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
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Characteristics Of It Are The Preponderance Of
Active Moral Asceticism, And The Absence Of Speculative Mysticism And
Quietism." E. H., Pp.
151-2, 45, and 117.
[5] The name for India is here the same as in the former chapter and
throughout the book, - T'een-chuh ({.} {.}), the chuh being pronounced,
probably, in Fa-hien's time as tuk. How the earliest name for India,
Shin-tuk or duk=Scinde, came to be changed into Thien-tuk, it would
take too much space to explain. I believe it was done by the
Buddhists, wishing to give a good auspicious name to the fatherland of
their Law, and calling it "the Heavenly Tuk," just as the Mohammedans
call Arabia "the Heavenly region" ({.} {.}), and the court of China
itself is called "the Celestial" ({.} {.}).
[6] Sraman may in English take the place of Sramana (Pali, Samana; in
Chinese, Sha-man), the name for Buddhist monks, as those who have
separated themselves from (left) their families, and quieted their
hearts from all intrusion of desire and lust. "It is employed, first,
as a general name for ascetics of all demoninations, and, secondly, as
a general designation of Buddhistic monks." E. H., pp. 130, 131.
[7] Tartar or Mongolian.
[8] Woo-e has not been identified. Watters ("China Review," viii. 115)
says: - "We cannot be far wrong if we place it in Kharaschar, or
between that and Kutscha." It must have been a country of considerable
size to have so many monks in it.
[9] This means in one sense China, but Fa-hien, in his use of the
name, was only thinking of the three Ts'in states of which I have
spoken in a previous note; perhaps only of that from the capital of
which he had himself set out.
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