The Return by Sea

Having obtained these Sanskrit texts, he went aboard a merchant's great ship, and there were more than two hundred people on it. A small boat was made fast behind it, for the sea passage is hard and dangerous, and they made ready in case the great ship should break up. They got a good seasonal wind and ran east for two days, and then met a great wind. The ship sprang a leak and the water came in. The merchants wanted to get to the small boat, but the men on the small boat feared that too many would come, and cut the rope at once. The merchants were greatly afraid, for their lives hung upon a moment, and fearing that the ship would fill with water they took the bulky goods and threw them into the sea. Faxian too threw his water pot and his washing jar and his other things into the sea. But he feared that the merchants would throw away the sutras and the images, and so with his whole mind he thought upon Avalokiteshvara and entrusted his life to the monks of the land of Han. "I have traveled far to seek the Law. I pray that by your awesome power the current may turn back, and that I may reach the place where I am to rest." The great wind blew like this for thirteen days and nights, and they came to the side of an island. After the tide went out they found where the ship leaked and stopped it up, and then they went on again.

There are many robbers on the sea, and those who meet them do not come through whole. The great sea spreads out without bound. East and west cannot be told apart, and one goes forward only by looking at the sun and the moon and the stars. When it is cloudy and raining the ship is carried along by the wind, and there is no reckoning it. In the dark of night one sees only the great waves striking against one another and flashing like the color of fire, and the strange creatures of the water, the great turtles and the tortoises. The merchants were in a panic and did not know which way to head. The sea is deep and has no bottom, and there is no place to let down a stone. Only when the sky had cleared could they tell east from west, and turn back to the right course and go forward. If they had struck a hidden rock, there would have been no way to live.

In this way they went about ninety days, and came to a country named Yepoti.

In that country the other ways and the Brahmins flourish, and the Law of the Buddha is not worth speaking of.

He stayed five months in this country, and then went aboard the great ship of another merchant, and on it too there were about two hundred people. They carried provisions for fifty days and set out on the sixteenth day of the fourth month. Faxian kept the retreat aboard the ship. They went northeast, heading for Guangzhou.

After a month and more, at the second drum of the night, they met a black wind and a driving rain. The merchants and the traders were all in terror, and Faxian at that time again thought with his whole mind upon Avalokiteshvara and upon the monks of the land of Han. He was granted the help of their awesome power, and came through to daybreak. When it grew light the Brahmins took counsel and said, "It is because we carry this shramana that we have no good fortune and have met this great hardship. We should put the bhikshu ashore on an island in the sea. We cannot let ourselves be endangered for the sake of one man." Faxian's own patron said, "If you put this bhikshu ashore, put me ashore with him! If you will not, then kill me. If you put this shramana ashore, then when I reach the land of Han I will surely speak of you to the king. The king of the land of Han also honors and believes the Law of the Buddha and holds the bhikshus of the order dear." The merchants wavered, and did not dare to put him ashore.

At that time the sky was overcast many days together, and the pilot took his bearings wrongly, so that they drifted more than seventy days. The provisions and the water were almost gone, and they cooked their food with the salt water of the sea. They divided the good water, and each man got two sheng, and even that was almost gone. The merchants took counsel and said, "Sailing at the usual time it takes just fifty days to reach Guangzhou, and now we are many days past the time. Have we not gone astray?" So they went northwest to look for the shore, and after twelve days and nights they came to the south bank of Mount Lao, on the border of Changguang commandery, and there they got good water and greens. They had passed through every danger, and their fear and grief had piled up day after day, and now all at once they had come to this shore. They saw goosefoot and bean leaves growing as of old, and knew that this was the land of Han.

But they saw no people and no tracks, and did not know where they were. Some said they had not yet reached Guangzhou, and some said they had already passed it, and no one could tell which was so. So they took the small boat and went into an inlet to look for someone and ask where the place was. They found two hunters and brought them back, and had Faxian put the questions to them. Faxian first set their minds at ease, and then asked quietly, "Who are you?" They answered, "We are disciples of the Buddha." He asked again, "What are you looking for in the hills?" They dissembled and said, "Tomorrow is the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and we mean to gather peaches to offer to the Buddha." He asked again, "What country is this?" They answered, "This is the border of Changguang commandery in Qingzhou, and it belongs to the house of Jin." When they heard this the merchants rejoiced, and at once shared out goods to the two men and sent someone to Changguang.

Li Yi, the governor, was a man who honored and believed the Law of the Buddha. When he heard that a shramana had come by ship across the sea bearing sutras and images, he came at once with his people to the seashore, received the sutras and the images, and returned with them to the seat of the commandery. The merchants then went off toward Yangzhou. Liu Yan, the Inspector of Qingzhou, asked Faxian to stay for one winter and one summer. When the summer sitting was over, Faxian, who had long been parted from his teachers, wished to go to Chang'an. But the work he had taken up was weighty, and so he went south instead to the capital, and there with the meditation master (禪師) he brought out the sutras and the Vinaya.

Faxian set out from Chang'an, and it was six years before he reached the Middle Country (中國). He stayed there six years, and it took him three years to come back and reach Qingzhou. The countries he passed through were a little short of thirty. From west of the river of sand as far as India, the bearing of the monks and the beauty of the Law and its teaching are more than can be told in full. He thought privately that his teachers had not been able to hear of these things, and for that reason he did not spare his poor life, but crossed the sea and came home. He went through every hardship, but was fortunate to be granted the awesome protection of the Three Honored Ones, and was brought safe out of danger. And so he has set down on bamboo and silk what he passed through, wishing to let good men share in what he saw and heard. This year is the year jiayin.

In the twelfth year of Yixi of the Jin, the year standing in Shouxing (壽星), at the end of the summer retreat, Huiyuan welcomed the man of the Way Faxian. When he had come, they kept him to share the winter fast. In the intervals of their lectures and gatherings he asked him again about his travels. The man was respectful and yielding, and his words always kept to the facts. For this reason he urged him to set down in full what he had before set down only in outline, and Faxian told the whole of it over again from beginning to end, and said of himself, "When I look back over what I passed through, my heart shakes and the sweat runs without my knowing it. That I braved danger and trod hard places and did not spare this body of mine was because my will was set on something, and I held to my foolish straightness alone. And so I threw my life into a land where I could not surely come through whole, in order to reach the one hope in ten thousand." At this they marveled at the man, and held him to be rare in all times, old and new. Since the great teaching came flowing eastward there has been no one who forgot his own body to seek the Law as Faxian did. Only then can one know that where sincerity moves, no obstruction is so complete that it cannot be passed, and that where the will carries a man, there is no work he cannot bring to completion. And is not the bringing of such work to completion born of this, that he forgot what others hold dear and held dear what others forget?