Yetgeul › Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) › Book 5

The Country of Pisuojia鞞索迦國

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) · 3 passages · 307 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 5 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.

鞞索迦國周四千餘里。國大都城周十六里。穀稼殷盛,花果具繁。氣序和暢,風俗淳質,好學不倦,求福不回。伽藍二十餘所,僧眾三千餘人,並學小乘正量部法。天祠五十餘所,外道甚多。

The country of Pisuojia is more than four thousand li around. The great capital city of the country is sixteen li around. Grain and crops are plentiful and abundant, and flowers and fruits are many of every kind. The climate is mild and pleasant, and the customs are simple and plain. The people are fond of study and do not grow weary, and they seek merit and do not turn back. There are more than twenty monasteries and more than three thousand monks, and all of them study the Law of the Zhengliang school of the Lesser Vehicle. There are more than fifty temples of the gods, and followers of other ways are very many.

2The place of the dispute over whether there is a self

城南道左有大伽藍。昔提婆設摩阿羅漢於此造《識身論》,說無我人;瞿波阿羅漢作《聖教要實論》,說有我人。因此法執,遂深諍論。又是護法菩薩於此七日中摧伏小乘一百論師。伽藍側有窣堵波,高二百餘尺,無憂王所建也,如來昔日六年於此說法導化。說法側有奇樹,高六七尺,春秋遞代,常無增減。是如來昔嘗凈齒,棄其遺枝,因植根柢,繁茂至今。諸邪見人及外道眾競來殘伐,尋生如故。其側不遠,有過去四佛座及經行遺跡之所。復有如來髮、爪窣堵波。靈基連隅,林沼交映。

On the left of the road south of the city there is a great monastery. Long ago the arhat Tiposhemo composed the Shishen lun here and said that there is no self and no person, and the arhat Qubo composed the Shengjiao yaoshi lun and said that there is a self and a person. Out of this holding fast to the Law their dispute at last grew deep. This is also the place where the bodhisattva Hufa in seven days broke down a hundred masters of treatises of the Lesser Vehicle and made them submit. Beside the monastery there is a stupa more than two hundred feet high, raised by King Wuyou. The Tathagata long ago spoke the Law here for six years and led and changed the people. Beside the place where he spoke the Law there is a strange tree six or seven feet high. Spring and autumn come and go in turn, but it never grows or shrinks. Long ago the Tathagata cleaned his teeth here and threw away the twig he had used, and it took root and has grown thick until this day. Men of crooked views and the host of the other ways have come in rivalry to cut it down, but it grows again as before. Not far beside it is the place where the four Buddhas of the past left the traces where they sat and walked. There is also a stupa of the hair and nails of the Tathagata. The holy foundations run on from corner to corner, and the groves and the ponds shine upon one another.

從此東北行五百餘里,至室羅伐悉底國。

Going northeast from here more than five hundred li, one comes to the country of Shiluofaxidi.

Interlinear notes 1

舊曰舍衛,訛也。中印度境。

In old days it was called Shewei. This is wrong. It is in the border of Central India.