Back to the Classics 2021 #4

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021.

Classic Travel. Once again for this category I just let fate make the selection.

 A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms – Fa Hsien (circa A.D. 399-414)

佛國記

A dedicated Buddhist monk and translator, Fa Hsien, travels afoot from China through India to Ceylon, then on to Sumatra and return to China by sea. His superiors were worried about Chinese Buddhism becoming too syncretic (mixed up with other systems of belief) so they dispatched him to the source in order to obtain copies of the Sacred Books of Buddhism to educate and enlighten his fellow monks in the appropriate doctrines.

Fa Hsien describes the rituals of the monks in monasteries. The detail is frugal yet evocative. Plus, it is always fascinating to read about the diversity of beliefs human beings have. Supernatural marvels come with the territory.

Entering the valley, and keeping along the mountains on the south-east, after ascending fifteen le, (the travellers) came to mount Gridhra-kuta. Three le before you reach the top, there is a cavern in the rocks, facing the south, in which Buddha sat in meditation. Thirty paces to the north-west there is another, where Ananda was sitting in meditation, when the deva Mara Pisuna, having assumed the form of a large vulture, took his place in front of the cavern, and frightened the disciple. Then Buddha, by his mysterious, supernatural power, made a cleft in the rock, introduced his hand, and stroked Ananda's shoulder, so that his fear immediately passed away. The footprints of the bird and the cleft for (Buddha's) hand are still there, and hence comes the name of "The Hill of the Vulture Cavern."

I think in certain kinds of Buddhism, rocks and trees might become enlightened. So why not the intelligent and genial elephants?

(Afterwards), the ground all about became overgrown with vegetation, and there was nobody to sprinkle and sweep (about the tope [stupa]); but a herd of elephants came regularly, which brought water with their trunks to water the ground, and various kinds of flowers and incense, which they presented at the tope. (Once) there came from one of the kingdoms a devotee to worship at the tope. When he encountered the elephants he was greatly alarmed, and screened himself among the trees; but when he saw them go through with the offerings in the most proper manner, the thought filled him with great sadness—that there should be no monastery here, (the inmates of which) might serve the tope, but the elephants have to do the watering and sweeping.

At only about 120 pages this narrative is quite short, perhaps not up to our expectations concerning one of the most impressive journeys ever undertaken and brought to a successful end in an era when many travellers were killed by natural disaster, hardships, disease, or brigands. 

I read the Legge translation, mainly because it has in the footnotes with traditional Chinese characters, which are cool beyond belief, even if the reader  is like me and only able to read about 10 percent of them. Legge’s explanation of Buddhist tenets assumes that we readers already know something about Buddhism.