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) By James Legge
- Page 24 of 190 - First - Home
In His
"Vocabulary Of Proper Names," P. 23, Dr. Porter Smith Says:
- "It
extends from the eastern frontier of Mongolia, south-westward to the
further frontier of Turkestan, to within six miles of Ilchi, the chief
town of Khoten.
It thus comprises some twenty-three degrees of
longitude in length, and from three to ten degrees of latitude in
breadth, being about 2,100 miles in its greatest length. In some
places it is arable. Some idea may be formed of the terror with which
this 'Sea of Sand,' with its vast billows of shifting sands, is
regarded, from the legend that in one of the storms 360 cities were
all buried within the space of twenty-four hours." So also Gilmour's
"Among the Mongols," chap. 5.
CHAPTER II
ON TO SHEN-SHEN AND THENCE TO KHOTEN
After travelling for seventeen days, a distance we may calculate of
about 1500 le, (the pilgrims) reached the kingdom of Shen-shen,[1] a
country rugged and hilly, with a thin and barren soil. The clothes of
the common people are coarse, and like those worn in our land of
Han,[2] some wearing felt and others coarse serge or cloth of hair; -
this was the only difference seen among them. The king professed (our)
Law, and there might be in the country more than four thousand
monks,[3] who were all students of the hinayana.[4] The common people
of this and other kingdoms (in that region), as well as the
sramans,[5] all practise the rules of India,[6] only that the latter
do so more exactly, and the former more loosely.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 24 of 190
Words from 6232 to 6503
of 51126
