CROSSING OF THE INDUS. WHEN BUDDHISM FIRST CROSSED THE RIVER FOR THE
EAST
The travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at the foot
of the mountains, and) following the course of their range. The way was
difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank exceedingly precipitous,
which rose up there, a hill-like wall of rock, 10,000 cubits from the
base. When one approaches the edge of it, his eyes become unsteady; and
if he wished to go forward in the same direction, there was no place on
which he could place his foot; and beneath where the waters of the
river called the Indus.(1) In former times men had chiselled paths
along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the
number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there was a suspension
bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its banks being there
eighty paces apart.(2) The (place and arrangements) are to be found in
the Records of the Nine Interpreters,(3) but neither Chang K’een(4) nor
Kan Ying(5) had reached the spot.
The monks(6) asked Fâ-Hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha
first went to the east. He replied, “When I asked the people of those
countries about it, they all said that it had been handed down by their
fathers from of old that, after the setting up of the image of Maitreya
Bodhisattva, there were Sramans of India who crossed this river,
carrying with them Sûtras and Books of Discipline. Now the image was
set up rather more than 300 years after the nirvâna(7) of Buddha, which
may be referred to the reign of king P’ing of the Chow dynasty.(8)
According to this account we may say that the diffusion of our great
doctrines (in the east) began from (the setting up of) this image. If
it had not been through that Maitreya,(9) the great spiritual
master(10) (who is to be) the successor of the Sakya, who could have
caused the ‘Three Precious Ones’(11) to be proclaimed so far, and the
people of those border lands to know our Law? We know of a truth that
the opening of (the way for such) a mysterious propagation is not the
work of man; and so the dream of the emperor Ming of Han(12) had its
proper cause.”
NOTES
(1) The Sindhu. We saw in a former note that the earliest name in China
for India was Shin-tuh. So, here, the river Indus is called by a name
approaching that in sound.
(2) Both Beal and Watters quote from Cunningham (Ladak, pp. 88, 89) the
following description of the course of the Indus in these parts, in
striking accordance with our author’s account:—“From Skardo to Rongdo,
and from Rongdo to Makpou-i-shang-rong, for upwards of 100 miles, the
Indus sweeps sullen and dark through a mighty gorge in the mountains,
which for wild sublimity is perhaps unequalled. Rongdo means the
country of defiles. . . . Between these points the Indus raves from
side to side of the gloomy chasm, foaming and chafing with ungovernable
fury. Yet even in these inaccessible places has daring and ingenious
man triumphed over opposing nature. The yawning abyss is spanned by
frail rope bridges, and the narrow ledges of rocks are connected by
ladders to form a giddy pathway overhanging the seething cauldron
below.”
(3) The Japanese edition has a different reading here from the Chinese
copies,—one which Rémusat (with true critical instinct) conjectured
should take the place of the more difficult text with which alone he
was acquainted. The “Nine Interpreters” would be a general name for the
official interpreters attached to the invading armies of Han in their
attempts to penetrate and subdue the regions of the west. The phrase
occurs in the memoir of Chang K’een, referred to in the next note.
(4) Chang K’een, a minister of the emperor Woo of Han (B.C. 140-87), is
celebrated as the first Chinese who “pierced the void,” and penetrated
to “the regions of the west,” corresponding very much to the present
Turkestan. Through him, by B.C. 115, a regular intercourse was
established between China and the thirty-six kingdoms or states of that
quarter;—see Mayers’ Chinese Reader’s Manual, p. 5. The memoir of Chang
K’een, translated by Mr. Wylie from the Books of the first Han dynasty,
appears in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, referred to
already.
(5) Less is known of Kan Ying than of Chang K’een. Being sent in A.D.
88 by his patron Pan Chao on an embassy to the Roman empire, he only
got as far as the Caspian sea, and returned to China. He extended,
however, the knowledge of his countrymen with regard to the western
regions;—see the memoir of Pan Chao in the Books of the second Han, and
Mayers’ Manual, pp. 167, 168.
(6) Where and when? Probably at his first resting-place after crossing
the Indus.
(7) This may refer to Sâkyamuni’s becoming Buddha on attaining to
nirvâna, or more probably to his pari-nirvâna and death.
(8) As king P’ing’s reign lasted from B.C. 750 to 719, this would place
the death of Buddha in the eleventh century B.C., whereas recent
inquirers place it between B.C. 480 and 470, a year or two, or a few
years, after that of Confucius, so that the two great “Masters” of the
east were really contemporaries. But if Rhys Davids be correct, as I
think he is, in fixing the date of Buddha’s death within a few years of
412 B.C. (see Manual, p. 213), not to speak of Westergaard’s still
lower date, then the Buddha was very considerably the junior of
Confucius.
(9) This confirms the words of Eitel, that Maitreya is already
controlling the propagation of the faith.
(10) The Chinese characters for this simply mean “the great scholar or
officer;” but see Eitel’s Handbook, p. 99, on the term purusha.
(11) “The precious Buddha,” “the precious Law,” and “the precious
Monkhood;” Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; the whole being equivalent to
Buddhism.
(12) Fâ-Hien thus endorses the view that Buddhism was introduced into
China in this reign, A.D. 58-75. The emperor had his dream in A.D. 61.