I have taken the trouble
to give all the various readings (amounting to more than 300), partly
as a curiosity and to make my text complete, and partly to show how,
in the transcription of writings in whatever language, such variations
are sure to occur,
"maculae, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum cavit nature,"
while on the whole they very slightly affect the meaning of the
document.
The editors of the Catalogue Raisonne intimate their doubts of the
good taste and reliability of all Fa-hien's statements. It offends
them that he should call central India the "Middle Kingdom," and
China, which to them was the true and only Middle Kingdom, but "a
Border land;" - it offends them as the vaunting language of a Buddhist
writer, whereas the reader will see in the expressions only an
instance of what Fa-hien calls his "simple straightforwardness."
As an instance of his unreliability they refer to his account of the
Buddhism of Khoten, whereas it is well known, they say, that the
Khoteners from ancient times till now have been Mohammedans; - as if
they could have been so 170 years before Mohammed was born, and 222
years before the year of the Hegira! And this is criticism in China.
The Catalogue was ordered by the K'ien-lung emperor in 1722. Between
three and four hundred of the "Great Scholars" of the empire were
engaged on it in various departments, and thus egregiously ignorant
did they show themselves of all beyond the limits of their own
country, and even of the literature of that country itself.
Much of what Fa-hien tells his readers of Buddhist miracles and
legends is indeed unreliable and grotesque; but we have from him the
truth as to what he saw and heard.
3. In concluding this introduction I wish to call attention to some
estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world which have become
current, believing, as I do, that the smallest of them is much above
what is correct.
i. In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes (1854),
General Cunningham says: "The Christians number about 270 millions;
the Buddhists about 222 millions, who are distributed as follows: -
China 170 millions, Japan 25, Anam 14, Siam 3, Ava 8, Nepal 1, and
Ceylon 1; total, 222 millions."
ii. In his article on M. J. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire's "Le Bouddha et
sa Religion," republished in his "Chips from a German Workshop," vol.
i. (1868), Professor Max Muller (p. 215) says, "The young prince
became the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand
years, is still professed by 455 millions of human beings," and he
appends the following note:
