Master of the Law; and his Perilous Journey to the Sacred Land of Buddha, A.D. 627–643.
CHAPTER I. THE ISOLATION OF CHINA
For thousands of years China was a world to itself, cut off from the races of men. The main causes of this singular seclusion are simple:—
China was protected from serious invasion by her geographical position. Northward, it was no easy business for the barbarous intruder to find a way into China from the Manchurian plain, or for a Chinaman to find a way out; and it was still more difficult to effect a passage by force. To the North-West rose the forbidding walls of the Altai Mountains; and, between them and China, a broad and demon-haunted waste of sand blocked the way. Westward, huge interlocked ranges of Central Asia—the Thian Shan and Pamirs—mountains which o’er top Alp or Caucasus, which rival the loftiest Andes, and which are inferior only to Himalaya, presented perils in abundance. These difficulties surmounted, the vast, trackless sands of Gobi formed a second barrier; and the steep rocks of Ala-Shan and In-Shan were a third. To the South-West rose the plateau of Thibet, interlocking with the Pamirs—a plateau with a mean level of more than 12,000 feet, terminating southward in Himalaya, that highest and broadest of mountain-walls. To the South of China were the dense forests, deep valleys, and rapid rivers of Burma and Tonquin. Eastward the Celestial Empire was guarded by the sea: to reach China from India was a long and perilous voyage; and the boldest navigator might hesitate to entrust his clumsy craft to the caprice of the Indian Ocean, to thread his way through the tortuous straits of Malaysia, and to chance an encounter with the fierce islanders who lined them, only in the end to reach a jealous shore. The unwieldly Chinese junk—a town afloat—did, however, make a periodic and prolonged voyage—at least in later days—to India; and a few bands of bold, hardy traders were wont to cross over the formidable passes of Central Asia on horses, mules, or asses, and to traverse vast, trackless wastes on camels. They exchanged the products of India, Persia, and those States which were watered by the classic streams of Oxus and Jaxartes, for the silks and manufactures of Cathay. Chinese porcelain has been found in Egyptian tombs.
China enjoyed a soil so productive of every kind of wealth that she was independent of commercial intercourse with other lands. Secure from all invaders but the scattered hordes of Mongolia, she developed a high and distinctive civilization, which became more and more fixed and rigid, but was superior in many respects to that of other Eastern States. By the Seventh Century of our Era, good roads, good inns, and an admirable system of canals rendered internal communication easy; the heavens had been surveyed by astronomical instruments of some precision; and the art of printing, which had not then been discovered long, was in use; although to this day the Chinese do without the valuable economy of an alphabet.
Moreover the Chinese People preferred to be undisturbed by stimulus from without. Yet China transmitted her culture to her near and less civilized neighbours—Japan and the Indo-Chinese peninsula—and claimed a precarious overlordship of semi-barbarous Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Thibet. During a long stretch of time, the powerful and jealous Persian Empire was a bar to intercourse with the far West; because it tried to preserve a monopoly of its own products.
The records of early intercourse with other countries are few; and those few are meagre. Thirteen centuries before the age in which Hiuen-Tsiang lived, Embassies from distant nations would seem to have reached China. Marcus Aurelius despatched a mission (A.D. 166) to establish direct relations; it travelled by way of India; and failed. Carus sent another (A.D. 284). At the close of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus knew of the Chinese as a people dwelling on fertile plains enclosed by protecting mountains: “a frugal folk, studying to live peacefully and shunning intercourse with the rest of mankind.” Half a century later, Moses the Armenian spoke of them as “dwelling in wealth and civility at the end of the earth; a people worthy to be called not merely the friends of peace but of life.” Until the Great Age of Discovery arrived as a novel development of the Great Age of the Renaissance to derange and remodel the earth, Cathay was little more than a name to European ears: before the Nineteenth Century, the Celestial Empire remained undisturbed by the Modern World.
Although the Chinese Government was always persistently obstructive to foreign intercourse, it took an interest in foreign religions. This seeming paradox was due to the fact that Confucianism, the official Faith, was essentially a body of moral precepts, as was Taoism, (albeit Taoism had stronger pretension to metaphysic), and both people and rulers were eager to receive any moral doctrine which might strengthen that love of peace and orderly conduct which would seem to be inborn in the Chinese breast. There was no odium theologicum in China. Now, Buddhism was essentially an ethical system, and had much in common with Taoism. On the whole, the Chinese were eager to adopt it; especially as becoming a good Buddhist did not disallow of one’s remaining a good Confucian, or of reconciling Buddhistic and Taoistic speculation. The Chinese government naturally sanctioned a creed fitted to keep a people quiet and submissive; and Buddhism proved to be peculiarly suited to the Chinese mind: it touched the Chinese heart and left a profound effect on Chinese character.
It had to compete with other religions. For with the caravan of the trader came many religious Zealots, such as the Fire-Worshippers of Persia. At the very beginning of Mohammedanism, Wahd-Abi-Kabha, the maternal uncle of the Prophet, reached China, bearing presents to the Emperor; and Mohammedans were to be found there in the third decade of Hiuen-Tsiang’s life; while, in the following decade, Nestorian missionaries introduced Christianity, which, after due examination, an Imperial Decree declared to be a satisfactory and permissible faith. Buddhist missionaries carried the teaching of Gautama to China at a period not yet ascertained; but it must have lost much of its early purity by whatever time that may have been.
CHAPTER II.
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
Gautama was the son of a petty chieftain, who exercised limited authority in a district which lay north of FaÎzÂbÂd. He lived about 600 years before the beginning of the Christian era—about the time when Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar and Assyria to the Medes. The evils of disease, old age, and death weighed on the melancholy mind of the young princelet: he sought for some way of escape from the curse of craving flesh and the wild delirium of desire. He abandoned wife and family; and dwelt, at first, in the solitude of a jungle. At this time, his life was one of pure contemplation. Then a wave of love for humanity and profound grief at human suffering swept over him. He resumed the active life, preaching a pure religion of duty and affection along the valley of the Ganges; for his soul, like the soul of Plato’s poet, “was no longer within him.” He had learned and he taught that the misery of Being is mitigated by strict obedience to the Law of human kindness and duty. He made stirring appeals to heart and conscience, and supported his mission by the ancient doctrine of Kharma, which BrÂhmans had taught him—the doctrine that the action of the evil will, barren as its fruits invariably prove for the living agent, is delayed, but not destroyed, by death, and builds up a new body and mind, which reap the bitter harvest of former transgression and also the weal which results from former well-doing. The heart achieves blessedness in proportion to its purification; a good life acquires merit, by means of which relative freedom is obtained from the mournful, malevolent turnings of the “wheel of things.” Completely purified, NirvÂna (which is sometimes interpreted as nescience, sometimes as the supra-conscious), peace in the very heart of things, is obtained. All men may be touched by love; but only rare intelligencies will seek NirvÂna. For the way to the Blessed Life is steep and beset with thorns; but the resolute spirit may achieve increasing and even perfect tranquillity by uprooting every germ of ill-will and trampling down every one of those passions of mind or body the results of which are as futile as their origin is senseless. Gautama accepted the institution of the cloister then, for such men of high intelligence as sought the truly spiritual. In time Buddhistic monasticism became divided into the system of the “Lesser Vehicle”—an ascetic scheme of discipline,—and that of the “Greater Vehicle” for richer and more metaphysical minds. The first aimed at restraint; the second, at contemplation. Buddha had no regard for caste; and this brought his teaching into conflict with that of the BrÂhmans; he promised no endless personal life in heaven—only progressive release from the evils of temporal existence; he did not interfere with the popular worship of gods. His doctrine was an appeal to our more spiritual nature, and closely resembles the Sermon on the Mount. It awakened a people bound by a system of lifeless forms framed by a priestly caste, yet who were all athirst for living waters.
But Buddhism speedily became metaphysical in the metaphysical East. Some of the convents grew into abodes of speculation and seminaries of learning. It was held that Gautama was the latest of those Buddhas, those “redeemers” of the world, into whose mother’s womb BÔdhisattva, the spirit about to become a Buddha, descended spiritually. Yet the purest teaching of the Spirit contains within itself the seeds of its own decay: the germ of fulfilment is also the germ of dissolution. The history of Buddhism strikingly illustrates the truth of this, its own tenet. Before long the new Faith, like unto BrÂhmanism, became half-throttled by formalism and encrusted by all manner of ridiculous legend and vulgar superstition. And AsÔka, who usurped a throne and established an Empire at Magadha, near Behar (in the 3rd century before Christ?) embodied the ethics of Buddhism in formal ordinances. The letter and not the spirit, of the Law prevailed. But AsÔka sent forth missionaries, East and West and North and South, and they reached far distant lands.
Probably imperfect and infrequent relations between Chinese Buddhists and Indian priests were maintained through the medium of caravans of trade. These have left no record; but in A.D. 65, the Chinese Authorities sent envoys to Sind by the long, painful, and perilous overland route. They returned with an Indian priest, sacred writings, and sacred images of Buddha. After this, an occasional embassy from India arrived; but such missions soon came to an end, although a little intercourse was kept up with Ceylon by means of an arduous and dangerous voyage. Not until the fourth century were Chinamen allowed to become Buddhist priests. Then, at once, monasteries sprang up all over the country. About the year 400 Fa-Hian and others with him were sent on an embassy to secure religious writings. They made their difficult way through Central Asia. Fa-Hian alone returned, after 14 years absence, by way of Ceylon, bearing authentic scripture with him. A hundred years later Sung-Yun became a pilgrim to the same end and was successful in securing a hundred and seventy volumes. Gautama, like Jesus, had taught by word of mouth only. His manner was to utter some pithy precept, and then to develop it in a running commentary. But his disciples recorded these precious words; and, from time to time, expositions and doctrinal developments and marvellous fables were added. Of these, the earlier were written in Pali; the later in Sanskrit, even then a dead tongue, knowledge of which was the privilege of a small learned class. These Buddhistic writings, made on prepared palm-leaves, were regarded by the faithful with superstitious reverence; and Chinese Buddhists were anxious to obtain complete and accurate copies of them, as well as sacred images and relics of Buddha, which might serve as the objects of deep veneration.
At no period has the disordered tragedy of human history been more cataclysmic than in the early part of the Seventh Century after Christ. The whole world was then a theatre of wild unrest and stupendous change, little as one fragment of the human race might know of aught but its own disasters or triumphs. The shattered edifice of the Roman Empire of the West was run over by Lombard, Frank and Goth and races still more barbarous than these. From Cheviot to Illyricum, all was confused, bloody, and unceasing riot. The exceptional vigour of Heraclius alone saved the Roman Empire of the East from the ever-watchful and now advancing hosts of Persia; while a new and wholly unexpected menace arose in the Arabian desert: there a peril burst forth as abrupt, fierce and overwhelming as a sandstorm of that rocky waste. For Mohammed and his followers advanced thence with fiery and resistless speed to offer the nations choice between the Koran, tribute, and the sword. Even distant, tranquil China, the land cut off from the rest of mankind was parturient: the Empire had broken up, and was contended for by vulturine feudatories, who fought together for sole possession of its bleeding carcase. A new and strong dynasty arose amid slaughter and desolation. But, for a time, Central China was hell let loose. The adolescence of Hiuen-Tsiang was passed amid scenes of death and dismay.
CHAPTER III.
AN ADVENTUROUS JOURNEY.
This boldest of pilgrims, greatest of Chinese travellers came into the world A.D. 603—nearly twelve hundred years after the founder of his faith. He was the fourth son of a Chinese Professor in the Province of Ho-nan, in Central China. Probably he shewed mental ability and a devotional spirit early; for the second of his elder brethren took him into his own monastery at Lo-Yang, the Eastern Capital, to supervise his education. The boy is said to have evinced such brilliant parts and such a spiritual mind that he became a novice at what would seem, at that time, to have been the exceptionally early age of thirteen years; although, two centuries before, Fa-Hian was a novice at three! It was soon after this event that revolution shook the ancient Empire, and came near to disrupt it. China became a slaughter-house, and Buddhist priests were murdered as well as Government Officials.
As certain saints bear witness, the passion that wings its flight towards no earthly home is occasionally combined with bold and efficient direction of mundane life. It was so combined in Hiuen-Tsiang. The monk of perfervid faith gave early proof that he was a lad of mettle as well as an enthusiast for the Greater Vehicle. In resolution and spirit, he dominated his elder brother, and insisted on their both setting off, in the teeth of peril, for a safer place in the Eastern province of Sz-chuen; and here he ended his novitiate and was fully ordained at the age of twenty.
