Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29.4

c29.4

**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.