The Country of South India南天竺國
1Nagarjuna's monastery and a song of longing for home
即從中天國南行三箇餘月。至南天竺國王所住。王有八百頭象。境土極寬。南至南海。東至東海。西至西海。北至中天。西天東天等國接界。衣著飲食人風。與中天相似。唯言音稍別。土地熱於中天。土地所出。㲲布象水牛黃牛。亦少有羊。無駝騾驢等。有稻田。無黍粟等。至於綿絹之屬。五天總無。王及領首百姓等。極敬三寶足寺足僧。大小乘俱行。於彼山中。有一大寺。是龍樹菩薩便夜叉神造。非人所作。竝鑿山為柱。三重作樓。四面方圓三百餘步。龍樹在日。寺有三千僧。獨供養以十五石米。每日供三千僧。其米不竭。取却還生。元不減少。然今此寺廢。無僧也。龍樹壽年七百。方始亡也。于時在南天路。為言曰。五言月夜□□路。浮雲颯颯歸。減書參去便。風急不聽迴。我國天岸北。他邦地角西。日南無有雁。誰為向林飛。
Then from the country of Central India I went south for more than three months and reached the place where the king of South India lives. The king has eight hundred head of elephants. His territory is very wide. It reaches the southern sea in the south, the eastern sea in the east and the western sea in the west, and in the north it borders on Central India, West India, East India and such countries.
Dress, food and the manners of the people are like those of Central India. Only the speech is a little different. The land is hotter than Central India. What the land yields is wool cloth, elephants, water buffalo and yellow cattle, and there are a few sheep, but no camels, mules or asses. There are rice fields, but no millet or foxtail millet. As for cotton and silk, there is none at all in the five Indias.
The king, the chiefs and the people revere the Three Jewels to the utmost. There are many monasteries and many monks, and both the Great Vehicle and the Lesser Vehicle are practised.
In those mountains there is a great monastery. The bodhisattva Nagarjuna (龍樹菩薩) had it built by yaksha spirits (夜叉神); it was not made by human hands. The mountain was bored through for its pillars, and it was raised three storeys high, more than three hundred paces around on its four sides. In Nagarjuna's day there were three thousand monks in the monastery, and with fifteen bushels of rice alone he made offering to three thousand monks every day, and that rice was never spent. As much as was taken out grew back, and it never grew less. But now this monastery is a ruin and has no monks. Nagarjuna was seven hundred years old before he passed away.
At that time, on the road in South India, I said in verse of five words to the line:
On a moonlit night I look toward the □□ road; the floating clouds go hurrying home. I would seal a letter and send it by that going hand, but the wind is swift and will not turn to listen. My country is at the sky's edge to the north, this other land at the earth's corner to the west. South of the sun there are no wild geese; who then will fly for me toward Gyerim (林)?
Interlinear notes 1
林 — Gyerim, the author's home. ― translator