At last, chaos within the Chinese frontier and warfare along it began to yield to the military genius and state-craft of T’ai-Tsung, the greatest of Chinese warriors and rulers. Hiuen-Tsiang was not slow to avail himself of the return of some measure of tranquillity to the State. He disobeyed monastic authority, joined a band of nomadic traders, and visited convent after convent of the wide Empire, with the purpose of clearing his mind, in debate with their inmates, concerning difficult problems in scriptural scholarship and the precise import of certain tenets of his faith. There was full scope for speculative discussion, since Chinese Buddhists did not yet possess a complete set of the Sacred Writings or of the Buddhist Fathers and workers in that kind of suggestive fiction which is so often taken to be veritable history and which becomes the wardrobe of moral truth. Much was, as yet, unsettled by authority and lay open to dispute.
Dissatisfied by the indefinite results of controversy, and fired by the records of previous pilgrims, the young monk resolved to make for the cradle and sanctuary of Buddhism and to seek there for the books which his countrymen lacked. He and a few ardent monks applied to the newly-established Emperor for permission to do this. The monarch was Kao-T’sou, first of the T’ang dynasty—that most famous of the many Imperial lines of China—the glory of having founded which rests with his son, the redoubtable T’ai-Tsung, whom, later on, we shall find seated on his father’s throne. The request was made at an inopportune time, and was refused. For monkdom did not stand in court-favour just then; monks were ordered to marry; possibly, because recent internecine strife had thinned the population; possibly, also, because the new government was jealous, in a perilous time, of the power of growing sacerdotalism. This prohibition put an end to the hope of Hiuen-Tsiang’s coadjutors: it only increased his own ardour and hardened his own resolve. He was now 24 years of age; therefore in the full vigour of early manhood; he cared nothing for obedience to constituted authority when constituted authority stood in the way of spiritual enlightenment. And he was not merely filled with religious enthusiasm: the restless force and curiosity of youth were his; there were shrewd, observant eyes in his head as well as disciplined wits. Here was a man anxious and fitted to observe the physical features, governments, productions, and peculiarities of unknown countries and to record them. Westward, beyond the setting sun, lay mysterious lands, vague as a dream, yet to be found a reality in this so wondrous world. There was a call from afar. When the spirit of one born for action is all a fire with enthusiasm begotten of idea, let the world keep watch!
It would appear from Tao-Sun, a Chinese author contemporary with Hiuen-Tsiang, that there were three routes from China to India—the one which our traveller took; the one by which he returned; and a third from Lake Lob-nor, over the thousand miles of terrible plateau in Thibet and the Himalayas to Nepal. Before long Hiuen Tsiang was at Liang-chau, the capital of the province of Lan-su, far beyond the upper reaches of the great Yellow River, and nearly at the extreme north-western limit of China Proper. Here were gathered merchants from Thibet and other far-distant lands; and these were so impressed by Hiuen-Tsiang’s fervour and the grandeur of his project that they are said to have cast themselves at his feet. They provided him with ample means to go on. Now, Chinese administration in the province of Lan-su had only been established recently, and remained insecure; no inhabitant was allowed to cross the frontier; and the Governor was a strong man who rigorously enforced his regulations. But what are the strongest bonds of any mere narrow national group against the conflicting obligation of Moral or Ideal impulse? How can usage and prescription and enactment prevail against more spiritual forces? Our would-be pilgrim secured the aid of a friendly monk, and stole out of the city by night, accompanied by two young novices. The trio stealthily, yet rapidly, pursued their course each night; they crept furtively into some hiding place before each dawn. By the time this evasive noctambulation had brought them to Kwa-chau, more than a hundred miles north-east of Liang-chau, Hiuen-Tsiang’s horse was dead. There was small comfort in learning that he would have to cross a river so turbulent that no boat could live on it; that, beyond the river, was an entrenchment which he must contrive to get over; and that, even should he overcome this obstacle, the frontier was closed by rings of forts; beyond the forts there was a vast stretch of herbless, waterless waste; and beyond this desert lay the land of a Turkish people—those UÏghurs, who appear in European folk-lore as the terrible Ogres.
His heart sank within him; the melancholy which seized him lasted a whole month, and his taciturnity made it apparent. The Imperial Veto arrived at Kwa-chau; the Governor of the city sent him a summons to appear. But this new blow roused his failing courage; he pulled himself together; personality and enthusiasm prevailed at the interview; the Governor was won over; Authority gave the pilgrim a hint to lose no time in making off; and closed its official eye to his departure.
Now, one of the novices was faint-hearted; the other sickly. Hiuen-Tsiang sent them back. He was anxious to get on his solitary way as fast as he could; so he bought a new horse; but he lacked a guide. By a lucky accident he fell in with a “barbarian,” who expressed a desire to become a monk, and who offered to guide him past the five successive forts which lay ahead, and which he must somehow contrive to dodge. The “barbarian” also took him to see an ancient trader who had been to the land of the UÏghurs over thirty times. This old gentleman made no attempt at reassuring him. “The routes of the West are rough and dangerous,” he said, “now, one is stopped by shifting sands; now, by demons and scorching winds. Even big caravans are liable to lose their way and come to a miserable end. How, then, can you hope to make the journey all by yourself? Be wise, I entreat you, and do not play with your life.” But the monk answered that he held his life as nothing when set against his holy quest. The old trader then dropped vain arguments and proposed a deal which should be mutually profitable: he would take the horse which Hiuen-Tsiang had bought, and would give him his own Rosinante, which had made the journey so often, and therefore must remember the road. The pilgrim, when he saw the beast, recalled how one skilled in occult science had once spoken to him of an ancient steed, reddish of colour, with a varnished saddle and an iron framework to it; and lo! was not the very steed before him? He closed the bargain; and he and the barbarian set forth together, each on his “mount.”
The twain came up to the river (the Bulunghir) and found a place where there were narrows. The guide proved himself to be resourceful: he made a sort of bridge of boughs, covered them with sand, and belaboured the horses until they dashed across the frail structure. A strange way of crossing an unfordable stream! but by no means so improbable as it sounds. It is said to be still used in Central Asia.
Night drew on. Both men were weary, and spread their mats for sleep. But Hiuen-Tsiang placed small confidence in his guide. They lay fifty paces apart. And, before long, our hero heard a stealthy footfall and saw the dim outline of the half-savage stalking up to him. With drawn sword, too! He sprang up, and breathed a prayer; whereupon the guide returned to his own mat, stretched himself out, and straightway fell asleep. Had he meant evil? or did he wish to make off if he found the pilgrim asleep? or was his desire to frighten him from pursuing a journey so perilous to them both?
Next morning, being already within the verge of the desert, they ate sparingly, but were lucky enough to find water. No more water would be found until they reached close up to the first fort; and they must steal this by night; for, once espied by the garrison, they might count themselves dead men. The guide tried to work on our pilgrim to give up such a mad enterprise. But Hiuen-Tsiang knew no shadow of turning; so the twain, ears and eyes wide open, wormed they way over the rough tackless waste. Suddenly the guide tightened his bow and bade Hiuen-Tsiang go on in front. Our pilgrim was far too wary a person to do anything of the kind; he was by no means satisfied as to the designs of the half-civilized stranger. However, the barbarian quietly resumed his duty as scout; but he displayed such a desire to be out of it all, and his fears were so obviously growing, that Hiuen-Tsiang dismissed him with a present of the horse he rode.
Behold our traveller, then, solitary on the unending, pathless desert of Gobi—one of the most immense of Earth’s waste places,—eagerly on the look out for such heaps of bleached bones as might mark the track of some caravan. After some time of slow, painful progress, he beheld a band of men wearing glittering armour and bearing their banners unfurled; they were making for him, but vanished as suddenly as they appeared. It was the mirage come to perplex and delude him. One illusion followed another in rapid succession; fleeting, dissolving scenes which were the works of the Devil. But a voice said to him: “Fear not.” This brought comfort, and his fear departed. He pushed on, and in the end he sighted the watch-tower. He hid in a sand-hollow until night closed round, and then he crept up to the wall of the fort and found the hoped-for water. He was busy filling his leathern-bottle, when an arrow whizzed by and very nearly hit him; and a second arrow followed. He shouted out: “Stop your shooting. I am a monk from the Capital.” Soldiers ran up, dragged him into the fort, and took him before their captain. He produced papers which proved his identity, and was treated with the respect due to a priest of Buddha; yet the Captain urged him to return home. Finding the pilgrim to be a man of heroic piety and inflexible will, he set out with him and guided him some distance along the way to the next fort. He even gave Hiuen-Tsiang a message to its captain, recommending the pilgrim to his favour and assistance. But the message was a verbal one only. And Hiuen-Tsiang was not sure that he might not find more rigour and less charity at the next watch-tower; so, when he came up to it, he crept furtively towards its base, in search of water as before. The dispatch of an arrow was sufficient warning; he came into the open, and the scene at the first fort was re-enacted. He repeated the message to its Captain; and this second officer gave him hospitable entertainment and better advice. For he urged him to avoid the third fort, which was held by rough soldiery, who would not be nice in making delicate distinctions and might easily become violent. And he directed him to take a route which avoided this fort altogether, and along which, at ten leagues distance, he would come across sweet water.
He set off across the arid plain, where was neither beast nor bird to be seen, nor blade of grass, nor any sign of moisture—only mirage. A pandemonium of fantastic forms encircled him; forms begotten of the Power of Evil. But he felt secure in the midst of devils; for did he not bear, folded in his bosom, a sure talisman—none other than a Sacred Manuscript, the gift of grateful leper to whom he had stood as a friend?
Illusory peril was followed by solid disaster: he dropped his water-bottle and spilled its precious contents. Next, his horse lost its way, and made the same long circuit again and again. For a moment, he was tempted to assay a return to the fort: he brushed the thought aside, turned his horse’s head to the North-West, and pushed on.
Night came on. Evil spirits seized on the opportunity to close in on him. Every demon bore a burning torch. They were more in multitude than the stars of heaven. Four horrid nights, filled with hallucination, wore away. Four days he struggled on, tortured by thirst, his body one ache. At last horse and rider fell to the ground, worn out. Death was close at hand when a refreshing night-breeze swept over the desert, and horse and rider renewed the struggle. Suddenly, the horse insisted on taking his own way: he had scented water; and soon a little oasis was reached. It was uninhabited; but a day’s rest there refreshed man and beast; and, on the third day, the traveller saw the last of the shifting sands of Shamo and came to the pastures of the UÏghurs.
In the capital, probably identical with the town now known as HÂmÎ, he found a Buddhist monastery, wherein dwelt three Chinese monks. He had already made fully 600 miles from Liang-chau; but that was as nothing to the journey which lay before him; and from this he was compelled to digress. For he was in a region tributary to the ruler of Kau-chang (Turfan) and this monarch, having heard of his arrival, ordered that he should be sent on to him. Six days of travel to the West, through a desert, brought him to Turfan. The Lord-paramount of the UÏghurs received him with all honour and much state-ceremony. He sat under a “canopy of precious stuffs” pitched in the courtyard of a palace. Soon after the pilgrim’s arrival, the queen, accompanied by her suite, appeared; but Hiuen-Tsiang being fatigued, their Majesties retired to the “palace,” and he was conducted to his chamber, where eunuchs served and guarded him. Next day he was taken to a Buddhist convent, still in the custody of the eunuchs. For the monarch had resolved to keep such a holy person for the better instruction of his subjects.
Hiuen-Tsiang incurred the royal displeasure by stoutly refusing to do as he was bid and stay on. Then ensued, in that far away time and half barbaric land, the ancient and ever recurrent struggle which history so copiously illustrates—the contest between regnant authority and the claims of religion. At one time the despot tried to brow-beat; at another time, to cajole; he even put aside his dignity and offered to serve the monk at table. Both men were equally resolute; and the situation seemed hopeless, when Hiuen-Tsiang bethought him of an expedient with which we moderns became familiar at no very recent date. He started to hunger-strike. In four days the result of this policy alarmed the King. The queen-mother declared herself for the holy pilgrim, and the monarch gave in. He begged that Hiuen-Tsiang would at least stay in the country during one short month. The monk accepted the compromise; and in that single month his unaffected piety, passionate singleness of aim and personal attraction did the work they never failed to accomplish everywhere and on every occasion. Moral intensity was the secret of his success.
