Yetgeul › Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) › Book 10

The Country of Jielengqie羯𩜁伽國

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) · 5 passages · 302 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 10 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.

羯𩜁伽國周五千餘里,國大都城周二十餘里。稼穡時播,花果具繁,林藪聯綿,動數百里。出青野象,鄰國所奇。氣序暑熱,風俗躁暴,情多狷獷,志存信義。言語輕捷,音調質正,辭旨風則,頗與中印度異焉。少信正法,多遵外道。伽藍十餘所,僧徒五百餘人,習學大乘上座部法。天祠百餘所,異道甚眾,多是尼乾之徒也。

The country of Jielengqie is more than five thousand li around. The great capital city of the country is more than twenty li around. They sow and reap in season, and flowers and fruits are thick on every side. Forests and marshes run on one after another, often for several hundred li. Blue wild elephants are bred there, and the neighboring countries hold them a wonder. The climate is hot and burning, and the customs are hasty and fierce. Their feelings are often narrow and rough, but their will is set on faith and right dealing. Their speech is light and quick and the sound of their voices is plain and straight. The sense of their words, their manner and their rule differ a good deal from Central India. Few believe in the true Law and many follow other ways. There are more than ten monasteries and more than five hundred monks, and they study and learn the Law of the Sthavira school of the Greater Vehicle. There are more than a hundred temples of the gods, and followers of other ways are very many, and most of them are of the band of the Nijian.

2The country where an immortal's spell cut off its people

羯𩜁伽國在昔之時,氓俗殷盛,肩摩轂擊,舉袂成帷。有五通仙棲巖養素,人或淩觸,退失神通,以惡咒術殘害國人,少長無遺,賢愚俱喪,人煙斷絕,多歷年所。頗漸遷居,猶未充實,故今此國人戶尚少。

In the old days the people and the customs of the country of Jielengqie were many and thriving. Shoulders rubbed against shoulders and wheel hubs struck against wheel hubs, and when they raised their sleeves they made a curtain. There was an immortal of the five powers who lodged in the cliffs and nourished his plainness. Some men slighted him and touched him, and he fell back and lost his powers, and with the art of an evil spell he harmed the people of the country, so that neither young nor old were left and the wise and the foolish died together. The smoke of the houses was cut off for many years. Little by little they moved in and lived there, but it is not yet filled up, and so the households of this country are still few today.

3The stupa of King Wuyou

城南不遠有窣堵波,高百餘尺,無憂王之所建也。傍有過去四佛坐及經行遺跡之所。

Not far south of the city there is a stupa more than a 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 are left there.

4The place where one who awakened alone passed into stillness

國境北垂,大山嶺上有石窣堵波,高百餘尺,是劫初時人壽無量歲,有獨覺於此入寂滅焉。

On the northern edge of the country's border, on the ridge of a great mountain, there is a stone stupa more than a hundred feet high. This is the place where, at the beginning of the kalpa when the life of man was without measure of years, one who awakened alone passed here into stillness.

自此西北山林中行千八百餘里,至憍薩羅國。

From here one goes northwest through mountains and forests more than eighteen hundred li and comes to the country of Jiaosaluo.

Interlinear notes 1

中印度境。

It is the border of Central India.