法显浮雕十二讲

Twelve Stories of Fuxian Relief
1. Becoming a Buddhist
Faxian (c.337–422 AD) was an eminent monk in the Eastern Jin dynasty. His surname was Gong and he was a native of Xiangyuan County of Shanxi. He had three brothers but they all died before shedding their first teeth. Worrying he would die as young as them, his father devoted him to the service of the Buddhist temple when he was three years old, and had him entered as a Sramanera, still keeping him at home in the family because he was too young. Several years later, the little fellow fell mortally ill, and his father sent him to the temple, where he soon recovered and refused to return to his parents.
During his noviciate in the temple, Faxian became a more devoted believer in Buddhism. When he was ten years old, his father died; and his mother and an uncle urged him to renounce the monastic life and return to her, but the boy refused. His mother also died several months later. At the age of 20, he became a monk after undertaking Upasampadā (a kind of religious discipline).
2. Committed to pursuing scriptures
Later, he left Shanxi for Chang'an to study Buddhist classics. At that time, Chang'an was the capital of the later Qin dynasty. The emperor Yao Xing, who attached great importance to Buddhism, met this eminent monk from the western regions and asked him to deliver speeches and translate Buddhist scriptures. Because there was no text for most of the Buddhist scriptures, and for a long time they were spread verbally or recorded and translated by many people, the Buddhist scriptures had many errors and were severely incomplete. Regretting this, Faxian decided to obtain complete copies of the Vinaya-pitaka in India, the birthplace of Buddhism.
3. Setting out from Chang'an
In the 3rd year of the reign of emperor Long'an of the Eastern Jin dynasty (399 AD), Faxian, along with Huijing, Daozheng, Huiying and Huiwei, undertook his journey from Chang'an to India in search of the complete Buddhist scriptures. They first stayed at Zhangye, and the next summer when they started from Zhangye, seven more people including Zhiyan, Huijian, Huida and Sengshao joined them. They walked their way to the west through Gansu Corridor, the Jade gate in Gansu, crossing the Gobi & the Great Desert.
4. Difficult journey
They travelled on foot all the way to the west and the journey was full of hardships. When they reached Yutian of Xinjiang, Huiwei, Huijian and Zhiyan quit. In the 1st year of reign of emperor Andi of the Eastern Jin dynasty (402 AD), the remaining eight people continued to walk west. Before long they arrived at the Pamirs Mountains where the mountains were covered with snow throughout the year, their were vile dragon blowing noxious gases, violent storm raging and sand and stones hurtling through the air; the mountain road was very dangerous and rugged and extremely high precipices stood as if they were cut out with knives and axes. Long ago, people cut paths through the mountains and erected ladders and plank roads along the faces of precipices. Climbing them and looking down, one would feel dizzy. They experienced more than seven hundred such circumstances. They also crossed over dozens of rivers that flowed torrentially. Hanging high above the river was a ratten rope, and they had to cross by hanging onto the rope.
5. Arriving in India
After going over the Pamirs Mountains, the "Roof of the World", they entered Darada (now Darel in the northern frontier of Pakistan), went southward and crossed over the Indus River, passed through many small countries, such as Oddiyana, Swat and Peshawar and then passed over the snow-capped mountains in the south. On their way, another three withdrew from the journey, one froze to death, one died from illness and one was unwilling to go forward. Only Faxian and Daozhen insisted on heading for the south, and they finally arrived in India after going through over thirty countries.
6. Acquiring scriptures
Before reaching Central India, Faxian travelled over the Kingdom of Kashi. He obtained such sutras as Mahasangha-Vinaya, Sarvastivada-Vinaya, Samyuktabhidharma-Hrdaya Sastra, and Mahaparinirvana-Sutra in Magadha, Pātaliputra, Ashoka Tower and the South Warrior Temple. Faxian stayed in India for three years when he learnt Sanskrit and Brahmana, and recorded and transcribed the Upasampadā so that he could translate them into Chinese after returning home. His original intention of making the journey to the west was to search for complete copies of the Vinaya-pitaka to make up the shortage of Buddhist scriptures in China. Since this wish had been fulfilled, he began to prepare for returning home.
7. Returning with scriptures
In the 5th year of emperor Yixi's reign of the Eastern Jin dynasty, Faxian left on a merchant ship with large quantities of Buddhist classics and Buddha statues and arrived at Sri Lanka. During his two-year stay there, he copied and collected many scriptures including the Samyuktagama-Sutra and The Miscellaneous Treasury Sutra, and witnessed the grand Festival of Buddha's Tooth Relic. Faxian then took another ship for southern China, but the merchant ship was flooded with water due to a sudden storm. The people on board threw all their heavy objects into the sea and Faxian also discarded all the things he carried. However, he refused to throw the Buddhist scriptures and figures of the Buddha overboard. The ship got lost in the rain and drifted with the wind for more than ninety days. They ended up in Yavadvipa (now Java in Indonesia).
After spending five months there, Faxian headed for the north, returning to China by a third merchant ship; but, again, it was blown off course by a violent storm. The other people on board believed the monk was so inauspicious that he brought bad luck to the ship, so they intended to throw Faxian into the sea. Fortunately, someone prevented them and Faxian was saved.
8. Landing at Laoshan
After many hardships, they finally saw the coast. Seeing the green vegetables of their homeland, they knew they had come back to China. The hunter they met told them it was Changguang Prefecture of Qingzhou (now Laoshan of Qingdao). Hearing this, the people felt very happy and the hunter went to report this to the Chief Li Ni. Having always worshiped Buddha, Li Ni who suddenly heard a monk travel far across the sea with Buddhist scriptures and figures of the Buddha, met Faxian personally at the beach with great respect. It was the 8th year of the reign of emperor Yixi of the Eastern Jin dynasty (412 AD), meaning Faxian returned to his homeland after 14 years away.
9. Heading for the south to Jiankang
After staying in Qingzhou for one year, Faixan was eager to go back to the south. The governor of Qingzhou prefecture wanted him to leave after the winter, but Faxian replied: "I devoted myself to going abroad, not hoping to return home, only with the purpose of obtaining Buddhist scriptures and seeking Buddhist doctrine. Since my intentions are not yet fulfilled, I cannot stay here long." So he returned to the capital, Jiankang.
10. Translating scriptures and writing a book
At that time, the Indian monk, Buddha Bhadra, came to Jiankang from Jiangling. These like-minded men cooperated to translate scriptures of nearly millions of words. In particular, the Mahaparinirvana-Sutra translated by Faxian was widely circulated and enormously influential. He also wrote the book called A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms on his travels to the west for scriptures, filled with accounts of the religion, customs, and geography of numerous countries along the way. This book includes a lot of important historical information about many countries in Central Asia, India and Sri Lanka.
11. Being acknowledged as a master
After his return to the capital Jiankang, the people all admired Faxian for his great undertaking of going on a pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures. Besides, as they had never seen Buddhist classics, the things he brought were amazing, and followers of Buddhism flocked to acknowledge him as their master.
12. Propagating Buddhist doctrine
After living in Jiankang for seven years, Faxian set up a temple to propagate Buddhism in Jingzhou. Finally, he passed away in a small temple of Jingzhou, at the age of eighty-six.
Faxian's westbound journey was extremely difficult. Eleven men traveled together but he was the only one who came back. His spirit is admirable. Faxian is the first person in Chinese history to acquire Buddhist scriptures from the western regions in India and return to China by sea. It was said that Faxian also traveled to Mexico in South America on the way home. If that is true, he discovered America before Columbus.