Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Fa Xian Returns from the Indian Ocean Voyage

At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Buddhism was introduced to my country from India, and Buddhist scriptures began to be translated.Some foreign monks also came to China. For example, in the fourth year of Emperor Yongjia of the Western Jin Dynasty (AD 310), the monk Fotucheng from Tianzhu (now India) came to China. Chinese monks also went to the West to seek the Dharma. Significantly. Fa Xian (approximately 337-approximately 422), with the common surname Gong, was born in Wuyang, Pingyang (now Xiangyuan County, Shanxi). He became a monk at the age of three.By the middle of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Sixteen Kingdoms period, although many Buddhist scriptures had been translated, the precepts (the Buddhist canon that restrained believers) were still incomplete, so Faxian decided to go west to seek the precepts.

In the third year of Long'an (399 A.D.), the emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Fa Xian set off from Chang'an, the capital of the later Qin Dynasty, and went to Tianzhu (India) to learn Buddhist scriptures through the Hexi Corridor, along the Western Regions, and Yuecongling.He successively invited nine companions to travel with him. After going through hardships and dangers, he finally passed through Afghanistan, and arrived in Tianzhu in the second year of Yuanxing, Emperor Andi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 403).He searched for precepts in Tianzhu, learned Sanskrit and Sanskrit, copied Buddhist scriptures, and traveled all over northern and central Tianzhu.During the journey, some of the accompanying monks lost their lives in foreign lands, and some wished to stay in Tianzhu and never return.The original intention of Faxian's westward journey was "to make the precepts circulate in the Han land", so he resolutely returned to China by sea to pass on the precepts obtained from Tianzhu and promote Buddhism.

In the fifth year of Emperor Yixi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (409 A.D.), Faxian traveled from the Domoli Empire in the Ganges Delta of India (now Tamruk near Midnapur, West Bengal, India, in ancient times, located at the mouth of the Ganges River) by merchant sea. The ship traveled day and night for 14 days to the country of Shizi (that is, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka).Because Shizi Country is a country where Buddhism flourishes in South Asia, Fa Xian visited famous temples and temples here, and continued to seek Buddhism.Among the offerings at the "Wuwei Mountain" Buddhist temple, "seeing the businessman offering white silk fans from Jindi" in front of the Buddha statue, it aroused homesickness.

After staying in Shizi Kingdom for two years, on September 4th in the seventh year of Yixi, Emperor An of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 411), Faxian boarded a large merchant ship from Shizi Kingdom with more than 200 people on board.A small boat is tied to the back of the big ship (due to the extremely difficult sea navigation, it is used in case the big ship is destroyed).The big ship was going east across the Bay of Bengal.As soon as we set sail, it was just right, and we were able to sail eastward smoothly. Unexpectedly, two days later, there was a strong wind, and the boat leaked into the water.All the merchants wanted to get on the small boat, but there were too many people in the small boat, so they cut the rope.At the moment of his life, the merchants were terrified and threw the heavy and heavy belongings on the boat into the water. Fa Xian also threw water bottles, bath jars and other things into the sea.Such strong winds blew for 13 days, and the boat came to an island.When the tide receded and the leak could be seen, it was plugged and repaired, and the voyage continued.

Navigation at sea is extremely difficult. "There are many thieves in the sea, and there is nothing safe when you meet them. The sea is boundless, and you don't know anything. You can only look at the sun, the moon, and the stars. If it is cloudy and rainy, you will go by the wind, and you will not be sure. When the night is dark, you can only see big waves. Fighting with each other, it is obviously a fire color. The turtle [yuantuo yuan camel] is a genus with strange water properties. The merchant is desolate and does not know where to go. The sea is deep and bottomless, and there is no place to live on the rocks. When the sky clears, he knows things and looks back. Going forward, if you are on the rock, there is no way out. If it takes about ninety days, you will arrive at a country named Yavati (now Java Island or Sumatra Island, Indonesia, or both islands).”

This passage from Faxian's "Foguoji" tells us that there are pirates in the sea.More importantly, it illustrates the important role of observing the sun, moon and stars to identify the direction of navigation in ocean navigation at that time.At this time, there was no compass yet, and the ships sailing on the vast sea could only see that the water and the sky were connected, and they had to rely on the sun, moon and stars for navigation.This has become the proof of the early origin of my country's sun-watching and moon-watching sailing. When he arrived in the country of Yevati, because "Brahmanism is prosperous here, and the Dharma is not worth mentioning", Faxian "stopped the May Day of this country" and only stayed for five months. On the same day, another large merchant ship with more than 200 people on board took 50 days of food and sailed to the northeast of Guangzhou.After walking for about a month, there was a sudden black storm at night, and the merchants were very frightened.At that time, it was cloudy again, and after walking for more than 70 days, the food and fresh water were almost used up, so they had to take sea water to eat, and the remaining fresh water was divided into two liters per person.The merchants said that it usually takes 50 days to get to Guangzhou, but now it has expired for many days. Is the aviation engineer wrong?So I sailed northwest, looking for the coast, "only let the wind drift", after 12 days and nights, "suddenly arrived at the shore, and saw that the gooseberry (crop) and vegetables were still sparse, and I knew it was Han land."Everyone was very happy to get fresh water vegetables.But I don’t know where it is. Some people say they have passed Guangzhou, some people say they haven’t arrived in Guangzhou yet, and they took a small boat to go deep into the interior. When they found two hunters, they asked Fa Xian to translate them. Fa Xian asked them in Chinese, “Which country is this?” , the hunter said, this is the boundary of Changguang County in Qingzhou (now in the Laoshan area of ​​Shandong), which belongs to Jindi.Only then did Fa Xian know that he had returned to his hometown.Later, he went to Jiankang from Pengcheng (now Xuzhou, Jiangsu).

Fa Xian went west to India to seek precepts after going through hardships and ups and downs. It lasted 14 years and he was on the verge of death several times.In the end, he was the only one who sailed back to China alone, and he was already 70 years old at this time.After returning to China, he translated a large number of Buddhist scriptures brought back together with the eminent Nepalese monk Buddha Duo Bhathara who had just arrived in China, and wrote the book "Buddhist Kingdom Records" ("Fa Xian Biography") which describes the experience of seeking scriptures. , more than 13,000 words in total.This is my country's first book that records in detail the politics, economy, religion, history, geography, customs, etc. of ancient Central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and the countries of the South China Sea. .Its historical materials are extremely valuable and play an important role in promoting mutual understanding and cultural exchanges between China and India, Nepal and other countries.

From "Buddha Kingdom", we can learn that the navigation technology at that time had been improved.Large merchant ships that can carry more than 200 people have traveled between the Western Pacific Ocean and the North Indian Ocean.The countries of Duomali, Shizi, Yevati and Guangzhou are already important ports.At that time, navigators still used celestial bodies for directional navigation. Although they knew the relevant knowledge of trade winds, they could not predict the ocean weather.

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