The Country of Qiepantuo朅盤陁國

The country of Qiepantuo is more than two thousand li around. The great capital city of the country is founded on a great stone ridge, and it has the Xiduo river at its back, and it is more than twenty li around. Its mountains and ridges lie joined one to another, and its streams and plains are narrow and cramped. Grain crops are scant and few, beans and wheat are rich and plentiful, its groves of trees are thin, and its flowers and fruits are few. Its plains and marshes are mounds and waste ground, and its cities and towns are empty and wide. Their customs have no rites and no right dealing, and the people have little of learning and the arts. Their nature is already rough and violent, and their strength is also swift and brave. Their faces are ugly and worn, and they dress in felt and coarse cloth. Their writing and their speech are much the same as those of the country of Qusha. Yet they know how to believe with a simple heart, and they honor and hold up the Law of the Buddha. There are more than ten monasteries and more than five hundred monks, and they study the Sarvastivada school of the Lesser Vehicle.

The king who now reigns is simple and plain. He reveres the Three Jewels. His bearing is calm and refined, and his will is earnest and he is fond of learning. Since the founding of the country many years have passed. He calls himself Zhinatipoqudaluo. In earlier days this country was a wild river valley in the midst of the Onion Range. Long ago the king of the country of Bolilasi took a wife in the land of Han, and as she was brought home they came here. At that time soldiers were in disorder and the roads east and west were cut off, and so they set the king's daughter on a lonely peak. It was utterly steep and dangerous, and they climbed it by setting a ladder against the cliff, and below they set guards all around, and they watched by day and patrolled by night. Three months passed, and the robbers grew quiet at last, and they wished to take the road home; but the daughter was already with child. The envoy was afraid and said to his followers, "We came by the king's command to bring the bride, and we met this trouble of robbers, and we camped in the open in a wild river valley, and in the morning we could not plan for the evening. Our king's virtue drew an answer from heaven, and the evil vapor has grown still. Now we are about to go home to our country, and the king's wife is with child. I look on this and am troubled, and I do not know where we are to die. We should pick out the chief wrongdoer, and so escape the punishment that would come after." The questioning grew loud and noisy, but they could not reach the truth of it. Then the attendant who waited on her said to the envoy, "Do not blame one another. This was a meeting with a god. Every day at high noon a man came here from within the wheel of the sun, riding a horse." The envoy said, "If it is so, how shall we wash away the guilt? If we go back we shall surely be put to death, and if we stay they will come and attack us. Going forward and going back are alike in this. What is it right to do?" They all said, "This matter is not a small one. Who would go to meet so deep a punishment? Let us await our guilt outside the border, and put off the morning and the evening for now." Thereupon on the stone peak they built a palace and raised a hall, more than three hundred paces around. They built a wall around the palace, and they set up the daughter as their lord, and they set up offices and laid down laws. When the time came she bore a son, and his face was fair and beautiful. The mother took the government in hand, and the son took the honored title. He flew through the empty air and drove the wind and the clouds. His majesty and virtue were spread far, and the fame of his teaching reached distant parts, and there was no neighboring land or foreign country that did not call itself his subject. When that king came to the end of his years, he was buried in a rock chamber in a great mountain more than a hundred li southeast of this city. His body is dried, and to this day it has not decayed. It looks like a thin and wasted man, and it lies solemn as if asleep. From time to time they change its clothes, and they always set incense and flowers there. His sons and grandsons have followed one another through the generations down to this day. Because in the time of their first ancestors the mother was a person of the land of Han and the father was of the seed of the sun god, they call themselves Hanritianzhong. Yet the royal house is like the people of China in face, and they wear a square cap on the head and foreign dress on the body. Their later heirs have sunk low, and they are pressed by a strong country.

When King Wuyou received the charge of his age, he built a stupa within that palace. Afterward that king moved his dwelling to the northeast corner of the palace, and out of his old palace he built a monastery for the venerable Tongshou, the master of treatises. Its terraces and towers are high and wide, and the image of the Buddha is majestic. The venerable one was a man of the country of Dachashiluo. He was keen of mind while still young, and he left the dust of the world early. He let his mind roam through the books of the canon and lodged his spirit in dark meaning, and he recited thirty-two thousand words a day and also wrote out thirty-two thousand characters. So his learning overcame the fine men of his time and his name stood high in that age, and he set up the right Law and broke down false views. His lofty arguments were clearly raised, and there was no hard question he did not answer, and so the five countries of India all looked up to him. The treatises he made were some tens of works in all, and all of them were widely spread abroad, and there was no one who did not delight in studying them. He is the founding master of the Sautrantika school. At that time there was Maming in the east, Tipo in the south, Longmeng in the west, and Tongshou in the north, and they were called the four suns that lit the world. So the king of this country heard of the venerable one's abounding virtue, and he raised soldiers and moved his host and attacked the country of Dachashiluo, and he got him by threat, and he built this monastery and so made his reverence plain.

Going southeast from the city more than three hundred li, one comes to a great stone cliff. There are two stone chambers, and in each of them one arhat has entered the concentration of complete cessation. They sit upright and are hard to shake, and their form is like that of a thin man, but their skin and bones have not decayed, and more than seven hundred years have passed. Their beards and hair keep growing, and so the monks shave their heads and change their robes once each year.

Northeast of the great cliff, crossing ridges and treading dangerous ground, one goes more than two hundred li and comes to Benrangsheluo. It lies on the eastern ridge of the Onion Range, in the midst of four mountains, and the ground is more than a hundred acres (頃) across, and the very middle of it sinks low. In winter and in summer the snow lies piled, and the wind is cold and blows hard. Its fields and ridges are salt and brackish, and sowing and reaping do not thrive there. There are no groves of trees, and there is only fine grass. Though the season be hot and burning, there is much wind and snow, and when a party of men has barely set foot there the clouds and mist have already risen. Merchants and travelers go to and fro, and they suffer from this hardship and danger. The elders there say: "Long ago there was a merchant whose company was more than ten thousand and whose camels were some thousands. They carried goods and followed after gain, and they met wind and met snow, and men and beasts alike perished. At that time there was a great arhat in the country of Qiepantuo who saw them from afar and pitied their danger and distress, and he wished to work his spiritual power and save those who were sinking. He came here just then, but the merchants were already dead. Thereupon he gathered up the rare treasures and brought together all that they had, and he raised a house and hall and stored up goods and wealth there, and he bought land in a neighboring country and bought houses in a border city, and so he helped those who came and went. So now travelers and merchants all receive full supply from it."

From here one goes east down the eastern ridge of the Onion Range, climbs dangerous ridges and crosses hollow valleys. The streams and paths are steep and blocked, and wind and snow follow one upon another. After more than eight hundred li one comes out of the Onion Range and reaches the country of Wusha.