Chapter 76 Xuanzang and Faxian

There is a historic site in Taxila with a strange name called the International Buddhist Academy, which is very similar to a modern religious education institution.In fact, it refers to the ruins of the lecture hall in Jaulian. Due to the high level of this lecture hall in history and the gathering of monks from various countries, it is not too much to say that it is an international Buddhist academy.It's on a mountain and you have to climb uphill to get there. I didn't pay much attention at first, thinking that in the early center of Buddhist culture, there would naturally be many ruins of lecture halls.But the staff in the lecture hall seemed to treat us differently. An elderly man in a white coat with a brown face spoke to us repeatedly in English with his unclear big tongue, and finally understood that this is our Tang Dynasty. The place where Xuanzang of ancient times stayed.

Seeing our skeptical expressions, he took the lead through the densely packed meditation platforms of monks and came to a larger meditation platform.He squatted down slightly and pointed to a complete statue on a pedestal.He said that it was built by Buddhist descendants to commemorate Xuanzang's stay. This statue is Xuanzang, and it is one of the two most perfect statues in the lecture hall. He didn't say that Xuanzang used to sit on this meditation platform, but only said that it was a commemorative building of later generations. This kind of statement has a kind of trustworthy honesty.I started to trust him.

He also said that Xuanzang not only stopped here, but also taught scriptures. As a result, I stayed in this lecture hall for a long time, unwilling to leave.The lecture hall is divided into two floors, which is very different from Chinese-style temples. It is all built of mud bricks and is extremely simple. After climbing up the hill, we first entered a crowded ground floor, surrounded by narrow meditation rooms, and in the middle hall there were many meditation platforms. We could only carefully walk through the curved passages between the meditation platforms.It can be seen that the monks sitting on the meditation platform in the middle should be of a higher rank. They can already move the meditation in the private room to the public.The meditation seats in the middle also vary in size, and Xuanzang's memorial seat is the largest one.

There are many dilapidated Buddha statues on the walls of this floor, all of which belong to the Gandhara series. There may be many reasons for the dilapidation. It does not exclude the destruction of other religions, but it is mainly due to the age and natural weathering.Some of these Buddha statues are clay sculptures, and some are carved from local unsteady stone materials. Compared with the large stone culture seen in Greece and Egypt, there is a kind of regret in terms of material.There is no way to do this, it is a pity that started from Mesopotamia. The second floor is where the real scriptures are taught.Surrounding it are still small rooms for meditation and listening to scriptures, and there is a large and flat patio in the middle, which is where ordinary listeners sit on the ground.It can be seen from this that those who have four small rooms should be eminent monks and great virtues, which is just the opposite of the bottom.

There is an open-roofed house in a corner of the courtyard, which is now marked with a bathroom. Of course, no one would take a bath in the center of the solemn lecture hall. It should be the place where the lecturers and listeners wash their hands with clean water. A wall away from the lecture hall is the dining room and kitchen.Back then, the monks sat on the ground and ate with square stone piers, and there were still four stone piers left.The dining room is close to the cliff. Under the cliff is a river that has now dried up. Across the river are several gentle hills. It is said that ordinary monks from all over the world who came to listen to the lecture at that time set up a monk's dormitory on the opposite hillside to rest.

Our Xuanzang did not need to go up the hillside, but sat on the meditation platform on the ground floor all the time.When there are lectures, you can also have a small room upstairs.Occasionally, under the reverent and curious eyes of the crowd, he walked up to the stage as a lecturer. Xuanzang arrived in Gandhara around 630 A.D. or a little later. We have already read about the hardships he went through to get here.Not to mention his near-death experience in the Great Gobi Desert, to reach Gandhara from the Great Gobi Desert, at least he had to hike over the Tengger Mountains in the Tianshan Mountains, then over the Pamirs, and the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan .

These mountains are world-class natural dangers that are insurmountable even for today's well-equipped mountaineers, but the Buddhist traveler stepped on them all. When he saw so many Gandhara Buddha statues, he immediately understood that he had already arrived in North Tianzhu, and his joyful mood can be imagined.He distributed the gifts he had brought along the way, such as gold, silver and silk, to the temples here, stayed for a while, and then began to march to the central, eastern, southern and western parts of India. This is the resting place where he took a long breath, and this is the first stop for him to enter the Buddhist holy land.

When I walked up and down repeatedly in the lecture hall, his image was all over my head and eyes.I guessed his footsteps and gaze back then, and quickly concluded that he must have thought of Fa Xian.Faxian arrived here more than 200 years earlier than Xuanzang. The feat of this former monk has always been the driving force for Xuanzang to travel thousands of miles westward. Faxian arrived in Gandhara in 402 A.D., which can be inferred from his "Buddha Country Records".Fa Xian first crossed the Taklimakan Desert, and then crossed the Pamirs to get here.What makes him even more surprising than Xuanzang is that Xuanzang was 30 years old when he crossed the Pamirs, while Faxian was 67 years old!

Faxian was sixty-eight years old when he appeared in Gandhara, and here was only the starting point for his investigation of Buddhist culture in the Indus and Ganges valleys. After the investigation, this ancient and rare old man still had to reach today's Sri Lanka, then take the sea route to Indonesia, and then go north to return to China. He was already seventy-nine years old at that time.From the age of eighty, he began to translate the classics he brought back, and wrote a travelogue "Buddhist Kingdom Records" until his death at the age of eighty-six. This old man, who put the feat that shines in the annals of history after the age of sixty-five, really made the most thorough challenge to the age barrier of mankind.

Standing in the ruins of Gandhara, I am really proud of the Buddhist travelers in ancient China.The tradition of historical records in Chinese culture has enabled them to maintain the habit of written records, leaving "Buddhist Kingdom Records" and "Da Tang Western Regions Records" for history.Now, even foreign historians admit that without these Chinese writings, it would be difficult to sort out a history of Buddhism.Even the history of India has to be revised with the help of these travel notes. I remember that when Ms. Meng Guangmei and I were sitting in the Sekapu ruins and chatting, she wondered why there was no information about Chinese civilization in these reliefs that integrated multiple civilizations?I said, the Himalayas and the Pamirs are too high, and the sea route is too far away. It is true that the relationship between Chinese civilization and this area has not been seriously established before BC, but do you know how these sites were discovered?Rely on Xuanzang's "Da Tang Western Regions" and Fa Xian's "Buddhist Kingdom".

Although the arrival of the Chinese was a bit late, they filled in the history here with accurate written records, pointed out the reserves here, and revived the relics here.The Chinese were not absent after all. December 6, 1999, Islamabad, Overnight from Marriott Hotel