And so we see the poor wanderer who came to UÏghur-land alone, famished, and half dead, leaving the land under the protection of an armed escort, and provided, not merely with an ample supply of warm clothing for the heights he must cross, but with 100 ounces of gold, 30,000 pieces of silver and 500 pieces of satin for the presents which were necessary and to pay his way. He was also given letters of recommendation to the Princes of the West. Monks and the population of the city followed him beyond its gates; and the despot, having sent the queen and people back, conducted him surrounded by his whole court, some miles on his journey.
The route lay westward, over a difficult, mountainous land. Southward lay the Tarim, a considerable river, which discharges itself into Lob-nor, one of the numerous inland salt-seas of Asia, for ever rising and falling and shifting its boundaries. It was well that the pilgrim had a military escort; for a band of brigands lurked among the mountains. They were probably quite as strong as the UÏghur soldiery; for negotiations were entered into, and ended in their being bought off. A little farther on there was ghastly evidence that these ruffians had recently attacked and destroyed a caravan of traders: a few score corpses lay stretched out on the ground.
When Kara-shahr (KarshÂr) was reached, its King behaved courteously, but refused to grant fresh horses, by reason of the frequent raiding of his domain by the UÏghurs. He was disquieted by the presence of UÏghur soldiery. Hiuen-Tsiang tells us, among much else that is interesting, that the coinage here was of gold, silver and copper,—that there were ten Buddhist monasteries of the Lesser Vehicle; that these were properly kept, but that the country “had no annals” and that “the laws were not settled. The people clothe themselves in cotton or wool, and go about with their scalps shorn and uncovered.”
The separate account of each country the pilgrim visited or concerning which he believed he had credible information—his great monumental work—the Si-yu-ki—begins with Kara-shahr which he calls Akni or Agni. One is at once struck with the exactness of the author’s observation, the orderliness of his mind, and the minute precision of his statement. One is equally astounded at his oriental love of the marvellous and his eager haste to record every grotesque and absurd legend. There is before us a man as full as any modern explorer of ardent zeal for travel, eager curiosity, keen eye, and quick interest in all that is novel and peculiar. There is the same intellectual grasp of the natural features, products and government of strange countries. But Hiuen-Tsiang’s inmost, burning passion is revealed both in this book and in the biography compiled from his documents and discourse by two pupils and intimate friends Hwui-Lih and Yen-Tsong1: it was for all that appertained to his religion, whether sacred writing or Buddhist monuments or the relics of saints. When he deals with mundane matters he rarely goes astray. And, from his earliest years, he bore a sacred flame, a consuming fire in his breast, fed by the highest and holiest emotions and aspirations of man. But, although he breathed the breath of life, the purest atmosphere of the East in his century was tainted by superstition. The mental disposition for the marvellous, implanted in him at a tender age, and sustained by precept and example, waxed with the years. The absurdest legends became credible if they bore the name of his faith. This close observer, this clear minded man became passionate for prodigies, had a Gargantuan swallow for the superstitious-grotesque. Brought up on legend, he soon found himself in a home of fable. He records every marvellous tale which is told him, and worships at every shrine which guards any relic of wonder. And this although he was not wanting in passion for orderly thinking.
News from Kara-shahr that a holy pilgrim, bound for India, might be expected reached the next Kingdom, and he found monks standing to greet him at the gate of KutchÊ, its capital. Feelings of simple grace and beauty dwelt in those Eastern hearts; they welcomed him with a gift of flowers. But the strict laws of his order did not permit of his accepting these for himself. He placed them before an image of Buddha, Teacher of the Law. KutchÊ was a land of music, its people excelling all others on the lute and pipe. They were a wholly honest folk, with an incompetent ruler. “The King’s wisdom being small,” says our Chinaman, “he is ruled by a private minister. The heads of children of the humbler order are flattened by the pressure of a wooden board”; which recalls the custom of certain North American Indians. The King had ordered a banquet to honour his visitor; but the strictness of the rule which Hiuen-Tsiang followed forbade him to be present. This cast the potentate into a mighty rage; but once again the simplicity and sincerity of the pilgrim’s character, which glowed in his countenance, disarmed wrath. He was retained at KutchÊ, an honoured guest, until such time as the snows should melt. He spent two months there, chiefly occupied in religious discussion with the monks. He tells us that the monarch and his ministers met together once a month to discuss matters of state, and consulted the priests before publishing their decrees.
When the season ripened and the ways became open once more, he was sent forth in magnificent pomp and protection; he was accompanied by an armed escort and a staff of servants, all mounted on camels and horses. The escort was very necessary; for a great horde of Turkish robbers were passed on the way, quarrelling about the booty of a caravan which they had stopped and plundered. A march of about 120 miles brought our party to a small desert which they crossed over, and so entered the domain of another KhÂn. A single night was spent at what is now Bai, where he found Buddhist monasteries, and the party pushed across another small desert. The towering and forbidding ranges of Thian-shan were before them, “very dangerous and reaching up to the sky.” Indeed KhÂn Tengri, the highest mountain of the range, has an elevation of 24,000 feet. The imposing features of the mountain-masses and the horror of the passes across them left indelible marks on Hiuen-Tsiang’s memory. “Since the creation of the world,” he says, “the snow has gathered there and become frozen blocks, which spring and summer cannot melt. Shining sheets of solid ice spread before one, and there is, as it were, no end to them; they blend with the clouds. Frozen splinters have become detached and have fallen; some of these are an hundred feet high; others measure some dozens of feet athwart, and they bar the way. You attempt to climb over the former kind at your peril; you get across the latter with pain. And all the time tempest assails you with gusts of wind and whirling drifts of snow; so that double soles to your foot-gear and fur garments to your body fail to keep out the cold. Of dry shelter there is none, either to feed or sleep in. You have to sling up your cooking-pot and lay your sleeping mat on the frozen ground.” Mountain-staves were used, and we learn from the Si-yu-ki (the “Record of Western Countries”) that mountaineers were accustomed to cut steps in the ice. But to climb uncharted hills, among the highest of the world, led by guides of no great experience; to make one’s way over rock and glacier unroped and unprovided with specially constructed boots; to sleep in the open in rarified and arctic air; to live on poor food, and often to lack it, was to loathe the mountain-pass. And this Hiuen-Tsiang did, heartily.
It cost the caravan seven dolorous days to cross the higher ranges, and, by the time the western uplands were reached, 13 or 14 strong men had been lost through cold and hunger, and more than double that number of beasts of burthen.
Beyond the mountains, the uplands of Western Turkestan lie at a higher level than that reached by Ben Nevis, and they embosom a great inland sea—the Issyk-Kul, which lies nearly 5,000 feet up. Wending their way along its southern shore, our travellers ran into a hunting party of the KhÂn of the Turks. Only half a century had then passed since nomadic Turkish tribes possessed themselves of the “thousand sources” of those two great rivers which lose themselves in the Aral Sea, which are known to modern geographers as Amu Daria and Syr Daria, and which readers of the classics know as Oxus and Jaxartes. The Turks speedily became masters of the fertile plains of Sogdiana and Bactria, subdued the tribes that occupied the region we call BokhÂra, and extended their sway into the very heart of the HindÛ KÛsh, reaching as far south as the Kapisa of the Greeks—that is to say, within a few miles of KÂbul.
We have an interesting account of how the Nomadic Ruler gave the travellers a gracious reception within a great tent, resplendent with cloth of gold. Two long rows of dignitaries, clad in figured silks of many colours, squatted on mats before the KhÂn; behind him stood the royal guard. He wore a cloak of green satin; his long hair was bound over the forehead by several folds of silk, the ends whereof fell over his back. When on horseback, two hundred captains, gay in brocade and riding horses with plaited tails, and an army with banners, spears and long bows accompanied him. This was not foot soldiery; horses or camels were ridden, and the men were clad in furs and fine wool. One could see no end to the army, it was such a multitude. Our author tells us that the Turk of his day worshipped fire, and sat on mats, since wooden chairs contain the quality of fire. Ten centuries later Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Urn-Burial” refers to the Parsees of India “which expose their bodies unto vultures and endure not so much as feretra or biers of wood, the proper fuel of fire.” A huge arm-chair, made of iron and covered with a mat was brought in for the use of Hiuen-Tsiang. The whole party was invited to sit, Turkish fashion; wine was brought in, cups clinked, and everybody drank, turn and turn about; while music, which to Chinese ears was barbaric yet not unpleasing, came from strange instruments. After the wine, legs and shoulders of boiled mutton and veal were brought in; but the Buddhist was separately served with “pure food”—rice-cake, cream, milk, crystallized sugar, honeycomb and grapes. Of course the divine gadfly which pursued our hero stung him to testify on this occasion, as on all other opportunities, whether in season or out of season. But his personality stood him in good stead; moreover, to this day, a holy man is respected throughout the pagan East, no matter what his faith may be. The KhÂn was interested and attentive; even impressed. He raised his hands towards heaven, cast himself on the ground, kept Hiuen-Tsiang about his person for some days, and earnestly besought him to give up his project. “You must not go,” he said. “The country is a very hot one. You look too frail a man to give hope of your success. The natives are black; they go about naked; they have no modesty; they are unworthy of your presence among them.” “Whatever I may be,” replied the Master of the Law, “I burn with longing to seek for the commands of Buddha, to inspect the ancient monuments, and to follow lovingly the track of our Lord’s footpath on earth.” What followed marks yet once more the personal ascendency of our hero in every situation. This half-savage head of wild Mongolian hordes sought straightway for some one who knew Chinese and could also interpret the confusion of tongues in his own subject-lands to the south. Such a man was speedily picked out of the KhÂn’s army; for Chinese had been carried off by the Turkish Hiung-nu (a people possibly, though by no means certainly, identical with the terrible Huns whom Attila led to devastate Europe) and had settled down in towns, deserted when Hiuen-Tsiang arrived in the district, but where they had kept up their native tongue, although they had adopted Turkish dress and ways. With true Eastern courtesy to a guest, the great KhÂn accompanied our traveller some little way on his journey.
At first the route lay westward towards the “Land of the Thousand Sources”—a region of lakes and pools, great trees, much vegetation, and a sweet and wooing air. Hither the KhÂn was wont to repair in summer. Still travelling westward, Talas was reached, and then, by bending round to the South-West and South, Samarkand, the “storehouse of precious merchandise from many foreign countries.” Our traveller found the ruler “full of courage, and controlling neighbouring countries” with his fierce soldiery. He received the pilgrim with an air of lofty disdain; but Hiuen-Tsiang was not a man to be daunted, and, next day, when he boldly set forth his faith, contempt became respect. Buddhism was practically dead in Samarkand. The monasteries were empty. Two young monks who were with Hiuen-Tsiang sought to pass the night in one of these vacant buildings; but the populace threw burning brands at them and drove them out. The King condemned the offenders to decapitation; but Hiuen-Tsiang pleaded for mercy; so they were merely beaten and expelled from the city. His successful intercession increased the fervour of his missionary zeal; nor did he toil in vain; the monasteries were re-opened; and he ordained priests to fill them.
Leaving Samarkand, about 90 miles off, he entered a pass bordered by mountains “of prodigious heighth, with a narrow road” to add “to the difficulty and danger.” The pass was closed by double wooden doors, studded with iron, and hung with bells. The pass owed its name—The Iron Gates—to these strong defences.
The Oxus was reached and crossed, and our pilgrim now deviates considerably from the direct route to fulfil a promise which he had made to the KhÂn of the UÏghurs to visit his son-in-law, the son of the great KhÂn of the Turks, who ruled over a little KhÂnate, called Hwo, and probably identical with the district which lies east of the Surkh-Âb. When he arrived, he found the monarch on his death-bed; and was obliged to wait two months until the funeral ceremonies were done with. During this time a tragedy took place which casts a lurid light on court-life in Central Asia during the Seventh Century, and which reminds us of the Italian tragedies during the High Renaissance. The wife of the KhÂn had died, and the KhÂn replaced her by marrying her young sister. At the instigation of a son by the first marriage, the bride murders her husband. “The serpent that did sting his father’s life now wears his crown,” and marries his aunt-step-mother. A similar atrocity is recorded of the Chinese Imperial family in Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. In A.D. 655 the Emperor, Kao-Tsung, deposed the Empress and married one of his father’s widows, who wholly ruled him, cut off the feet of the Empress, and of another queen, and then had these unfortunate ladies drowned “like Clarence in his Malmsey-butt,” in a vat of wine.
