Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In 399 ce , the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian ( c. 337–422) left the city of Chang'an (present-day Xian), to embark on an epic, 14-year pilgrimage. His travels took him first overland through Western China and Central Asia, across the northern portion of the Indian subcontinent to the Bay of Bengal, then by sea south to Sri Lanka, and eventually back to China via the islands of Indonesia. Approximately two years after returning home Faxian published an account of his travels entitled A Record of Buddhist Countries . This text, one of the first such Buddhist travelers’ accounts and replete with careful descriptions of what Faxian saw, was influential at the time and remains important today to scholars and students of Asian studies. Art historians find in Faxian's text rich descriptions of the centrality and power of objects within Buddhist rituals in all the locations he visited. He describes an image procession he witnessed in the Central Asian oasis city of Khotan (today in China) for which monks constructed a cart “more than thirty cubits high, which looked like the great hall (of a monastery) moving along.” At Khotan's royal palace, the king put off his crown of state, changed his dress for a fresh suit, and with bare feet, carrying in his hands flowers and incense, and with two rows of attending followers, went out at the gate to meet the image; and, with his head and face ... log in or subscribe to read full text