Yetgeul › Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) › Book 4

The Country of Sheduotulu設多圖盧國

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) 大唐西域記 · Xuanzang · compiled by Bianji · 646 (Tang, 20th year of the Zhenguan era) · 4 passages · 153 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 4 The record Xuanzang laid before Emperor Taizong of the Tang after seventeen years of walking through the Western Regions and India, a hundred and thirty-eight countries in all. It is the stuff from which Journey to the West was made, but what stands here is not monsters — it is the compass and the climate and the speech and the faith of one country after another. The road runs two hundred years after Faxian and eighty years before Hyecho.

設多圖盧國周二千餘里,西臨大河。國大都城周十七八里。穀稼殷盛,果實繁茂,多金、銀,出珠珍。服用鮮素,裳衣綺靡。氣序暑熱,風俗淳和,人性善順,上下有序。敦信佛法,誠心質敬。

The country of Sheduotulu is more than two thousand li around, and on the west it faces a great river. The great capital city of the country is seventeen or eighteen li around. Grain is rich and plentiful, and fruit grows thick and full. Gold and silver are many, and it yields pearls and precious things. What the people wear is fresh and white, and their clothes are fine and bright. The climate is hot and burning, and the customs are simple and gentle. The nature of the people is good and yielding, and there is order between high and low. They believe in the Law of the Buddha with a full heart, and they revere it plainly and sincerely.

王城內外,伽藍十所,庭宇荒涼,僧徒鮮少。

Within the royal city and outside it there are ten monasteries. Their courts and halls are waste and desolate, and the monks are very few.

3The Stupa of King Wuyou

城東南三四里,有窣堵波,高二百餘尺,無憂王之所建也,傍有過去四佛坐及經行遺跡之所。

Three or four li southeast of the city there is a stupa more than two hundred feet high, raised by King Wuyou. Beside it is the place where the four Buddhas of the past sat and walked, and their traces remain.

復從此西南行八百餘里,至波理夜呾邏國。

Again from here one goes southwest more than eight hundred li and comes to the country of Boliyedaluo.

Interlinear notes 1

中印度境。

It lies within Central India.