Hiuen-Tsiang was fortunate in finding a monk who had dwelt in India and had studied the Scriptures there; and the twain set forth for Balkh in some sort of waggon. At Balkh, he found no fewer than a hundred Buddhist monasteries, three thousand monks, and sacred memorials and relics beyond count. He might have become very rich; for the Kinglets around Balkh were eager to secure a visit from such a holy being, and offered to load him with gold and jewels. But he was not the man to depart from the straight and narrow path he had chosen. He refused them one and all, and set forth for ways “even more difficult and dangerous than the deserts of ice. Every moment one is at battle there with frozen cloud or snow-whirlwind. Sometimes one is faced with worse than this, even, namely, morasses of mud, dozens of feet wide. Ice, pile on pile, rises into mountain masses, snow-blasts dash on for a hundred leagues.” “The raging spirits and demons of the mountains send every kind of calamity; and there are murderous robbers to be met with.” Thus does Hiuen Tsiang describe the passage of the HindÛ KÛsh.
At BÂmiyÂn, in the heart of Afghanistan, a great centre of Buddhism after the model of the Little Vehicle, he was honourably received by its ruler and rested five days in his palace. He visited the great Buddhist images, hewn out of the solid rock (which our soldiers saw in the Afghan Campaign of 1843) and other remarkable monuments. On the second day after leaving BÂmiyÂn, he was caught in a blinding snowstorm, lost his way, and was like to perish, when mountaineers who were out hunting came across him and put him on the right track. A mountain pass brought him to the Kapisa of Ptolemy and Pliny. It was situated a little to the north of the present KÂbul. Here “the people were fierce and cruel speaking a rude tongue, their marriage a mere intermingling of the sexes.” The monarch, shrewd, brave, firm and sagacious, had established a little empire by bringing ten neighbouring States under his overlordship, and had won the love of his subjects. Hearing of the approach of the pilgrim, this potentate set out to meet him, accompanied by a procession of monks. These pietists of various monasteries of the Great and Little Vehicle remained sufficiently human to quarrel as to which house should shelter so rare a guest. Now the King was an enthusiastic supporter of the more rigid Order; and Hiuen-Tsiang would naturally have prepared to take up his abode in a convent of the Great Vehicle. But the appeal of the monks of a convent following the Little Vehicle, an appeal made on historic grounds, touched him; yet one of the monks who had accompanied him showed strong repugnance to sleep in a house of Hiuen-Tsiang’s rival and stricter sect. Our Chinese was neither a Courtier nor a Pharisee; he could “suffer fools gladly,” and took up his abode with the weaker brethren. Then the rivals had but one voice in entreating him to uncover a treasure, which had been set aside for the repair of some religious house, and which lay buried beneath the foot of an image of Buddha.
CHAPTER IV.
THROUGH INDIA IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
He passed the wet season at Kapisa, and then, protected by the King’s envoys, went along the North bank of the KÂbul river and through districts memorable in the record of the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great. Again and again do we come across the names of places familiar to the reader of Arrian and Strabo. He visited PeshÂwar and Attock; he travelled through many a little Kingdom of what is now North-Eastern Afghanistan and the North-West Provinces of India, by zig-zag and perplexing routes. Here was the classic soil of ancient BrÂhmanism; here was to be found many a Buddhist record of the great days of AsÔka. It was a land of monasteries and monuments, of countless stÛpas (monuments containing relics) and sculptured stones, of ancient tradition and extravagant myth. The recording carvings of ages still stood thick on the ground or lay there in ruin. He saw every one of them, traversing perilous ravines by the help of chains affixed to the rocks; crossing frail swaying bridges made of rope. He got as far north as BaltistÂn, or Little Thibet, “in the midst of the Great Snowy Mountains.” More than six centuries later, Marco Polo refers to the inhabitants as “an evil race of savage idolaters,” and Hiuen-Tsiang found their forefathers “fierce, passionate folk, ill-mannered, and of uncouth speech.” “Strictly speaking, they do not belong to India, but are rude frontier-folk.” Sometimes the ways were deserted; for brigands were abroad. Almost everywhere BrÂhmanism was in the ascendent; Buddhism in decay; but, as yet, the rivalry of the two creeds had nowhere become acute; rival religionists behaved kindly and courteously one to another; and BrÂhmans received the traveller with generous hospitality. Yet the careful student will not fail to observe that the antagonism between BrÂhman and Buddhist, which is evident in the pages of Fa-Hien, had not decreased in the two centuries since his time. For Exoteric BrÂhmanism, with its clever adaptation of the ancient gods of India; its appeal to the imagination of the vulgar, always concrete in character and incapable of comprehending an abstract proposition; its deities, embodying human passion and evoking human sympathies; its support of human pride in the institution of caste; its intercessory priesthood and vicarious sacrifice; and its supple manipulation of men to obtain power, was on the high road to revival. But there is an esoteric BrÂhmanism, as Macaulay found out, always the lofty, pure creed of the educated Hindu.
Hiuen-Tsiang went up and down and to and fro in these frontier-states, threading many a delicious valley which nestled among the mountains and was overlooked by the snows of Himalaya; and returning from time to time to the more enervating atmosphere of the valley of the Indus. The King of KasmÎr (Cashmir) visited him at a monastery where he was staying, preceded by a brilliant procession. The roadway was covered with umbrellas and banners; it was carpeted with flowers, and the air was filled with sweet scents. The monarch was full of compliment and shows of respect, and scattered a great quantity of flowers in Hiuen-Tsiang’s honour. Then he begged him to take his seat on a great elephant. And he walked behind him. The pilgrim remained two years in KasmÎr, sitting at the feet of a sage, studying Sanskrit and the Buddhist scriptures. Indeed, throughout all his travels, he was forever studying or collecting or transcribing manuscripts, when he was not visiting and venerating relics.
Now near NagarahÂra, in the district of JalÂlÂbÂd, there was a certain cavern, where, peradventure, the pious might behold the shadow which Buddha had cast on its walls. It had been granted to Sung-Yun to see it, when the Empress Dowager of a Tartar dynasty which ruled in Northern China sent him and another on an embassy to obtain Buddhist books (A.D. 518); and Hiuen-Tsiang was consumed by desire to see it also. His escort from Kapisa earnestly begged him not to make the attempt; it was a rash and perilous project; brigands were abroad; and few indeed were those who might see the holy vision. They could not dissuade him; so they left him and went home, and he took an old man as guide. When he got near the cavern five brigands pounced upon him. He pointed to his monks’ robe and told them that, if they were brigands, they were none the less men, and he had no fear of men, or even of wild beasts, when sacred duty called him. He touched their hearts, and they let him go.
Although a man visited by visions and a dreamer of significant dreams, he spent a long time in the cave and saw nothing. Prostrations and convictions of sin were in vain. Then, quite suddenly, came a flash of light; thereupon he vowed that he would not quit the spot until he should behold the veritable shade. In the end the reward of such persistent enthusiasm was bestowed: he beheld the Buddha, attended by his sacred court, in all their heavenly splendour. But, just then, torch-bearers came into the cave, intending to burn perfumes in the holy place, and the glory disappeared. Hiuen-Tsiang ordered them to put out their lights, and lo! there was the vision as before. Five of the six torch-bearers declared that they beheld the shadow. It is characteristic of our pilgrim that he is careful to tell us that the sixth man saw nothing whatever. Never a shadow of doubt arises as to his good faith. Sung-Yun the Chinese ambassador and pilgrim, writing an account of his journey a hundred years before Hiuen-Tsiang, tells us how, “Entering the mountain cavern fifteen feet and looking for a long time (or, at a long distance?) at the western side of it, opposite the entrance, at length, the figure, with its characteristic marks, appears; on going nearer to look at it, it gradually grows fainter, and then disappears. On touching the place where it was with the hand, there is nothing but the bare wall. Gradually retreating, the figure begins to come into view again, and foremost is conspicuous that peculiar mark between the eyebrows, which is so rare among men.” And Hiuen-Tsiang tells us, in his “Records of Western Lands,” that in later days the shadow has faded to a feeble likeness, although, by fervent prayer, it may be clearly seen, “though not for long.”
Leaving the North-Western corner of India, he now proceeded through the PunjÂb. Many a city he names has perished, and not a stone thereof is left; of others a few stones mark the seat of departed greatness; but often the names recall the Embassy of Megasthenes and differ but little from those by which they were known to the Greeks of a yet earlier age.
He had left certain rude tribes behind him, yet he found particular districts by no means free from murderous gangs; and he had to traverse many a forest inhabited by wild elephants and great beasts of prey. In one forest, he and fellow-monks who accompanied him found themselves at the mercy of half a hundred armed brigands, who chased them into the bed of a pond which had run dry. Hiuen-Tsiang and some others contrived to hide among thorny bushes and coarse growth; but some of the company were caught and bound. Happily a hollow, scooped out by escaping waters, was hit upon; and our pilgrim and some who were in hiding contrived to make their way out. About half a mile off they came across a BrÂhman ploughing with oxen; and he took them to a village hard by. He blew a conch and beat a drum, and soon 80 men of the village snatched up their arms and gathered together to attack the robbers. These latter, seeing so many bounding towards them, made off with all speed; the villagers found and released their captives, who lay bound, stripped, and quite helpless, groaning and weeping many tears. The good people of the village covered their nakedness and took them to their homes for food and shelter. “Master,” said one of the monks, to Hiuen-Tsiang, “all that we had has been taken by the thieves, and we have barely got off with our lives. How is it you can smile and look so cheerful!” “Because life is man’s greatest boon,” was the reply. “When that has been saved, why vex one’s self over clothes and food?”
Soon we are with Hiuen-Tsiang at a centre of BrÂhmanism which was probably LÂhÔr (Lahore). Everywhere he is received with courtesy; usually welcomed with procession and pageantry. Before very long, we find him making a long dÉtour to the cold upper valley of the Bujas river, under the Himalayas, and among a rude, hard, fierce race, but one that had a regard for justice as well as for courage.
He returns to a warmer latitude, and reaches MathurÂ, or Muttra, on the River Jumna; a place once famous for the relics stored in its stÛpas. Here, different convents followed different authorities; but once a year they gathered together, and each sect made offering before the relics of its chosen saint. A little later, after traversing several small States, it would seem that he visited the source of the Ganges, although, in spite of explicit statement, this has been doubted. He speaks of the river as being 3/4 mile wide at its source! May he not mean that the end of its parent glacier is of that width?2
A little later on, we are told of the softness of Ganges water; of how multitudes of bathers assemble on its sandy banks to cleanse them of sin; and how a mere rinsing of the mouth with its water wall avert every calamity and secure future blessedness. “But there is no truth in this universal belief, which is wholly the invention of heresy,” adds our traveller, critical of everything but the superstitions which had encrusted his own faith. And he is of opinion that this special form of false belief is on the wane among the Indian people!
We find him before long in Western Rohilkand, and then again in an icy Himalayan valley, where “for ages a woman has ruled; wherefore it is called the Kingdom of the Eastern Women.” It corresponds to what is now British Garwal and Kumain. As then, so is it to-day: relics of the matriarchate and polyandry are to be found among the Himalayan ranges.
He returns to the Ganges, and, passing through several small States, arrives at Kanauj. He is for ever visiting scholars, and sits for months at the feet of every famous sage. He does so at Kanauj, which he tells us is a city measuring four miles in length and one in breadth. He is now in an Empire recently established by SÎlÂditya, a warrior of the Vaisya, or trading, class, who had forced a number of petty Kinglets to become his tributaries. SÎlÂditya would seem to have been a devout Buddhist, favouring the Greater Vehicle, and, really devoting himself to the prosperity of the Empire he ruled.
