaiśyas. Near the city of Nagara was the Buddha's pewter staff in a Vihāra, and Saṅghāṭi or his robe in another, while at the place where the Buddha shaved off his hair and clipped his nails was another Vihāra with more than 700 monks (pp. 36–40).

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The next individual monasteries mentioned are those of Saṅkāśya. One of these had 1,000 monks and nuns "who all receive their food from the common store and pursue their studies, some of the Mahāyāna, and some of the Hīnayāna" (p. 52). Another was called "The Great Heap". There was a third monastery "containing perhaps 600 or 700 monks" (p. 53).

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"The city of Kānyakubja lying along the Ganges" had two monasteries "the inmates of which are students of the Hīnayāna" (p. 54).

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The city of Śrāvastī was famous for the Jetavana Vihāra, originally of seven storeys, which the kings and people of the countries around vied with one another in decorating, and built in the centre of a large park. "Here Buddha lived for a longer time than at any other place," "for twenty-five years;" "preaching his Law and converting men." Fa-Hien saw the monastery in a flourishing condition with a crowd of monks coming out to greet him and expressing their surprise¹ that "men of a border country should be able to come here in search of the Law" and saying to one another: "During all the time that we, preceptors and monks, have succeeded to one another, we have never seen men of Han, followers of our system, arrive here." Indeed, this ideal succession of preceptors and monks in the Jetavana monastery carried on its history for nearly 1,000 years up to the time of this visit of Fa-Hien!

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¹ A similar surprise was expressed earlier by the monks of some of the Panjab monasteries who said: "How is it that these men from a border-land should have learned to become monks, and come for the sake of our doctrines from such a distance in search of the Law of Buddha?" (p. 42).

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Śrāvastī in earlier days seems to have been a university town. Round the Jetavana Vihāra as the centre there were originally no less than ninety-eight monasteries. Of these, Fa-Hien found only a few existing. One was the Vihāra originally built by mother Viśākhā (pp. 55–63).

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Kuśanagara where the Buddha died was the seat of several monasteries seen by Fa-Hien.

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In the city of Vaiśālī, Fa-Hien saw the Vihāra which the courtesan Ambapālī built in honour of Buddha "now standing as it was at first" (p. 72).

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One of the most prominent centres of Buddhist learning in Fa-Hien's time was Pāṭaliputra where he saw the Mauryan "royal palace and halls" "exist now as of old" (p. 77). There were in the city one Mahāyāna monastery "very grand and beautiful", and another Hīnayāna one, the two together containing six or seven hundred monks. "The rules of demeanour and the scholastic arrangements in them are worthy of observation. Shamans of the highest virtue from all quarters, and students, inquirers wishing to find out truth and the grounds of it, all resort to these monasteries." This shows that besides offering elementary instruction to the younger monks and novices, these monasteries served as centres of advanced instruction for the maturer monks. This was due to their having as their residents several far-famed teachers. One of these was "a great Brahman, named Rādhāsāmi, a Professor of the Mahāyāna, of clear discernment, and much wisdom, who understood everything, living by himself in spotless purity. . . He might be more than fifty years old, and all the kingdom looked up to him", including the king who "served him as his teacher". "By means of this one man, the Law of Buddha was widely made known" (p. 78). The other distinguished teacher seen by Fa-Hien was also a Brahman Buddhist named Mañjuśrī "whom the Shamans of greatest virtue in the kingdom, and the Mahāyāna Bhikshus honour and look up to" (p. 79).

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At Rājagṛiha, Fa-Hien found still existing as of old the Vihāra originally built for the Buddha and his 1,250 disciples by Jīvaka (p. 82). Outside the city, the traveller "found the Karaṇḍa Bamboo garden where the old Vihāra (the gift of Bimbisāra to the Buddha) is still in existence with a company of monks who keep (it) swept and (its grounds) watered" (p. 84).

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At Gayā, "at the place where Buddha attained to perfect wisdom," Fa-Hien found "three monasteries, in all of which there are monks residing" (p. 89). Fa-Hien praised the efficiency of these institutions. "The disciplinary rules are strictly observed by them. The laws regulating their demeanour in sitting, rising, and entering when the others are assembled, are those which have been practised by all the saints since Buddha was in the world down to the present day" (p. 89).

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From Gayā, retracing his steps towards Pāṭaliputra along the course of the Ganges, "he found a Vihāra named the Wilderness—a place where Buddha had dwelt, and where there are monks now" (p. 94).

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Pursuing the same course, he came to Benares and "found the Vihāra in the park of 'The Rishis Deer-Wild'" (p. 94), where there were two other monasteries in both of which he found monks residing (p. 96).

