K'een-kwei of the
   text, who was very prosperous in 398, and took the title of king of
   Ts'in. Fa-Hsien would find him at his capital, somewhere in the present
   department of Lan-chow, Kan-suh.

   (7) Under varshas or vashavasana (Pali, vassa; Spence Hardy, vass),
   Eitel (p. 163) says:—"One of the most ancient institutions of
   Buddhist discipline, requiring all ecclesiastics to spend the rainy
   season in a monastery in devotional exercises. Chinese Buddhists
   naturally substituted the hot season for the rainy (from the 16th day
   of the 5th to the 15th of the 9th Chinese month)."

   (8) During the troubled period of the Tsin dynasty, there were five
   (usurping) Leang sovereignties in the western part of the empire ({.}
   {.}). The name Leang remains in the department of Leang-chow in the
   northern part of Kan-suh. The "southern Leang" arose in 397 under a
   Tuh-fah Wu-ku, who was succeeded in 399 by a brother, Le-luh-koo; and
   he again by his brother, the Now-t'an of the text, in 402, who was not
   yet king therefore when Fa-Hsien and his friends reached his capital.
   How he is represented as being so may be accounted for in various
   ways, of which it is not necessary to write.

   (9) Chang-yih is still the name of a district in Kan-chow department,
   Kan-suh. It is a long way north and west from Lan-chow, and not far
   from the Great Wall. Its king at this time was, probably, Twan-yeh of
   "the northern Leang."

   (10) Dana is the name for religious charity, the first of the six
   paramitas, or means of attaining to nirvana; and a danapati is "one
   who practises dana and thereby crosses {.} the sea of misery." It is
   given as "a title of honour to all who support the cause of
   Buddhism by acts of charity, especially to founders and patrons of
   monasteries;"—see Eitel, p. 29.

   (11) Of these pilgrims with their clerical names, the most
   distinguished was Pao-yun, who translated various Sanskrit works on
   his return from India, of which only one seems to be now existing. He
   died in 449. See Nanjio's Catalogue of the Tripitaka, col. 417.

   (12) This was the second summer since the pilgrims left Ch'ang-gan. We
   are now therefore, probably, in A.D. 400.

   (13) T'un-hwang (lat. 39d 40s N.; lon. 94d 50s E.) is still the name
   of one of the two districts constituting the department of Gan-se, the
   most western of the prefectures of Kan-suh; beyond the termination of
   the Great Wall.

   (14) Who this envoy was, and where he was going, we do not know. The
   text will not admit of any other translation.

   (15) Le Hao was a native of Lung-se, a man of learning, able and
   kindly in his government. He was appointed governor or prefect of
   T'un-hwang by the king of "the northern Leang," in 400; and there he
   sustained himself, becoming by and by "duke of western Leang," till he
   died in 417.

   (16) "The river of sand;" the great desert of Kobi or Gobi; having
   various other names. It was a great task which the pilgrims had now
   before them,—to cross this desert. The name of "river" in the Chinese
   misleads the reader, and he thinks of crossing it as of crossing
   a stream; but they had to traverse it from east to west. 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. So (the travellers) found it in all the kingdoms through which they went on their way from this to the west, only that each had its own peculiar barbarous speech.(7) (The monks), however, who had (given up the worldly life) and quitted their families, were all students of Indian books and the Indian language. Here they stayed for about a month, and then proceeded on their journey, fifteen days walking to the north-west bringing them to the country of Woo-e.(8) In this also there were more than four thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. They were very strict in their rules, so that sramans from the territory of Ts'in(9) were all unprepared for their regulations. Fa-Hsien, through the management of Foo Kung-sun, maitre d'hotellerie,(10) was able to remain (with his company in the monastery where they were received) for more than two months, and here they were rejoined by Pao-yun and his friends.(11) (At the end of that time) the people of Woo-e neglected the duties of propriety and righteousness, and treated the strangers in so niggardly a manner that Che-yen, Hwuy-keen, and Hwuy-wei went back towards Kao-ch'ang,(12) hoping to obtain there the means of continuing their journey. Fa-Hsien and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight forward in a south-west direction. They found the country uninhabited as they went along. The difficulties which they encountered in crossing the streams and on their route, and the sufferings which they endured, were unparalleled in human experience, but in the course of a month and five days they succeeded in reaching Yu-teen.(13)