Wuchang in North India

The monks asked Faxian, "Can it be known when the Law of the Buddha first passed eastward?" Faxian said, "I asked the people of that land, and they all say that the old men have handed it down that after the image of the bodhisattva Maitreya was set up, there were shramanas of India who crossed this river carrying the sutras and the Vinaya. The image was set up about three hundred years after the Buddha's nirvana, which by reckoning falls in the time of King Ping of the Zhou. Speaking from this, the spreading of the great teaching began with this image. Had the great being Maitreya not followed in the track of Shakyamuni, who could have made the three treasures known everywhere and let the people of the borders know the Law? Truly one knows that the opening of a hidden destiny is no work of men, and that the dream of Emperor Ming of the Han came about for a reason."

When the river is crossed one comes at once to the country of Wuchang. Wuchang is North India proper. They all speak the language of Central India, and Central India is what is called the Middle Country (中國). The clothing and the food of the common people are the same as in the Middle Country. The Law of the Buddha is very flourishing. They call the places where the monks stay sangharamas, and there are five hundred sangharamas in all, and all of them study the Lesser Vehicle. If a visiting bhikshu arrives, they make offerings to him for three days, and when the three days are past they let him seek a settled place for himself.

It is handed down that when the Buddha came to North India, it was this country he reached. The Buddha left his footprint here, and the print shows long or short according to the mind of the one who looks, and it is so to this day. The stone where he dried his robe, and the place where he saved the evil dragon, are also there still. The stone is one zhang and four chi high and about two zhang wide, and one side of it is flat.

Huijing, Huida, and Daozheng, the three of them, set out first toward the country of Najie, where the shadow of the Buddha is. Faxian and the rest stayed in this country and kept the summer retreat.

When the retreat was over they went down south and reached the country of Suhaduo. In that country too the Law of the Buddha flourishes. Long ago Shakra, lord of the gods, tested the bodhisattva by changing himself into a hawk and into a dove, and this is the place where the bodhisattva cut his own flesh to ransom the dove. After the Buddha had attained the Way, he passed this place with his disciples and said, "This is where I once cut my flesh to ransom a dove." The people of the country came to know it by this, and raised a stupa here and adorned it with gold and silver.