Yetgeul › Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) › Book 12

The Country of Ximodaluo呬摩呾羅國

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 · 199 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 min

Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 12 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.

呬摩呾羅國,睹貨邏國故地也,周三千餘里。山川邐迤,土地沃壤,宜穀稼,多宿麥,百卉滋茂,眾果具繁。氣序寒烈,人性暴急,不識罪福,形貌鄙陋。舉措威儀,衣氈皮褐,頗同突厥。其婦人首冠木角,高三尺餘,前有兩岐,表夫父母。上岐表父,下岐表母,隨先喪亡,除去一岐。舅姑俱歿,角冠全棄。其先強國,王,釋種也,蔥嶺之西,多見臣伏。境鄰突厥,遂染其俗。又為侵掠,自過其境,故此國人流離異域,數十堅城,各別立主。穹廬毳帳,遷徙往來。西接訖栗瑟摩國。

The country of Ximodaluo is the old land of the country of Duhuoluo, and it is more than three thousand li around. Its mountains and rivers run on and on, and the soil is rich. It suits grain, and there is much winter wheat. The hundred plants grow thick and full, and the many fruits are plentiful everywhere. The climate is cold and harsh, and the nature of the people is violent and quick. They do not know sin from blessing, and their looks are low and coarse. In their doings and their bearing, and in their wearing of felt and leather and coarse cloth, they are much like the Turks. Their women wear horns of wood on their heads, more than three feet high, with two branches in front that stand for the parents of the husband. The upper branch stands for the father and the lower branch for the mother, and when one of the two dies first, the branch for that one is taken away. When the husband's father and mother are both gone, the horned headdress is thrown away altogether. In an earlier time this was a strong country, and its king was of the Shakya clan. West of the Onion Range there were many who bowed to him as subjects. Its borders touched the Turks, and so at last it took on their customs, and it suffered raids and plunder as well, and men passed through its borders as they pleased. Therefore the people of this country drifted into other lands, and some tens of walled strongholds each set up a lord of its own. In round tents and tents of felted hair they move from place to place, going and coming. On the west it borders the country of Qilisema.

東谷行二百餘里,至缽鐸創那國。

Going east through the valley for more than two hundred li, one comes to the country of Boduochuangna.