Wang Ocheonchukguk Jeon (Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Regions of India) 往五天竺國傳 · Hyecho · 727 (Silla, 26th year of King Seongdeok) · 2 passages · 127 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min
Wang Ocheonchukguk Jeon (Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Regions of India) Complete in one volume The travel record of Hyecho, a monk of Silla, who at about twenty walked forty countries of India and the Western Regions and set down what he saw. It was lost for more than a thousand years and was found again in 1908 in the caves of Dunhuang, as a damaged scroll. Five poems in five-word lines, longing for home, are carried in it.
Again, in the mountains there is a monastery named Nagerathana (那揭羅駄娜). A monk from Han China (漢) died in this monastery. The great teacher there said that he had come from Central India, that he was well versed in the holy teaching of the Tripitaka (三藏), and that when he was about to return to his homeland he suddenly fell ill and passed away at once. When I heard this, there was no one whose heart was not wounded. So I wrote four rhymes to grieve for the road to the world of the dead, in verse of five words to the line.
2Only the white clouds go home
故里燈無主。他方寶樹摧。神靈去何處。玉貌已成灰。憶想哀情切。悲君願不隨。孰知鄉國路。空見白雲歸。
The lamp of his old home has lost its master,
the jewel tree of a far country is broken.
Where has your holy spirit gone?
Your face like jade is already ashes.
When I think of it, grief cuts deep;
I grieve that your wish was never fulfilled.
Who knows the road home to his own country?
In vain I watch the white clouds going back.