DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.614#0272
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of them are still to be found, nevertheless, it is not
improbable that portions of edifices erected previously
to the Christian era,—such as foundations, walls, and
sculptured stones, in a more or less fragmentary state,—
are amongst the relics which have been preserved down
to our own times.
Two Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang,
have thrown considerable light on the condition of
Sarnath during the later period of Buddhism. The
former visited India in the beginning of the fifth
century, a.d. ; and the latter, towards the middle of
the seventh. These keen and sagacious observers have
left records of their travels in India, of the utmost
importance to the historian and antiquarian. Their
narratives are, for the most part, plain matter-of-fact
productions, free from the haze and uncertainty of
Hindu writings; and, wherever they have been tested
by extraneous evidence, have been found to be, to a
large extent, singularly correct. As great interest
attaches to the accounts which they furnish respecting
Sarnath and Benares at those epochs, I have given
them entire, in appendices to this work. That of Fa
Hian I have extracted from "The Pilgrimage of Fa
Hian," translated by Mr. J. W. Laidlay, from the
French edition of the " Foe Koue Ki " of MM. Remusat,
Klaproth, and Landresse. This is very brief; but the
narrative of Hiouen Thsang, on the contrary, is in
detail. This I have myself translated from the " Me-
moires de Hiouen Thsang," the French version of the
original Chinese work, executed by the celebrated Sino-
logist M. Stanislas Julien.
of them are still to be found, nevertheless, it is not
improbable that portions of edifices erected previously
to the Christian era,—such as foundations, walls, and
sculptured stones, in a more or less fragmentary state,—
are amongst the relics which have been preserved down
to our own times.
Two Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hian and Hiouen Thsang,
have thrown considerable light on the condition of
Sarnath during the later period of Buddhism. The
former visited India in the beginning of the fifth
century, a.d. ; and the latter, towards the middle of
the seventh. These keen and sagacious observers have
left records of their travels in India, of the utmost
importance to the historian and antiquarian. Their
narratives are, for the most part, plain matter-of-fact
productions, free from the haze and uncertainty of
Hindu writings; and, wherever they have been tested
by extraneous evidence, have been found to be, to a
large extent, singularly correct. As great interest
attaches to the accounts which they furnish respecting
Sarnath and Benares at those epochs, I have given
them entire, in appendices to this work. That of Fa
Hian I have extracted from "The Pilgrimage of Fa
Hian," translated by Mr. J. W. Laidlay, from the
French edition of the " Foe Koue Ki " of MM. Remusat,
Klaproth, and Landresse. This is very brief; but the
narrative of Hiouen Thsang, on the contrary, is in
detail. This I have myself translated from the " Me-
moires de Hiouen Thsang," the French version of the
original Chinese work, executed by the celebrated Sino-
logist M. Stanislas Julien.