live any longer. Do you immediately go away, that we
do not all die here"; and with these words he died. Fa-hien stroked the
corpse, and cried out piteously, "Our original plan has failed; it is
fate. What can we do?" He then again exerted himself, and they succeeded
in crossing to the south of the range, and arrived in the kingdom of
Lo-e, [1] where there were nearly three thousand monks, students of both
the mahayana and hinayana. Here they stayed for the summer retreat, [2]
and when that was over, they went on to the south, and ten days' journey
brought them to the kingdom of Poh-na, where there are also more than
three thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. Proceeding from this
place for three days, they again crossed the Indus, where the country on
each side was low and level.

[Footnote 1: Lo-e, or Rohi, or Afghanistan; only a portion of it can be
intended.]

[Footnote 2: We are now therefore in A.D. 404.]

CHAPTER XV

~Sympathy of Monks with the Pilgrims~

After they had crossed the river, there was a country named Pe-t'oo,
where Buddhism was very flourishing, and the monks studied both the
mahayana and hinayana. When they saw their fellow-disciples from Ts'in
passing along, they were moved with great pity and sympathy, and
expressed themselves thus: "How is it that these men from a border-land
should have learned to become monks, and come for the sake of our
doctrines from such a distance in search of the Law of Buddha?" They
supplied them with what they needed, and treated them in accordance with
the rules of the Law.

CHAPTER XVI

~Condition and Customs of Central India~

From this place they travelled southeast, passing by a succession of
very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks, who might be counted
by myriads. After passing all these places, they came to a country named
Ma-t'aou-lo. They still followed the course of the P'oo-na river, on the
banks of which, left and right, there were twenty monasteries, which
might contain three thousand monks; and here the Law of Buddha was still
more flourishing. Everywhere, from the Sandy Desert, in all the
countries of India, the kings had been firm believers in that Law. When
they make their offerings to a community of monks, they take off their
royal caps, and along with their relatives and ministers, supply them
with food with their own hands. That done, the king has a carpet spread
for himself on the ground, and sits down on it