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Proceeding onwards, he found at Kauśāmbī the Ghochiravana Vihāra where Buddha formerly resided, still existing as of old, with "a company of monks there, most of whom are students of the Hīnayāna" (ib.), and, at a distance from it, another monastery "which may contain more than 100 monks" (ib.).

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At Champā, the Vihāras of olden times had still monks residing in them (p. 100).

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Tāmaliptī, the last place visited by Fa-Hien, was a flourishing seat of Buddhism with twenty-two monasteries, at all of which there are monks residing" (ib.).

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*Maintenance of Monasteries.* Life in these monasteries was governed by regulations which followed the lines laid down in the Vinaya.

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The monasteries were maintained by the endowments of the laity, including kings and merchant-princes, "the heads of the Vaiśyas." They "built Vihāras for the priests and endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident populations and their cattle". These grants were "engraved on plates of metal" and were "handed down from king to king without anyone daring to annul them" (p. 43). The gifts of the laity also included other necessaries such as food, for instance. "When the kings make their offerings to a community of monks, they take off their royal caps, and along with their relatives and ministers, supply them with food with their own hands" (p. 42). This reminds us of the several Vinaya instances, cited above, of kings serving the Buddha and his Order with food with their own hands. With reference to another monastery we read thus of the gifts of the laity: "The families of their people around supply the societies of these monks with an abundant sufficiency of what they require, so that there is no lack or stint" (p. 89). The usual season for the making of these gifts was "a month after the annual season of rest" (*i.e.* Vassa) when "the families which are looking out for blessing stimulate one another to make offerings to the monks and send round to them the liquid food which may be taken out of the ordinary hours" (p. 45). In another place (p. 47) Fa-Hien refers to "the annual tribute (from the harvests)" paid to the monks and the gifts of "clothes and such other articles as the monks require for use" which they afterwards share among themselves. The donors of these gifts included not merely "the heads of the Vaiśyas" but also Brahmans (*ib.*).

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**Duties of Monks.** "The regular business of the monks is to perform acts of meritorious virtue, to recite their Sūtras, and sit wrapt in meditation" (p. 44).

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**Oral teaching still the rule.** Even in Fa-Hien's time, the time-honoured Brahmanical system of oral tradition was still obtaining as the method of instruction even among Buddhists. The subjects of study were not yet reduced to writing. "In the various kingdoms of North India he had found one master transmitting orally the rules to another, but no written copies which he could transcribe" (p. 98). This was a great disappointment to the traveller who had set out on his travel with the object of finding copies of the Vinayas, as we have already seen. Out of the numerous monasteries he had visited, it was only in two that his object was realized. Manuscripts of sacred texts which he could copy were found in the Mahāyāna monastery at Pāṭaliputra and in the monasteries in Tamalipti. Thus oral instruction was the only educational method followed in the north, while the rule was relaxed in the east where the aid of written literature to education was recognized.

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**MSS. copied by Fa-Hien.** The MSS. copied out by Fa-Hien give us some idea of the works of Buddhist literature which were in request in China and also of the usual subjects of study of the monks in India, who do not seem to have any connection with secular subjects. The sacred texts copied out by Fa-Hien comprised the following: (1) The Vinaya, containing the Mahāsaṁghika rules promulgated at the time of the Buddha. "This copy of the rules is the most complete with the fullest explanations" (p. 99); (2) The Sarvāstivāda rules in six or seven thousand *Gāthās*; (3) The Saṁyuktābhidharma-hṛidaya-śāstra in about six or seven thousand *Gāthās*; (4) A Sūtra of 2,500 *Gāthās*; (5) One chapter of the Parinirvāṇa-vaipulya Sūtra of about 5,000 *Gāthās*; and (6) The Māhāsaṁghika Abhidharma. In the monastery at Tāmaliptī Fa-Hien "wrote out his Sūtras" (p. 100).

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**Popularity of Sanskrit.** It is interesting to note that the study of Sanskrit was continued in these Buddhist monasteries. At the Pāṭaliputra monastery Fa-Hien stayed for three years, "learning Sanskrit books and the Sanskrit speech and writing out the Vinaya rules" (p. 99).

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**Stūpas erected at Monasteries in honour of Teachers and Texts.** We may now turn to the other features of monastic life as observed by Fa-Hien. Monasteries had topes erected in honour of the sacred characters in the history of Buddhism, such as Sāriputra, Mahā-maudgalyāyana, and Ānanda, to whom the full-fledged monks usually made offerings, the Śrāmaṇeras making their offerings to Rāhula. The Bhikshuṇīs usually made their offerings at the tope of Ānanda, "because it was he who requested the world-honoured one to allow females to quit their families and become nuns" (p. 45). Topes were also erected to sacred texts like the Abhidharma, the Vinaya, and the Sūtras, the Professors of each of these subjects making offerings to the tope connected with it (p. 46). The students of Mahāyāna "present offerings to the Prajñā-pāramitā, to Mañjuśrī, and to Kwan-she-yin (= Avalokiteśvara)". Thus every monastery, whether Hīnayāna or Mahāyāna, was equipped with a sort of a chapel where the inmates offered their worship.