He now enters AyÔdhy—Oude—the same name that, eleven centuries later, rang so compellingly in the ears of Clive and Warren Hastings. Here BrÂhmanism was getting the upper hand. And there was not merely much lawlessness but a terrible perversion of religious worship abroad in this land, which reminds one of modern Thuggee. A boat with Hiuen-Tsiang and eighty others on board was gliding peacefully down the Ganges, when a whole little navy of pirates, which had lain concealed under the dense foliage of the river-bank, shot out into mid-stream, and surrounded the pilgrim’s vessel. Some of the passengers leaped into the river; those who remained in the vessel were towed ashore and robbed. Now these water-thieves were devotees of the goddess DurgÂ, the wife of Siva, and were wont to offer at her altar a yearly sacrifice of some unblemished human victim, selected from their captives. They carefully examined Hiuen-Tsiang, and pronounced him fit for this purpose. Some of his companions generously offered to take his place; but the pirates would have none of them—Hiuen-Tsiang and he alone was the goddess’ chosen prey. He, of all the company, remained calm and undismayed. “Let me enter NirvÂna tranquil and happy,” he said, his mind wholly occupied with some future incarnation wherein he might turn such cruel hearts as those of the pirates. These, amazed, and even touched, by his meek and compassionate fortitude, granted him a few more minutes of life. Just at this moment, a squall came on, so fierce that it terrified the pirates, even. Hiuen-Tsiang’s companions were loud in exclaiming that it was heaven’s warning of the awful vengeance which would ensue on the murder of a saint. The hearts of the homicides were stricken by fear. One of them took the pilgrim’s hand. He only felt the pressure; for his eyes were closed and he was wrapt in some celestial vision. He asked if the fatal moment had come; and when he learned that the mind of the robbers was changed, he began to unfold “the Law” to them with such persuasive power that they cast their instruments of sacrifice into the river, restored what they had stolen, and quietly went their way.
He visited PrayÂga (Allahabad), near the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, and then took a dangerous course, south-west, through a forest infested with wild elephants and beasts of prey, to KosÂmbi-nagar, now a mere village on the Jumna, only to find ten Buddhist monasteries ruined and deserted and fifty temples of flourishing BrÂhmanism, frequented by an enormous number of “heretics.” Thence he travelled northwards, and came to Gautama’s birth place, Kapila. It was a waste. Almost everywhere BrÂhmanism was quietly triumphing and Buddhism in gentle decay; although it was not until the following century that this shrivelling process became rapid, and four or five centuries had yet to pass before new dynasties sacked monasteries and burned their inmates or expelled them from India in such wise that Buddhism became extinct throughout the Great Peninsula.
At BÂnÂras (Benares) he saw BrÂhman ascetics who shaved the head, or went about naked, or covered themselves with ashes, and “by all manner of austerity sought to escape from any more births and deaths.” He tells us of the blueness of the sacred river and its rolling waves; of the sweet taste of its waters and the fineness of its sands; of how numbers of people, in order to wash away the pollution of sin, “would abstain from eating for seven days, and then drown themselves in the sacred stream. Daily, towards sunset, ascetics would climb up a pillar set in the middle of the river, cling to it by one hand and one foot in a marvellous manner, and gaze at the sun until he went down, when they would descend. Thereby they hoped to escape from reincarnation.” “If the body of a dead man be cast into the stream, he cannot fall into an evil way. Swept on by its waters and forgotten by men, he is safe on the other side.”
It was at BÂnÂras that Gautama began his evangel, and the vast district between Jumna and the mountains of Nepal was the main scene of his labours. In the Kingdom of Magadha, which, like Kanduj, was under the rule of SÎlÂditya, he found an area of fourteen miles covered with the ruins of a city which was flourishing when Fa-Hien visited India. The stones of stÛpas, monasteries, pagodas and hospitals for men and beasts cumbered the ground.
While Hiuen-Tsiang was staying at the place where Gautama “SÂkyamÛni” as he was called during the ascetic portion of his career—that is to say, “the sage of the family of the SÂkyas”—became “Buddha,” or “the Enlightener of men,” a deputation of four of the most distinguished monks of the great SarighÂrÂma of NÂlanda—the greatest scholastic and monastic institution in the world—came to him bearing an invitation to stay there. When he arrived he was welcomed with much state and ceremony. Two hundred monks and crowds of people greeted him, singing songs in his praise, bearing standards and umbrellas, and scattering flowers and scent. They raised him to a seat of honour, and then the sub-director sounded a gong and repeated the invitation. Twenty grave and reverend seniors of the monastery presented him to the Father Superior, who was no other than the famous scholar SÎlabhadra, a dignitary so exalted that no one dared name him except by his title of “Treasury of the Righteous Law.” Hiuen-Tsiang had to drag himself towards this sage on knees and elbows, clacking his heels together, and striking the ground with his brow. This done, seats were brought forward, compliments were interchanged, and the pilgrim was made free of the institution. The best rooms were given up to him; ten servants were allotted to him, and, daily he was furnished with an ample supply of food at the cost of the monks and the RÂja. A Buddhist monk and a BrÂhman, dwelling in peace together, took him abroad from time to time and shewed him the holy sights of the neighbourhood, seated in state on an elephant or carried in a palanquin; but when he was in the convent the “Treasury of the Righteous Law” devoted no small measure of his time to his instruction in the higher learning.
In the Seventh Century there was not, in the whole world a seat of learning which might compare with the splendid establishment at NÂlanda. It had been magnificently endowed by a succession of monarchs and still enjoyed the royal favour as much as ever. There were open courts and secluded gardens; splendid trees, casting a grateful shade, under which the monks and novices might meditate; cool fountains of fresh water that gurgled delightfully in the hot season. Ten thousand inmates dwelt in six blocks of buildings four stories high, which looked out on large courts. There were a hundred rooms set apart for lectures on religion and on all the science and literature of the time. There were halls wherein disputations frequently took place; and in these Hiuen-Tsiang took a distinguished part. The monks impressed him favourably: he found them sincere, and living in the strict observance of severe rules. He says: “from morning to night, young and old help each other in discussions, for which they find the day too short.” The mental power and learning of the monks were as renowned as the towers, the pavilions, and the cool retreats of the convent-university in which they dwelt. The study of medicine and natural history and useful and useless branches of mundane research was by no means cast aside for speculation. But the latter was of so subtle a character that, while ten hundred might be found capable of expounding twenty books of the SÂtras and SÂstras, only five hundred could deal with thirty books, and only ten with fifty; although students were not admitted until they had proved themselves men of parts, and well-read in books, old and new, by hard public discussion; and of ten candidates for admission, seven or eight were rejected. Altogether, Hiuen-Tsiang spent five years in study here; and he became one of the ten who could expound fifty sacred books. But SÎlabhadra, the Father Superior, who was his tutor, had left no sacred book unstudied.
From NÂlanda, our pilgrim proceeded to Patna, and crossing the Ganges, visited GayÂ. He saw everything worth seeing in the country about Bhagalpur, and found there a monastery of the first order, the origin of which was a curious history. A “heretic” from South India had marched into the country, staff in hand, with stately step and pompous mien, beating “the drum of discussion.” On his head, he bore a lighted torch, and his belly was encased in plates of shining copper. When asked the reason for such strange attire, he replied that the torch was to enlighten the ignorant multitude, who dwelt in darkness, and the belt was for self-preservation, since he was so filled with wisdom that he feared his belly would burst. In spite of this mummery, he proved himself so well instructed and persuasive that all the learned men in the Kingdom were unable to controvert his arguments. At last, a Buddhist from Southern India was sent for and reduced him to silence. The RÂja was so impressed by the victory that he founded the monastery.
Our traveller now came to the land of the sugar-cane. His account of the Kingdoms he visited after leaving the chief scenes of Gautama’s missionary zeal, and the history of his wanderings, put together from his notes and conversations with his pupils, become less full than before; but it is clear that he made his way to “the shore-country” of the Bay of Bengal, which would seem to be the Sunderbans, between the rivers Ganges and HÛgli—afterwards a name of horror, as the lair of infamous Portuguese pirates. At all events, he crossed the great Delta of the Ganges, intending to embark for Ceylon at Tamluk on the Selai, just where that river joins the HÛgli. Fa-Hian had done so, and had seen Ceylon and its monuments; but Hiuen-Tsiang was given such accounts of the perils of the long voyage that anxiety for the safety of the treasures he had collected induced him to travel by land to South India, and he determined to sail thence across the narrow Palk Strait. So he returned inland, nearly as far back as Bhagalpur again, and proceeded thence to Orissa. Thence he travelled south-westward to the district watered by the upper tributaries of the Mahanadi and Godavari in Central India; penetrating many a pestiferous marsh and perilous jungle, deep and dangerous forest and scorching desert-plain, before he arrived at Congeveram, the Dravidian capital, a little south-west of Madras and north-west of Pondicherri. Here he learned that Ceylon had become the theatre of a bloody war and that it would be impossible to reach it. So he turned his reluctant steps to the north.
He tells of the courage, honesty and love of truth of the Dravidian race, and of the heat and fruitfulness of the land they inhabited. He speaks of his return-journey as being partly through “a wild forest and many deserted villages where bands of brigands attack travellers.” Then, going north-west, he came to the country of the Mahrattas—not the modern race which goes by that name, but a people who apparently were Rajpoots, the old military Aryan aristocracy of India, whose widows, following a Scythian custom, cast themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands to be worthy of their chivalry and to rejoin them in the next life. Hiuen-Tsiang describes the Mahrattas as being tall of stature, honest and simple; grateful to friends, relentless to enemies. They avenged an insult at the risk of life; they would forget all about themselves in their haste to give aid. They always gave due warning to a foe before attacking him, and spared the enemy who should yield. A commander who lost a battle was not directly punished; but he received a present of women’s clothes, and this was enough: it drove him to suicide. The army was of several hundred chosen men, who went into battle drunk, and made their elephants drunk also. Then they would rush forward in close array, bearing everything before them and trampling on the foe. Nothing could withstand such an onset. And one man all alone, with his lance in hand, was always quite ready to challenge and fight ten thousand. These champions had drums beaten before them every time they went abroad; and should one of them come across a man and slay him no notice of the offence was taken.
Passing through Western India and States which bordered on the Arabian Sea, we find our traveller in Southern Malwa and Rajputana and, later, in Sind. Twice in his account of Southern and Western India and once in the Life and Journeyings of Hiuen-Tsiang, we are told that he heard of a “Land of Western Women.” While on the Coromandel Coast, he heard of an island inhabited by women who bore female children only to Persian demons. Of old time, they were wont to allure sailors and traders by signals. If successful, they changed themselves into beautiful women, holding flowers and dispersing sweet scents. They went forth to meet voyagers to the sound of sweet music, and, having inveigled them into their City, which was built of iron, and having solaced them with their society, they would cast them into an iron prison and devour them at leisure. On the Western Coast, he is told that the island is rich in gems and lies to the south-west of the Byzantine Empire, to which it is tributary, and where its precious stones are exchanged. It is inhabited by women only. Once a year, the Emperor of Byzantium sends them male partners; and, if boys are born of the union, the laws forbid their being brought up on the island. Marco Polo also speaks of a Kingdom of Western Women. Ferdusi, the Persian Poet, makes Alexander the Great visit an island-city of women where no man was allowed to dwell. In the early art and literature of Buddhism the legend is to be found. It reached Malaya. It made its way into Chinese literature, too, some generations before the time of Hiuen-Tsiang. But the locality given to the island varies with the legend.
Here, surely, are our Homeric friends, the Sirens—the daughters of Achelous, serpent and ox, and the Muse Calliope—whose “shrill music reached Ulysses on the middle sea” from a little island off Sicily. Can these Western and Eastern legends have come from a common source; or, did they travel overland with trader or missionary; or was some faint echo of the golden harp of Hellas wafted by the breezes which bore the trader across the Arabian Sea to Sind and Southern India? Possibly the latter; for our author speaks of the island as lying to the west, beyond the great sea which laves the shores of Kutch. It is perplexing to find what would seem to be the same story told by the natives of Martinique to Columbus during his second voyage.
From Sind beyond the Indus, Hiuen-Tsiang proceeded to MultÂn in the PunjÂb, and saw the majestic temple of the Sun-dÊva, whose image was cast in gold and set with rare gems. Crowds of worshippers flocked hither from other Kingdoms; and women did honour to the god with music and torches and offerings of blossoms and perfumes. The temple was surrounded with water-tanks and flowery groves; and near it was a “House of Happiness,” which was a hospital for the poor and sick.
