~On to Shen-shen and thence to Khoten~
After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate of
about 1500 li, the pilgrims reached the kingdom of Shen-shen, a country
rugged and hilly, with a thin and barren soil. The clothes of the common
people are coarse, and like those worn in our land of Han, [1] some
wearing felt and others coarse serge or cloth of hair; this was the only
difference seen among them. The king professed our Law, and there might
be in the country more than four thousand monks, who were all students
of the hînayâna. [2] The common people of this and other kingdoms in
that region, as well as the Sramans, [3] all practise the rules of
India, only that the latter do so more exactly, and the former more
loosely. So the travellers found it in all the kingdoms through which
they went on their way from this to the west, only that each had its own
peculiar barbarous speech. The monks, however, who had given up the
worldly life and quitted their families, were all students of Indian
books and the Indian language. Here they stayed for about a month, and
then proceeded on their journey, fifteen days' walking to the northwest
bringing them to the country of Woo-e. In this also there were more than
four thousand monks, all students of the hînayâna. They were very strict
in their rules, so that Sramans from the territory of Ts'in were all
unprepared for their regulations. Fâ-hien, through the management of Foo
Kung-sun, _maître d'hotellerie_, was able to remain with his company in
the monastery where they were received for more than two months, and
here they were rejoined by Pâo-yun and his friends. At the end of that
time the people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and
righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner that
Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards Kâo-ch'ang, hoping to
obtain there the means of continuing their journey. Fâ-hien and the
rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go
straight forward in a southwest direction. They found the country
uninhabited as they went along. The difficulties which they encountered
in crossing the streams and on their route, and the sufferings which
they endured, were unparalleled in human experience, but in the course
of a month and five days they succeeded in reaching Yu-teen.
[Footnote 1: This is the name which Fâ-hien always uses when he would
speak of China, his native country, as a whole, calling it from the
great dynasty which had ruled it, first and last, for between four and
five centuries. Occasionally, as we shall immediately see, he speaks of
"the territory of Ts'in or Ch'in," but intending thereby only the
kingdom of Ts'in, having its capital in Ch'ang-gan.]
[Footnote 2: Meaning the "small vehicle, or conveyance." There are in
Buddhism the triyâna, or "three different means of salvation, i.e. of
conveyance across the samsâra, or sea of transmigration, to the shores
of nirvâna. Afterwards the term was used to designate the different
phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma passed, known as
the mahâyâna, hînayâna, and madhyamayâna." "The hînayâna is the simplest
vehicle of salvation, corresponding to the first of the three degrees of
saintship." E.H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.]
[Footnote 3: "Sraman" may in English take the place of Sramana, the name
for Buddhist monks, as those who have separated themselves from (left)
their families, and quieted their hearts from all intrusion of desire
and lust.]