The Country of Xindu信度國

The country of Xindu is more than seven thousand li around. The great capital city of the country is called Pishanpobuluo, and it is more than thirty li around. The land suits grain, and winter wheat is plentiful. Gold and silver and brass come from it, and it is fit for the raising of cattle and sheep and camels and mules and such beasts. The camels are low and small and have only one hump. Much red salt comes from it, and its color is like red stone; and white salt, black salt, white rock salt and the like are used as medicine in strange lands far away. The people are hard and fierce by nature and yet plain and straight. They quarrel often and slander much. They do not love wide learning, but they believe deeply in the Law of the Buddha. The monasteries are several hundred and the monks more than ten thousand, and all of them study the Law of the Zhengliang school of the Lesser Vehicle. For the most part they are idle, and their nature and their conduct are worn and foul. Among them there is a company of the worthy and the good who work with all their strength. They dwell alone in quiet and stillness, they set their footsteps far off in the mountains and the woods, and night and day they are never slack, and many of them have gained the holy fruit. The temples of the gods are more than thirty, and followers of other ways live mixed among them. The king is of the Shudra stock. He is pure and plain by nature and reveres the Law of the Buddha. Because the Tathagata journeyed much in this country long ago, King Wuyou raised several tens of stupas at the places of the holy traces. Wubojuduo, the great arhat, journeyed in this country many times and spread the Law and opened the way and led men on, and so at every place where he stayed a mark was set up for what he left behind. Some raised monasteries and some raised stupas, and these stand here and there among one another. The chief of them may be told.

Among the pools and the marshes beside the Xindu river, for more than a thousand li, there are several hundred thousand households who have built their homes and live there. Their nature is hard and fierce, and killing is their only business. They herd cattle and live by that, and they are bound to no one for their lives. Whether man or woman, whether high or low, they shave their beards and their hair and put on the kasaya, and they look like monks while they do the work of the world. They hold fast to small views alone and deny and drive off the Greater Vehicle. It is heard from the records of old that long ago the common people of this land were at ease in cruelty and did nothing but what was fierce and savage. At that time there was an arhat who pitied them for falling so far, and to teach them he came riding the empty air and showed great divine power and made rare things appear, so that the multitude believed and received it, and little by little he led them with words and teaching. The people revered him and were glad, and they asked to receive what he pointed out to them. The arhat knew that the hearts of the multitude were bent to him, and he gave them the three refuges and made their fierceness and their violence cease. They cut off all killing, they shaved their heads and put on dyed robes, and they reverently practiced the teaching of the Law. As the years and the ages grew distant, the world changed and the times moved on. Their keeping of the good has already fallen away, but the manner left from that time has not died out, and so, though they wear the robe of the Law, they have never had precepts or goodness. Their sons and their grandsons have gone on age after age, and by practice it has become their custom.

Going east from here more than nine hundred li and crossing to the east bank of the Xindu river, one comes to the country of Maoluosanbulu.