DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.614#0028
XXVUl ISTTKODTJCTIOH'.
are stated to have been much, in the minority, kept up
thirty religious houses, tenanted by three thousand
inmates, all of the Sammatiya sect. In the capitalx
were twenty Hindu temples, and a latten statue of Siva,
a hundred feet in height. We are not apprised whether
there were any sacred edifices of the pilgrim's fellow-
religionists in the capital itself; and the obvious in-
ference is, that there were none, or none worth com-
memorating. On the monasteries, towers, and reser-
voirs of the immediate vicinity,2 hallowed by Buddhist
One need do no more than collate M. Julien's two versions of
Hiouen Thsang's short account of Benares, to be satisfied that the
translator's notion of the sense of his original is, sometimes, of the
vaguest.
1 Its name is not specified. Fa Hian—of the beginning of the
fifth century, and so an earlier traveller than Hiouen Thsang,—is
translated as speaking of " la ville de Pho lo nai, dans le royaume
de Kia ehi." Foe Koue Ki, p. 304.
2 Two of these remembrancers of the Buddhist faith, towers at
Sarnath, beyond the Varana or Burna, are still conspicuous land-
marks. The larger of them is called, by the natives, Dhamekh,—
a corruption, in all likelihood, of an old word involving dharma as
its first factor.
On the word of M. Stanislas Julien, Hiouen Thsang locates a
monument " au nord-est de la capitale, et a l'occident du fleuve de
Po-lo-ni-sse (Varanacl)," and tells of a certain monastery at the
distance of "environ dix li au nord-est du fleuve de Po-lo-ni-sse
(Varanagi)." In a foot note, the phrase " a. l'occident du fleuve de
Po-lo-ni-sse (Varanagi)" is explained to signify "a l'occident du
Oange."
As the Chinese pilgrim again and again names the Ganges, it
seemed to me unlikely that he should anywhere speak of it by a
periphrasis like that of "the river of London." I had observed,
too, that, instead of "environ," etc., M. Klaproth had written : " Au
nord [lie] de la ville coule la riviere Pho lo na (Varana); sur son
bord, a dix U de la ville," etc.; Pho lo ni sse being, as he says just
before, Hiouen Thsang's name for Benares. Moreover, in M. Julien's
are stated to have been much, in the minority, kept up
thirty religious houses, tenanted by three thousand
inmates, all of the Sammatiya sect. In the capitalx
were twenty Hindu temples, and a latten statue of Siva,
a hundred feet in height. We are not apprised whether
there were any sacred edifices of the pilgrim's fellow-
religionists in the capital itself; and the obvious in-
ference is, that there were none, or none worth com-
memorating. On the monasteries, towers, and reser-
voirs of the immediate vicinity,2 hallowed by Buddhist
One need do no more than collate M. Julien's two versions of
Hiouen Thsang's short account of Benares, to be satisfied that the
translator's notion of the sense of his original is, sometimes, of the
vaguest.
1 Its name is not specified. Fa Hian—of the beginning of the
fifth century, and so an earlier traveller than Hiouen Thsang,—is
translated as speaking of " la ville de Pho lo nai, dans le royaume
de Kia ehi." Foe Koue Ki, p. 304.
2 Two of these remembrancers of the Buddhist faith, towers at
Sarnath, beyond the Varana or Burna, are still conspicuous land-
marks. The larger of them is called, by the natives, Dhamekh,—
a corruption, in all likelihood, of an old word involving dharma as
its first factor.
On the word of M. Stanislas Julien, Hiouen Thsang locates a
monument " au nord-est de la capitale, et a l'occident du fleuve de
Po-lo-ni-sse (Varanacl)," and tells of a certain monastery at the
distance of "environ dix li au nord-est du fleuve de Po-lo-ni-sse
(Varanagi)." In a foot note, the phrase " a. l'occident du fleuve de
Po-lo-ni-sse (Varanagi)" is explained to signify "a l'occident du
Oange."
As the Chinese pilgrim again and again names the Ganges, it
seemed to me unlikely that he should anywhere speak of it by a
periphrasis like that of "the river of London." I had observed,
too, that, instead of "environ," etc., M. Klaproth had written : " Au
nord [lie] de la ville coule la riviere Pho lo na (Varana); sur son
bord, a dix U de la ville," etc.; Pho lo ni sse being, as he says just
before, Hiouen Thsang's name for Benares. Moreover, in M. Julien's