The Image Procession of Yutian

After a month and five days on the road they reached Yutian. That country is rich and happy, its people many and well off, and all of them uphold the Law and delight one another with the joy of the Law. The monks number tens of thousands, most of them students of the Great Vehicle, and all have food provided for the community. The people of that country live scattered like stars, and before the door of every house they raise a small stupa, the smallest of them about two zhang high. They build quarters for the monks of the four quarters and supply visiting monks with whatever else is needed. The lord of the country lodged Faxian and his company in a sangharama. The sangharama is named Qumodi. It is a monastery of the Great Vehicle, where three thousand monks eat together at the striking of the gong. When they enter the refectory their bearing is grave and orderly. They sit down in turn, all is silent, and there is no sound of bowl or dish. When the attendants (淨人) serve more food they may not call out to one another, but only point with the hand.

Huijing, Daozheng, and Huida set out first toward the country of Jiecha. Faxian and the rest wished to see the image procession (行像), and stayed three months.

In that country there are fourteen great sangharamas, and the small ones are not counted. From the first day of the fourth month the roads inside the city are swept and sprinkled and the lanes are adorned. Over the city gate a great curtain is stretched and everything is set out with care, and the king and his consort and the palace women stay within it. The monks of Qumodi are students of the Great Vehicle, and the king honors and esteems them, so they hold their procession first. Three or four li from the city a four-wheeled image carriage is made, more than three zhang high, shaped like a moving palace, adorned with the seven treasures and hung with silk banners and canopies. The image stands in the middle of the carriage with two bodhisattvas attending it, and the attendant gods are fashioned as well, all carved and polished in gold and silver and hung in the air. When the image is a hundred paces from the gate, the king takes off his crown, changes into new clothes, and barefoot, holding flowers and incense, goes out of the city with his train to meet the image. He bows his head to its feet, scatters flowers, and burns incense. When the image enters the city, the consort and the palace women on the gate tower scatter all manner of flowers from afar, and they come down in showers. The adornments and the vessels of offering are like this, and each carriage differs from the next. One sangharama holds the procession for one day. It begins on the first of the month, and only on the fourteenth day is the procession finished. When the procession is finished, the king and his consort go back to the palace.

Seven or eight li west of that city there is a sangharama called the King's New Monastery. It was eighty years in the building, and was finished only under three kings. It may be twenty-five zhang high, carved and chased with patterns and covered over with gold and silver, put together of all manner of jewels. Behind the stupa a Buddha hall was built, stately and beautiful, its beams and pillars, its door leaves and its windows all of gold leaf. Separate quarters for the monks were built, and these too are trim and splendid beyond what words can tell.

The kings of the six countries east of the range give most of the costly treasures they hold as offerings, and little is used by men.

When the image procession of the fourth month was past, Sengshao went alone to Jibin, following a Hu monk.