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**Guests allowed at Monasteries for three days.** These hostels of the monks were authorized to receive guests. The manner of their reception is thus described: "When stranger monks arrive, the old residents meet and receive them, carry for them their clothes and alms-bowl, give them water to wash their feet, oil with which to anoint them, and the liquid food permitted out of the regular hours (cf. Vinaya regulations cited above). When the stranger has enjoyed a very brief rest, they further ask the number of years that he has been a monk, after which he receives a sleeping apartment with its appurtenances, according to his regular orders, and everything is done for him which the rules prescribe" (p. 44). The guests were to be entertained ordinarily for three days only. This was the rule noticed by Fa-Hien in the Udyāna monasteries. "When stranger bhikshus arrive at one of them, their wants are supplied for three days, after which they are told to find a resting-place for themselves" (p. 29).

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Assemblies held in the Hall of the Monastery. Besides individual study and meditation, the monks had always to meet together in the common room or hall of the monastery for purposes of religious discussions. "All the monks come together in a great assembly and preach the law," observed Fa-Hien (p. 45).

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Non-Buddhist Sects and Charitable Institutions. Lastly, it is to be observed from Fa-Hien's evidence that the Buddhists alone had not the monopoly of leading the people. There were many other sects and systems of thought hardly less influential in the country than the Buddhists. In the Middle Kingdom alone, Fa-Hien noticed no less than "ninety-six sorts of views, erroneous and different from Buddhism, all of which recognize this world and the future world (and the connection between them). Each has its multitude of followers, and they all beg their food: only they do not carry the alms-bowl". These non-Buddhistic monkish communities and their followers were well-known for their charity and philanthropy, "setting up on the road-side houses of charity, where rooms, couches, beds, and food and drink are supplied to travellers, and also to monks, coming and going as guests, the only difference being in the time for which those parties remain" (p. 62). Besides these Brahmanical sects of ascetics, Fa-Hien observed "companies of the followers of Devadatta" as "still existing". It may be noted that the Middle Kingdom where these numerous non-Buddhistic communities flourished was, in Fa-Hien's time, a part of the Gupta Empire which, being officially orthodox Hindu, gave a great impetus to the revival of the Brahmanical religion and culture.

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The revival was most marked in Magadha, the metropolitan province of the Gupta empire, where, according to Fa-Hien, "the inhabitants are rich and prosperous and vie with one another in the practice of benevolence and righteousness. The Heads of the Vaiśya families establish in the cities ('in all the other kingdoms as well'), houses of dispensing charity and medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans, widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves" (p. 79). This statement demonstrates that Brahmanism was as much known for its secular charities as Buddhism: it founded temples for the direct worship of God equally with the institutions for the relief of human suffering. Positivism was not foreign to the creed of Brahmanism which could thus recognize the duty of serving man as a mode of serving God!

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**Chinese Pilgrims visiting India at risk of life in search of her Wisdom.** A few other points of interest may be noted in conclusion in connection with Fa-Hien's evidence. The duration of his travels in India was for fifteen years, from A.D. 399-414. "After Fa-Hien set out from Ch'ang-gan it took him six years to reach Central India; stoppages there extended over (other) six years; and on his return it took him three years to reach Ts'ing-chow" (p. 116). This shows that the educational conditions of India as observed and recorded by Fa-Hien in the fifth century A.D. had been prevailing in the country in still earlier times. There is, unfortunately, no positive evidence available like Fa-Hien's, which may enable us to trace the origin and growth of these historical monasteries of Buddhism which, already in Fa-Hien's time, and in the times anterior to him, had become such important and flourishing centres of Buddhist education and learning where was conserved all that was best and typical in Buddhist thought and life. The reputation of these schools, due undoubtedly to their real worth, travelled far beyond the limits of India and caused a large movement of foreign scholars towards them for their instruction, which continued steadily for nearly ten centuries. A profound and abiding regard for the learning and culture of India was needed to feed and sustain such a long-continued movement. Indeed, the enthusiasm for Indian wisdom was so intense, the passion for a direct contact with its seats was so strong, that it defied the physical dangers and difficulties which lay so amply in the way of its realization. An account of these dangers and difficulties is best given in the words of Fa-Hien himself: "When I look back on what I have gone through, my heart is involuntarily moved, and the perspiration flows forth. That I encountered danger and trod the most of the dangers and privations besetting the paths of travel in those days across deserts, and over snowy heights, through inhospitable, and sometimes hostile, natural and human conditions, constitute the most convincing testimony to the supremacy of India in the ancient world of culture.