THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN
[Translation by James Legge]
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
Nothing of great importance is known about Fa-hien in addition to what
may be gathered from his own record of his travels. I have read the
accounts of him in the "Memoirs of Eminent Monks," compiled in A.D. 519,
and a later work, the "Memoirs of Marvellous Monks," by the third
emperor of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1403-1424), which, however, is nearly
all borrowed from the other; and all in them that has an appearance of
verisimilitude can be brought within brief compass.
His surname, they tell us, was Kung, and he was a native of Wu-yang in
P'ing-yang, which is still the name of a large department in Shan-hsi.
He had three brothers older than himself; but when they all died before
shedding their first teeth, his father devoted him to the service of the
Buddhist society, and had him entered as a Sramanera, still keeping him
at home in the family. The little fellow fell dangerously ill, and the
father sent him to the monastery, where he soon got well and refused to
return to his parents.
When he was ten years old, his father died; and an uncle, considering
the widowed solitariness and helplessness of the mother, urged him to
renounce the monastic life, and return to her, but the boy replied, "I
did not quit the family in compliance with my father's wishes, but
because I wished to be far from the dust and vulgar ways of life.
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