Faxian

Faxian

Encyclopedia

Tutorials

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Directory

Email this to a friend Faxian

Faxian

Fa Xian (Traditional Chinese:??; Simplified Chinese:?? Pinyin?F?xi?n); also romanized as Fa-Hien or Fa-hsien) (ca. 337 - ca. 422) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Nepal, India and Sri Lanka to acquire Buddhist scriptures between 399 and 412 . His journey is described in his work A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. He is most known for his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

On Fa Xian's return to China, he landed at Laoshan in what is now Shandong province, 30km east of the city of Qingdao and went to Shandong's then-capital, Qingzhou, where he remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he had collected.

His work is a travel book, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Roads at the turn of the 5th century CE.

The following is from the introduction to a translation of Fa Xian's work by James Legge:

References

Legge, James 1886. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Reprint: New York, Paragon Book Reprint Corp. 1965. ISBN 0-486-21344-7

Beal, Samuel. 1884. Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang. 2 vols. Translated by Samuel Beal. London. 1884. Reprint: Delhi. Oriental Books Reprint Corporation. 1969. (Also contains a translation of Faxian's book on pp. xxiii-lxxxiii).