He visited this temple on his way back to the sacred land where Gautama had assumed his mission of teacher of mankind; for he felt that he must return thither. So he made a thousand miles eastward and arrived at Magadha in time to see the grand procession of the ashes of Buddha. He thought the remains too large to be genuine; so did an Indian sage of great reputation, and it would seem that the crowd of spectators were also in doubt. Some time afterwards, suddenly, the relics could not be found; the stÛpa in which they were kept was a sheet of light, and flames, in five different colours shot up to the sky. This brilliant phenomenon was witnessed by a wondering multitude; it gradually passed away; and so did incredulity.
Hiuen-Tsiang passed his time in the monasteries of Magadha, partly in study, partly in refuting BrÂhmans and the followers of the Little Vehicle. To refute the latter could not have been a difficult task: simple monks, only instructed in practical ethics, would stand no chance against an erudite monk trained in subtle speculation and fine distinctions. As in European Universities of the Middle Ages, the thesis to be disputed was hung up by its supporter; and whatever wrangler chose to deny it would take it down. Then a contest ensued; and, at NÂlanda, its learned Head, the “Treasury of the Law,” was wont to preside at great discussions. In some of these, our Chinaman took a triumphant part.
On one occasion, a certain BrÂhman had hung up a challenge to the Buddhists, which consisted of 40 articles, and, according to custom, he wagered his head to maintain them; possibly perfectly well aware that, in the unexpected event of defeat, the forfeit would not be exacted. For some days, no one would come forward to oppose him. Then Hiuen-Tsiang sent a monk to take up the insolent challenge in his name: it was torn into shreds, and trampled under foot. At the solemn discussion which ensued, he held forth at portentous length, and dumbfounded the BrÂhman. Hiuen-Tsiang then told him he had suffered humiliation enough: he was free to go.
The defeated wrangler went to KÂmarÛpa, a Kingdom which extended from west of the Brahmaputra to Manipur, on the borders of Burmah. The eloquence and learning of our Chinaman would appear to have converted the BrÂhman, who was generous enough to tell the RÂja of his defeat. The tale so impressed that monarch that he sent an invitation to Hiuen-Tsiang to pay him a visit; but our pilgrim, having fully accomplished the purpose for which he had travelled so far, was eager to return to China. The RÂja waxed wroth at his disobedience to a royal command, and warned the “Treasury of the Law” that, little as he cared for the religion of Buddha, he would come with a vast army and level with the dust the famous building over which he presided if Hiuen-Tsiang were not forwarded without delay. It was evident that the RÂja, a powerful ally or tributary of SÎlÂditya, whose loyalty to that great monarch was not too assured, might conceivably let loose the hounds of uncertain war. Here, a gleam of enlightenment is thrown on the attitude of RÂjas tributary to SÎlÂditya, who had won his empire by the sword and who had made Kanouj and Allahabad his capital cities. Hiuen-Tsiang was despatched by SÎlabhadra to far-off KÂmarÛpa; He had been at the RÂja’s court a whole month, when SÎlÂditya returned from the chastisement of a rebellious feudatory and learned whither he had gone. SÎlÂditya had urged the pilgrim to visit him in vain; now he finds him at the court of a rival. Here is the making of a very pretty quarrel. SÎlÂditya sends to the RÂja, saying that he wants the Chinese. “My head first!” replies that monarch. Then SÎlÂditya waxed wrath; and his wrath is terrible. “Since I have power to cut off your head, it may be given straightway to my ambassador,” is the message he returns. The RÂja of KÂmarÛpa now begins to reflect. He orders his court-barge and sets off with Hiuen-Tsiang in it to make amends to SÎlÂditya.
But he took the precaution to be accompanied by a great army. The Ganges was crowded with boats filled with troops, and, as these were rowed up the stream, other soldiery mounted on war-elephants marched slowly along the banks. On their arrival at the court of SÎlÂditya he commanded that Hiuen-Tsiang should be presented to him. The RÂja of KÂmarÛpa saw at once that here was an opportunity of quietly humiliating SÎlÂditya in his turn—a monarch who, from conviction or by policy, professed the deepest reverence for the Greater Vehicle and was the munificent patron of Buddhist institutions. He suggested to SÎlÂditya that it would be unworthy of a monarch so renowned for cherishing sages and saints to do otherwise than pay the holy and learned Chinese pilgrim the compliment of visiting him first. SÎlÂditya fell in with the proposal; and the RÂja at once went back to Hiuen-Tsiang and persuaded him, “for the honour of the law of Buddha,” to consent. Thus, should his enemy, or anyone, never be sensible of so subtle a revenge, the secret of it was sweet in the heart of the Eastern King; a psychological peculiarity by no means confined to the ruler of KÂmarÛpa.
Next evening, shortly after sunset, the Ganges was ablaze with torches; the air resounded with the noise of tom-toms, for SÎlÂditya was about to pay his visit with Generals and Ministers of State. It was the distinction of the Lord-paramount that the beating of a hundred gongs heralded his approach and gave step to his guards. The haughty despot, who determined the fate of thousands by a gesture, cast himself on the ground at the feet of the humble monk, and kissed them. Next day, the Master of the Law returned the visit. Now, a sister of the great monarch, an enthusiast for high doctrine, who was seated behind the throne, entreated that a great assembly of all the sages of the Empire should be convoked at Kanouj to give Hiuen-Tsiang an opportunity of setting out the beauty of the Greater Vehicle. So, at the beginning of the cold season, the sages assembled at Kanouj, mounted on elephants or carried in palanquins, surrounded by banners and accompanied by an immense multitude. An elephant bore a golden statue of Buddha on his back, and this was solemnly erected on a daÏs. To the right of the elephant, marched SÎlÂditya, dressed as Indra and carrying a white fly-flap in his hand; to the left was KumÂra, monarch of KÂmarÛpa, in the garb of BrÂhm, and carrying a parasol of precious silk. Both monarchs wore magnificent tiaras, from which garlands of flowers and ribbons set with jewels hung down. Following the golden image and the two RÂjas came our Master of the Law, seated on a big elephant, and then the officials and monks of the two Kingdoms, also on elephants. Eighteen tributary princes were drawn up on either side, also riding elephants, and these fell into the procession as the great RÂjas and Hiuen-Tsiang passed on.
Food was provided for everybody, without distinction of rank, and rich gifts were bestowed on all the monks. Hiuen-Tsiang ordered his thesis to be hung up; but eighteen days passed, and no one attempted to controvert it. But the followers of the Little Vehicle were so mortified that some of them conspired against Hiuen-Tsiang’s life. The plot was detected, and a severe edict was issued that even the very smallest slander against him would be punished by loss of tongue; while any attempt to injure him bodily would be followed by decapitation. At the end of the eighteen days, following ancient usage, the victorious pilgrim was mounted on a richly-caparisoned elephant and taken a tour round the crowd, in the company of the dignitaries of the Empire and with full state-honours. Rich presents were offered him; but these he refused; and then SÎlÂditya dissolved the assembly; and the eighteen kings, the monks, and the crowd returned every man to his own abode.
Now, it was the custom of SÎlÂditya, as it had been that of his predecessors, to distribute all their accumulated wealth at the end of every five years. But they were careful to keep their war-elephants, war-horses and weapons of war; for on these their power rested. The practice kept the people submissive and contented, while effective force remained with the RÂja. The distribution was made on a plain at the confluence of Ganges and Jumna, three miles from PrayÂga, and not far from the existing city of Allahabad. When the time for it arrived, SÎlÂditya took the Master of the Law with him. He observed that gold and silver, silk and cotton, and much else were stored up in temporary buildings within an enclosure, and arrangements were made for seating a thousand persons at a time. The eighteen tributary Kings and a vast crowd of monks and laity were summoned to be present, and did not fail to arrive. It is significant that each tributary prince brought his army with him: it throws light on the character of SÎlÂditya’s empire.
On the first day, the statue of Buddha was installed in a temple and adorned with jewels. A great feast followed on this ceremony; it was accompanied by music and the scattering of blossoms; and then rich gifts were distributed among the more important of the guests. On the second day, the image of the Sun-god was honoured, and presents of magnificence were made. The third day, the god Siva received honours, and a similar distribution was made. The fourth day, every one of about 10,000 monks was given a hundred pieces of gold and a cotton garment. The fifth day, distribution to the BrÂhmans was begun; but it is worthy of note that the awards to them took up three weeks all but a day. On the sixth day, and for 9 days following, alms were given to “heretics”; on the eighth, and for the next nine days, to naked mendicants from distant Kingdoms. Lastly, it took a whole month to give to the poor, to orphans, and to poor men who had no family to fall back upon. Finally SÎlÂditya took off and gave up his tiara and necklace, exclaiming that he had exchanged them for incorruptible riches. And now, the tributary RÂjas surrendered their robes and jewels to their Lord-paramount. What with this ordinance and the retention of the sinews of war, SÎlÂditya remained no less powerful than before.
Our pilgrim now obtains permission to set forth on his return-journey. He is offered an escort to China should he choose to return by sea; but he has precious manuscripts to preserve, the rich harvest of his labours, and he prefers to take the smaller risk of desert and icy mountains to that of pirates and of frail, clumsy craft, breasting “the feasted waters of the sea stretched out In lazy gluttony, expecting prey.” Moreover, whether T’ai Tsung, now Emperor of China, would welcome a foreign Embassy, may have been in his mind. He refused all gifts from the RÂja of KÂmarÛpa, save a warm garment needful for the high passes.
Now, the Master of the Law had been wont, if he had no escort to protect him, to send an attendant monk ahead, and, should his fore-runner meet with wayside thieves, he would announce the character of Hiuen-Tsiang’s mission. The explanation had been made more than once, and prevailed. But many a RÂja was now eager to give him a warm welcome and send soldiery to see him safe in the next Kingdom. And, SÎlÂditya, not merely went with him some small part of the long way, but charged a tributary prince of the North to accompany and protect him through the PunjÂb. He also presented the pilgrim with a big elephant, horses and chariots to convey the manuscripts and images he had collected, and 3000 pieces of gold and 10,000 pieces of silver to defray the expenses of the journey. He also provided him with letters to various princes whose territories he would have to cross, ordering or recommending them to expedite his journey. These documents were written on rolls of cotton and sealed with red wax. SÎlÂditya and his tributary RÂjas even rode out again to catch the pilgrim up and bid him a second farewell.
Easy progress was made across North-West India; and native rulers vied with each other in doing honour to the traveller from afar. Now, at the best of times, to cross the Indus is perilous; and this time it was not effected without mishap. The “Master of the Law” rode on the elephant; but the manuscripts, images, relics, and a precious collection of seeds, which he had made during his travels, and which he hoped might grow in China, were placed in a boat under the care of a special custodian. When the middle of the current was reached, a storm-gust swept over the river, and the boat was well nigh sunk by tossing waves. The custodian was rescued with great difficulty; but half a hundred manuscripts and the valuable collection of seeds which might have done so much service, were lost. Only by the very greatest exertion was anything at all saved.
CHAPTER V.
INDIAN SOCIAL LIFE IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
Once more we find Hiuen-Tsiang by the KÂbul river. Many years had passed since he rested on its banks and and entered India. Since that time he had made himself a finished Sanskrit scholar; he had visited three and a half score of States; he had traversed the whole breadth and well-nigh the whole length of the great Peninsula; he had debated the subtlest questions with the profoundest scholars and acutest minds in India; he had been entertained by powerful princes as their venerated guest. In every corner of a vast territory, he had met with large hospitality at the hands of men of differing creeds; he had seen many new things, strange and wonderful; more than once, his life had been in jeopardy, and narrow indeed had been his escape; he had visited every spot connected with the life of Gautama, from the scene where BÔdhisattva “descended spiritually into the womb of his mother” to the place where he became Buddha, and to the place of his death. He had visited every spot sacred to AsÔka-rÂja, the great promulgator of the faith. It had been granted him to see the shadow of Buddha. And, above all, he had not failed in his quest. Written on prepared palm-leaves and carefully packed, were the so much lacking sacred scriptures; much of them tales of the absurdest fantasy and most extravagant romance, it is true; but the sympathetic eye can still discover in the fable the mild and sweet moral teaching of the Buddhist faith.
In the Si-yu-ki (Observations on Western Lands) there is a very full account of India in the early Seventh Century. So long a residence in that land, and such a wide knowledge of its various peoples as the Master of the Law had acquired in personal intercourse with them makes this invaluable. The work is preceded by a general description of the Great Peninsula, which applies more particularly to that land, so sacred to a Buddhist, which lies between the Jumna and the lower slopes of the Himalayas. And, now that Hiuen-Tsiang is leaving India, it will be well to know what he has to tell us concerning that vast region.
