tion of his demeanor, were conspicuous; and soon after, he
undertook his journey to India in search of complete copies of the
Vinaya-pitaka. What follows this is merely an account of his travels in
India and return to China by sea, condensed from his own narrative, with
the addition of some marvellous incidents that happened to him, on his
visit to the Vulture Peak near Rajagriha.

It is said in the end that after his return to China, he went to the
capital (evidently Nanking), and there, along with the Indian Sramana
Buddha-bhadra, executed translations of some of the works which he had
obtained in India; and that before he had done all that he wished to do
in this way, he removed to King-chow (in the present Hoo-pih), and died
in the monastery of Sin, at the age of eighty-eight, to the great sorrow
of all who knew him. It is added that there is another larger work
giving an account of his travels in various countries.

Such is all the information given about our author, beyond what he has
himself told us. Fa-hien was his clerical name, and means "Illustrious
in the Law," or "Illustrious master of the Law." The Shih which often
precedes it is an abbreviation of the name of Buddha as Sakyamuni, "the
Sakya, mighty in Love, dwelling in Seclusion and Silence," and may be
taken as equivalent to Buddhist. He is sometimes said to have belonged
to "the eastern Tsin dynasty" (A.D. 317-419), and sometimes to "the
Sung," that is, the Sung dynasty of the House of Liu (A.D. 420-478). If
he became a full monk at the age of twenty, and went to India when he
was twenty-five, his long life may have been divided pretty equally
between the two dynasties.

If there were ever another and larger account of Fa-hien's travels than
the narrative of which a translation is now given, it has long ceased to
be in existence.

In the catalogue of the imperial library of the Suy dynasty (A.D.
589-618), the name Fa-hien occurs four times. Towards the end of the
last section of it, after a reference to his travels, his labors in
translation at Kin-ling (another name for Nanking), in conjunction with
Buddha-bhadra, are described. In the second section we find "A Record of
Buddhistic Kingdoms"--with a note, saying that it was the work of "the
Sramana, Fa-hien"; and again, we have "Narrative of Fa-hien in two
Books," and "Narrative of Fa-hien's Travels in one Book." But all these
three entries may possibly belong to different copies of the same work,