Yetgeul › Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) › Book 11

The Country of Azhali阿咤厘國

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) · 2 passages · 143 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 11 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.

阿咤厘國周六千餘里,國大都城周二十餘里。居人殷盛,珍寶盈積,稼穡雖備,興販為業。土地沙鹵,花果稀少。出胡椒樹,樹葉若蜀椒也。出薰陸香樹,樹葉若棠梨也。氣序熱,多風埃。人性澆薄,貴財賤德。文字語言,儀形法則,大同摩臘婆國。多不信福,縱有信者,宗事天神。祠館十餘所,異道雜居。

The country of Azhali is more than six thousand li around. The great capital city of the country is more than twenty li around. The people who live there are many and thriving, and rare and precious things are heaped up in plenty. Sowing and reaping are provided for, but they make the selling of goods their livelihood. The soil is sand and salt, and flowers and fruit are few and scarce. The pepper tree grows there, and its leaves are like the pepper of Shu. The xunlu incense tree grows there, and its leaves are like the wild pear. The seasons are hot, and there is much wind and dust. The people are shallow and mean by nature, and they prize wealth and hold virtue cheap. Their writing and their speech, their bearing and their rules of law, are much the same as in the country of Molapo. Most of them do not believe in blessing, and even those who believe serve the gods of heaven as their masters. The shrine halls are more than ten, and followers of other ways live mixed among them.

從摩臘婆國西北行三百里,至契咤國。

Going northwest from the country of Molapo three hundred li, one comes to the country of Qizha.

Interlinear notes 1

南印度境。

It is the border of South India.