He begins by discussing the various names given to In-tu (India); for each district is differently called. He gives its shape, extent and climate. “The north is a continuation of mountains and hills, the ground being dry and salt. On the east, there are valleys and plains, which, being well-watered and cultivated, are fruitful and productive. The southern district is wooded and herbaceous; the western parts are stony and barren.”3
Indian measures of length and the Indian Calendar and seasons are next described, and the author then goes on to treat of towns and buildings, seats and clothing, dress and habits, ablutions, language and literature, schools, castes, marriages, kings, troops, weapons, manners and customs, administration of laws, ceremonial observances, revenues, natural products, and commercial dealings—all in systematized order. The lapse of thirteen centuries; conquest by Mohammedan and European invaders; and Mohammedan and Brahmanistic oppression would appear to have altered but little the ways and external appearance of Indian life since Hiuen-Tsiang’s time. He tells us that “the walls of towns are wide and high; the streets and lanes, tortuous; the roads, winding; the thoroughfares, dirty; the stalls, arranged on both sides of the road and furnished with appropriate signs. Butchers, fishermen, dancers, executioners, scavengers and their like dwell outside the city. Coming and going these people must keep to the left side of the road.” The city-walls are of brick, but their towers are made of wood or bamboo; the houses are plastered with cob, “mixed with cow-dung for purity”; they are provided with wooden balconies, coated with mortar and shaded by tiles. The roofs are of rushes, branches, tiles, or boards. It is a habit to scatter flowers before the house. The sarighÂrÂmas, or monasteries, are very cleverly built in quadrangles, ornamented with dome-shaped buildings of two or three stories at the corners of each quadrangle, and joists and beams are adorned with carving; there is much decoration and mural painting; the cells being plain on the outside only.
Everybody takes his rest on a mat of one uniform size, but of various degrees of ornamentation; but the RÂja has an imposing throne, studded with gems, and nobles use painted and enriched seats. The garb is of pure white silk or cotton or hemp or goat’s hair, uncut to fit the body and wound round the waist, gathered up under the armpits, and then slung across the body to the right. There is quaint humour in our pilgrim’s observation that “some of the men shave their moustaches and have other odd customs”: one thinks of the strange appearance of some of our long-shore men.
Women keep their shoulders covered, and their robes reach the ground. Their hair is knotted up on the crown; otherwise it hangs loose. They wear crowns and caps and flower-wreaths on the head, and necklaces of jewels.
In North India, where the climate is colder, close-fitting garments are worn. Some non-believers wear peacock-feathers, or necklaces made of the bones of the skull; some cover their nakedness with leaf or bark, or go bare. Some pull out the hair; others wear their whiskers bushy and braid their hair.
The monks wear three different kinds of dress, either red or yellow in colour. Merchants, for the most part, go bare-footed, stain the teeth red or black, bind up the hair, and pierce the nose for the wearing of ornaments there. Everybody is very cleanly, washing before eating, never eating of a dish served twice over, never passing the dish on. Wooden and stone vessels are destroyed after use; metal ones are polished. The teeth are cleansed with a willow-stick after eating; the hands and mouth are washed; and folk do not touch one another until these duties are carried out. The body is washed after attending to the calls of nature, and then perfumes are used. The bath is taken before religious functions, and also at the time when the King washes himself. Each province keeps its own record of events. Education is begun early. Young Buddhists are put to the study of the five VidyÂs, or treatises on grammar, progressively; first come the principles of mechanics; then elements of medicine and drugs and the use of charms; then the principles of right-doing and the distinction between the true and the false; and, finally, the various “vehicles” of the faith. BrÂhmans are trained on similar lines by skilled teachers. Some “rise above mundane rewards, and are as insensible to renown as to contempt of the world.... Rulers value men of reputation highly; but are unable to draw them to court.” But the thirst of others for honour leads them on in the search for wisdom, and, if they finish their education at thirty, they seek for occupation. Some BrÂhmans are devoid of virtuous principles, and waste their substance in riotous excess. Unhappily the Buddhist schools are not without reproach: “they are constantly at variance, and their contentious utterances swell like the waves of an angry sea”; yet, “in various directions, they do aim at one end.” Knowledge of sacred books and successful exegesis are rewarded by successive grades of distinction, beginning with exemption from control and leading up to the possession of “an elephant-carriage,” and even to a “surrounding escort.” A successful disputant, like Hiuen-Tsiang, is mounted on an elephant (as he was), the animal is completely covered over with precious ornaments, and the rider is conducted by a numerous suite to the gates of the convent. But woe betide the unhappy wretch who proves himself a fool at these mental wrestling bouts; “his face is painted red and white; he is bedaubed with dust and dirt, and then borne off to some deserted spot, or cast into a ditch!” For slight faults a monk is only reprimanded; for graver offences, silence is enforced; for a great fault, he is cast out of the convent to find a home for himself and take up some kind of work, or he may wander about the roads.
We are told next about the four great castes, The BrÂhman, or hereditary priest takes precedence of the Kshattriya or military descendents of the Aryan conquerors, a caste which rules, and observes human kindliness. Next come the traders (Vaisyas); fourth is the SÛdra, the caste of tillers of the soil. When one marries, he takes social position according as he preserves or impairs purity of caste. Widows may not marry again.
“The succession of RÂjas is confined to the Kshattriya caste, who have from time to time achieved power by means of usurpation and bloodshed.” The army of the RÂja is one of the many separate hereditary castes of India. In times of peace, it is garrisoned around the RÂja’s palace. In each Indian army are elephants, protected by strong armour, and the tusks capped with sharp metal. A general issues his command from a car, driven by two attendants, between whom he sits, and is drawn by four horses abreast. The generals of the foot soldiers also ride in cars and are protected by a guard. An attack is met by the cavalry, who also carry orders. The infantry is very brave. It is armed with spear and shield, bows and arrows, swords, axes, slings and many other weapons of ancient usage.
Hiuen-Tsiang speaks of the common people in the highest terms. As Wheeler remarks they “would almost appear to have been a different race from the modern Hindus. They had not yet been moulded into existing forms by ages of Brahmanical repression and Musselman tyranny; and they bore a stronger resemblance to the unsophisticated Buddhists of modern Burma than to the worshippers of Vishnu and Siva.”4 Our traveller admits that they are volatile, but “gentle and sweet, straight-forward, honourable, keeping their word, with no fraud, treachery or deceit about them.” Criminals are rare, and these few are not even beaten, and are never put to death, but cast into prison and left to live or die, “not being counted among men.” A small payment is exacted for a small offence; but those who seriously offend the moral sense of the community are mutilated in various ways, or expelled from it. Frank confession is followed by punishment proportioned to the offence; but denial, or attempt to wriggle out, is met by trial by ordeal. Of this there are four kinds:—1, The accused person is put into one sack and a stone into another; both sacks are tied together and thrown into deep water: If the man sinks lowest, he is deemed guilty. 2, The accused has to stand or sit on red hot iron, or to handle it, or have it applied to his tongue: If no scars result, he is deemed innocent. 3, He is weighed against a stone: If he weighs it down, he is innocent. 4, An incision is made in the right thigh of a ram, and all manner of poisons and some food of the accused are put into the wound. Should the ram survive, the man is innocent. “The way of crime is blocked by these four methods.” It is obvious to us that the issue of every one of these ordeals could be manipulated in the interests of justice, or against them.
We are next told of etiquette, and are informed that no less than nine ways of being polite are employed. Of these, the most respectful is to cast one’s self on the ground, and then to kneel “and laud the virtues of the one you address.” When one of inferior rank receives orders, he lifts the skirt of his superior, and casts himself on the ground. The “honourable person thus reverenced must speak gently to the inferior, and touch his head, or pat him on the back, and give him kindly orders or good advice, in order to show affection.”
When ill, there is no rush to the physic-bottle. “Everyone who falls sick, fasts for seven days. Should he not get well in the course of this period, he takes medicine.” Hiuen-Tsiang causes us no surprise when he informs us that “doctors differ in their modes of treatment.”
At funerals there are weepings and lamentable cries, rending of garments and beatings of head and breast. No one takes food in a house where someone has died until after the funeral; and all who have been at the death-bed are unclean until they have bathed outside the town. Those who desire release from life “receive a farewell meal at the hands of relatives or friends,” and then are put into a boat amid strains of music; and this is shot into mid-Ganges, “where such persons drown themselves.” Sometimes, but rarely, one of these may be seen on the banks, not yet quite dead.
Hiuen-Tsiang speaks of the civil administration as being mild and benevolent. Officials have “a portion of land assigned to them for their personal support.” There is neither registration of families nor forced labour. RÂjas possess their own private domains, divided into four portions; whereof one provides for state-matters and the cost of sacrifices; one, for salaries; one, for rewarding men of exceptional talent; and the fourth affords charity to religious bodies. By this arrangement taxation is light, and the personal service required is moderate, labour at public works being paid for. “Everyone keeps his own belongings in tranquillity; and all till the ground for food. Those who cultivate the royal estate pay a sixth part of the produce as tribute.” There is a light tax payable on travel by river and at barriers across the roadways.
Such people as smell of onion and garlic are thrust out of the town. The usual food is simple, consisting of milk, cream, butter, sugar-candy, corn cakes and mustard. Fish, mutton and venison are eaten; other flesh is prohibited. BrÂhmans and warriors drink unfermented syrup of the grape; but the trading caste indulges in strong drink. Rich and poor eat precisely the same food, but out of very different vessels, both as to material and cost. They eat with the fingers, and have no spoon, cup, or chopstick.
Hiuen-Tsiang tells us that he found India divided into 70 Kingdoms. Nine centuries before his time Megasthenes the Greek Ambassador, found twice as many. In spite of the many political settlements which have had their day and vanished, some of the territories described by Hiuen-Tsiang are divisions corresponding to natural features, race, language, and religious customs, and remain distinct districts, each of them with its idiosyncrasies to-day. Consolidation by successive conquests has taken place, it is true, but the village persists. The village-settlements were there before the Aryan conquest; they have survived the long passage of time; they carry on their ancient tradition, and have maintained provincial characteristics against the pressure of the Mohammedan, the Mahrattan, and all other attempts at organic Empire.
CHAPTER VI.
THE JOURNEY HOME BY A NEW AND PERILOUS ROUTE.
We left our hero on the KÂbul river, beyond the boundaries of India: a royal reception awaited him at Kapisa, and a hundred experienced men were chosen to conduct and protect him in the passage across the HindÛ KÛsh. The shortest, but most difficult of the passes—probably the Khawak, which reaches 13,000 feet, was selected. Seven days of travel brought the party to those snow-mountains of which Hiuen-Tsiang always speaks with mingled wonder, fear and dislike. Born and brought up in a mild climate, and having now spent many years in a hot one, he describes the discomforts and dangers of every high pass at length. He tells us how wild and perilous are the precipices; how fearsome, contorted, and difficult the path. Of the HindÛ KÛsh he writes: “Now the traveller is in a profound valley; now aloft on a high peak, with its burthen of ice in full summertide. One gets along by cutting steps in the ice, and, in three days one reaches the summit of the pass. There, a furious icy blast, cold beyond measure, sweeps on; the valleys are laden with accumulated snow. The traveller pushes on; for he dares not pause. Soaring birds must needs alight; it is impossible for them to fly; and they have to cross afoot. One gazes down on mountains that look like hillocks.” The whole cavalcade had to dismount and clamber up with the aid of mountain-staves. One wonders how the guides got the elephant over such ridges; but they did. “Great men lived before Agamemnon”; Hannibal solved the same problem two hundred years before Christ.
At the end of the second week a large village of a hundred families was reached, the inhabitants of which lived by rearing a very big variety of sheep, which is said still to be found in this district. Here the “Master of the Law” secured the services of a local guide, and took a whole day’s rest. His escort now returned; and he set forth in the middle of the night, mounted on a camel accustomed to the hills, and attended by seven priests, twenty servants, the elephant which SÎlÂditya had given him, six asses, and four horses. Next morning the bottom of the pass was reached; but there still lay before them what, in the distance, looked like a snow-peak. But when they had ascended a long zig-zag path and come up to it, it turned out to be mere white rock. None the less, it towered far above the clouds, and the icy wind there blew so hard and cutting that headway could hardly be made.
The descent of the range occupied five or six days. The route now lay north westward to the Upper Oxus. Hiuen-Tsiang rested a month in the camp of a petty KhÂn,—and then joined a caravan of traders who were eastward bound. The caravan took a meandering course through several little KhÂnates; and in one of them the Master of the Law was struck by the singular head-gear of the women. They wore caps three feet high, topped by two peaks of unequal length, if both father-in-law and mother-in-law were living. The higher and lower respectively represented these relatives. But, when one of them died, the corresponding peak was removed; should both of them be dead, no peaks were worn. This region was mountainous, and its inhabitants were remarkable for their surpassing ugliness. They differed from all other peoples in the peculiar blue-green of the iris. They were innocent of all manners, and knew no law of justice; the horse was their study and care, and they reared a breed of sturdy little ponies.
The caravan now followed the narrowing stream of Oxus, and, after a time, ascended to the great plateau of the Pamirs, no less lofty than the topmost Pyrenees. “There even in summer” says the Pilgrim “one suffers from squalls and eddies of snowstorm. Just a few wretched plants manage to root in ground that is almost always frozen. No grain will sprout and no trace of man is to be found in all this vast solitude.” But he came across a species of ostrich, a bird “ten feet high,” of which he had previously been shown the eggs which were “as big as small pitchers.”
The central valley of the Pamirs along which the caravan advanced, led to difficult snow-passes of the Kizil Yart range, the highest peak of which soars to 26,000 feet. Having forced a way over ice and through snow, the long descent of the Eastern slopes was nearly at an end when a band of brigands was observed to be on the look out for prey. The traders fled, helter skelter, up the hill-side; and the robbers charged furiously at their laden elephants, several of which they killed, while others were drowned in trying to get across the torrents from the mountains. It was probably at this time that Hiuen-Tsiang lost his elephant. The thieves were soon fully occupied with their booty; the traders seized the opportunity, drew together again, and proceeded, with what goods they had been able to save, towards KÂshgar.
At KÂshgar the same custom obtained as at KutchÊ: “When a child is born the head is compressed by a wooden board.” The people are “fierce and impetuous and most of them are deceitful and indifferent to polite manners and learning. They paint their bodies and eyelids.” But they show real skill in the making of hair-cloth and finely woven carpets. More than six hundred years later, Marco Polo travelled along the caravan route through KÂshgar and by Lob-Nor to China.
At YÂrkand he was told that Arhats, (very purified and wise men), “those who had obtained the holy fruit and were no longer bound by worldly influences” “displaying their spiritual power, coming from afar (that is, from India), abode here at rest.”
Arrived at Khotan, he found it a land of song and dance. Fa-Hian also describes the inhabitants as being, in his time, “lovers of religious music.”
It would seem that the caravan in which Hiuen-Tsiang travelled was bound for Kau-chang, that land of the UÏghurs whose KhÂn-paramount had tried to detain him “for the better instruction of his subjects.” Now Khotan was tributary to this despot; and as the Master of the Law had no desire to go out of his direct way home, or to be detained again, not to speak of another hunger-strike, he wrote the KhÂn a politic letter, wherein he recounted the perils he had undergone and the successful issue of his sacred mission. Yet, an elephant which bore the burthen of many scriptures had been drowned on the way home; but the writings were saved. Would the Great KhÂn grant him a convoy?
It took six or seven months for a reply to arrive; and Hiuen-Tsiang filled up the time in expounding sacred writings to the KhÂn of Khotan and his subjects. When the answer came from Kau-chang, it was favourable; the KhÂn of Khotan was permitted to furnish the Master of the Law with transport for his treasures.
Fully a thousand miles still lay before him, and the painful desert known to modern geographers as the Takla Makan must be crossed. The route pursued was a very tortuous one, south of the great lake Lob-nor (which lies between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above the sea-level), and north of the Altyn-Tag mountains, which are the northern buttresses of the great plateau of Thibet. He passed by ancient cities of Eastern Khotan, once flourishing, now buried by drifting sands. Mere mounds marked their sites.5 Going East “we enter a great desert of shifting sands, which are as a vast flood, driven hither and thither by the wind. There is no track; and, without guide or indication, travellers get bewildered and are lost. So the bones of beasts (which have perished) are piled up to serve as beacons. Neither water nor herb is to be found, and hot winds, which are frequent, befog the mind and muddle the memory of man and beast, and make them ill and feeble. Sometimes one hears plaintive notes and piteous lamentations, and men get confused and know not whither they are going. Hence, many a life is lost. And all is the work of demons and evil spirits.” All travellers in deserts speak of the weird noises, which we now know to be due to the shifting of the sand-ridges.6
And now, after sixteen years of pilgrim travel, after visiting a hundred and ten different States, and journeying some twenty thousand miles, Hiuen-Tsiang is drawing near his native land. He bears with him five hundred grains of relics, reputed to belong to the body of TathÂgarta (Gautama Buddha); one hundred and twenty-four works of the Great Vehicle; five hundred and twenty other volumes, borne by twenty-two horses; and six images of Buddha, in gold or silver or sandal-wood. In the appeal for transport sent to Kau-chang, he had written: “Notwithstanding differences in climate and mode of life; and notwithstanding perils beyond count which have menaced me in my journeying, I thank Heaven that nowhere did I come to harm. Reverence, beyond all limit, has been done to me; my body has suffered no ill; and I have fulfilled all that I vowed to accomplish.”
But his body had suffered ill. The terrible ordeal of crossing ice-bound ranges left its mark: it weakened his robust constitution and shortened his life.
At the Chinese frontier, waggons and men were obtained, and the escort from Khotan returned. T’ai Tsung, the great warrior statesman, now sat on the throne he had won for his father, and to him “The Master of the Law” announced his return. Emperor, Mandarins, Priests, and People made ready to receive the great pilgrim with plaudit and parade such as Western reserve bestows only on the victor in some scene of slaughter, or on the inheritor of some soiled circlet and blood-stained robe.
The great day arrived. It was as if all China were present, so crushing were the crowds. The Sacred Writings were taken in state to the “Convent of the Great Bliss.” (Later they were transferred to a “Convent of Beneficence,” specially constructed to contain them.) High dignitaries led the way; marvellous wind-instruments discoursed astounding music; priests in thousands chanted hymns; banners and brilliantly-coloured rugs floated in the wind. A procession of the most varied character, miles long, passed through the narrow, crowded streets, which were lined by rows of flower-scatterers and less poetic, but even more desirable, perfume burners. To the irreverent European mind, the record of this Eastern parade in the Seventh Century suggests a highly variegated travelling-circus; and the brow is involuntarily raised when we come to the royal harem and its enthusiastic ladies welcoming the return of the monk and the arrival of yet more ascetic doctrine. The best of us is but human, and it is evident from the narrative that, true saint as he was, the “Master of the Law” none the less thoroughly enjoyed the recognition of his great merits, and made little objection to the honours he received.
CHAPTER VII.
PEACEFUL DAYS.
At intervals an order came from T’ai-Tsung and his successor to appear within the green enclosure which surrounded the Imperial Throne. It was by Imperial command that the world possesses Hiuen-Tsiang’s report of the States he had visited and of eighteen other States of which he believed himself to have gathered authentic information. The work, as already stated, is full of the absurd, fantastic fables of corrupted Buddhism, related at full length and with perfervid unction; but it is also a record of observation so close, systematic, and even scientific, and of a will so firm-set and bold, that it is surpassed in no age by any record of travel whatsoever. But there is little of personal narrative in it. Now, Hiuen-Tsiang had lost full command of his native language during so many years of residence among alien peoples, and it was found necessary to get a Chinese stylist to redact his “Account of Western Countries” (“Si-yu-ki”). This was done, in the main, from notes which the pilgrim had brought back with him.
When the “Master of the Law” had finished this big undertaking, he returned to work that had been interrupted by it—the collating, translating and editing of the books he had brought with him. He was accustomed to eat a slight breakfast at dawn, and to lecture to the monks (Sramans) of his convent during the next four hours on some canonical book or religious treatise. When this task was done, he would go on with translation, marking out a certain portion for the day’s task; but, if he had not finished this by night-fall, he usually sat on until it was ended. He was scrupulous in his efforts to restore corrupt text to its pristine purity; and one would always find him fully occupied. Yet he always made time to discuss religious matters with the sages who visited him. “When he had penetrated some profundity, got light on some obscure passage, or amended some corrupt reading, it seemed as if some divine being had come to his aid.... When expounding, he was wont to become impassioned and his voice swelled out.” He had the great gift of a convincing manner.
One is glad that his biographers did not neglect to describe his personal appearance and other details of a similar kind. “His face,” they say, “had a little colour to it; it was radiant and gracious; his bearing, grave and stately. His voice was clear and penetrating; and one never got weary of listening to him; for his words were noble, elegant, and congenial. Often a distinguished guest would listen to him for half a day with rapt attention. He liked to wear a garment of fine cotton, of a length suited to his height, which was 7 tchi.7 He walked with even steps, and as one at ease. He looked you straight in the face; there was never a hint of side-glance. He kept strict rule and was always the same man. Nobody could rival him for warmth and kindness of heart and gentle pity, ardour, and inviolate observance of the Law. He was slow in making friends, and reserved in intercourse with those that he made. Once within the gates of his monastery, nothing but an Imperial decree could make him budge.”
Yet, on one occasion, he paid a visit to his native village. Only one feeble old sister was left of all his family. He went with her to the graves of their parents; it is said to clear them of weeds which had overgrown them; but probably also to restore the few bones he had taken with him on his pilgrimage. His parents perished during the time of bloody civil strife, and their remains were hastily buried in a mean grave; so he obtained Imperial permission to carry them to a better resting-place. Thousands of monks and laity came to honour the father and mother of the “Master of the Law.”
When Hiuen-Tsiang was a little more than 60, the hardships of travel and the intense application of his latter years told on him; health rapidly failed him. “I have come to the end of my work on this sacred book,” said he to a disciple, “and also I have come near to the end of my life. Bury me in a simple, quiet way. Wrap my body in a mat and bear it to some lonely, hushful valley, far from any palace (sic) or convent; for so impure a carcass as mine should not be near either.” His disciples were disturbed at his condition and wept bitterly; they tried to persuade him that he was mistaken as to the approach of death. “I know myself,” he replied; “How can you enter into my intuition?” The weakness increased, “The moment of departure is at hand,” he told them. “Already my soul gives way and seems to leave me. Sell my clothes and belongings without delay, and turn the money into images (of Buddha), and tell the monks to pray.” He lay stiff and still for days, taking no food. At last, when asked if he felt sure of reaching the goal of his desires, he answered “Yes” in a weak voice. In a few moments he was dead; yet his face retained its rosy colour and suggested supreme happiness. He was 65 years of age.
He had begged for a simple funeral. He was buried in pomp; and there was an immense giving of alms at his grave-side. His wish was so far respected, however, that his remains were ultimately carried to a reposeful spot in a tranquil valley.
Hwui-Lih, one of Hiuen-Tsiang’s disciples, whom he had employed in translation, had gone far in writing a biography of the Master from his notes and conversation, when his labours were interrupted by death. Yen-Tsong, another devoted disciple took up the uncompleted work; he collected and put the manuscripts of Hiuen-Tsiang and Hwui-Lih in order, corrected the blunders and imperfections of Hwui-Lih’s five volumes, and expanded them into ten volumes; which Monsieur Julien translated into French many years ago. M. Julien condensed the later and less interesting part of the biography, for the complete work was too voluminous and too full of flowery periods to be worth the labour of full translation; and even with this abridgement, much of the work, like the Si-yu-ki, remains tedious reading. There is also a much abbreviated translation into English by Dr. Samuel Beal.
Yet, the work is an imperishable monument to a great mind. When, here and there, one suspects a little of that chastened self-inflation from which few, if any, saints have been exempt; and when one has made due allowance for the natural desire of two enthusiastic disciples to offer innumerable flowers of Chinese rhetoric at the tomb of a beloved Master, the fact remains that his lofty mind and gentle, yet ardent, character, secured their deep reverence and commanded their devotion. This affords further evidence of that personal attraction, the effects of which we have so often observed in the record of his pilgrimage. We may justly apply to this ancient Chinaman the happy phrase of John Lyly, the Euphuist, and say of him that his soul was “stitched to the starres.”
