Chapter 77 people who travel far

I was so excited to find the footsteps of Faxian and Xuanzang in the old place of Gandhara, and there is another more specific reason: this was the first time we had a reverse cultural encounter during our long expedition. I have said before that there are four kinds of people who have gone far in ancient China, one is businessmen, the other is soldiers, the third is monks, and the fourth is poets. Merchants seek profit and soldiers follow orders. Although their travels will bring some cultural achievements, cultural attempts in the strict sense belong to monks and poets who travel far. These four kinds of people walk different distances.Merchants on the Silk Road traveled farther, but soldiers did not travel too far, because most Chinese emperors did not like long-distance expeditions.

What about monks and poets?Poets, first of all those frontier poets, including those with loose feet like Li Bai, have indeed traveled a lot in their lives, but it is impossible for them to really cross the Taklamakan Desert and Pamirs. This desire, nor enough will, perseverance and physical strength.Poets are often sentimental, and when encountering a desperate situation in life, they are likely to collapse mentally.As for other seemingly wild literati, no matter how many rivers and mountains they talk about on weekdays, most of them run away when encountering real hardships, and then turn around and point out behind the passers-by.Literati have common problems, ancient and modern.

Monks are different.Religious ideas have brought them great energy, and the outstanding members of them even go through the desperate situation of life to obtain spiritual classics, so there may be footsteps that shock the world and weep ghosts and gods. Therefore, only businessmen and monks are left who can go long distances, and only monks have clear cultural intentions. Along the way, we have imagined the limit that ancient Chinese merchants could reach on the Red Sea in Egypt, while we can already judge their unmistakable footprints thousands of years ago in Babylon and Persia. Thousands of years ago, when the horseshoes and swords of other ancient civilizations were swaying thousands of miles, Chinese culture was still very introverted.Finally, two monks came out, and with the purpose of spiritual culture, they wanted to use Chinese characters to absorb wisdom from outside the region.

We encountered them in reverse in Gandhara, but next, we no longer reversed, but followed them to investigate India, which is what they call the Buddhist holy land Tianzhu. On the hillside of Taxila, I have been pinching my fingers to estimate that Faxian and Xuanzang came here through untold hardships, and actually inserted the history of a foreign country. So, which part of their history was inserted? Faxian arrived in the early fifth century, 900 years since Sakyamuni founded Buddhism, and 600 years since Ashoka protected the Dharma. It has entered the middle of the era of Mahayana Buddhism.The Mahayana Buddhist scriptures compiled and expounded by Ma Ming more than 200 years ago and Nagarjuna more than 100 years ago have already become a great sight in theory, and they have flourished in society for a while.Faxian is not far to the west of where I am standing now. The place called Flosha at that time (today's Peshawar) once saw the magnificent Kanishka Pagoda, which was amazing. At that time, such large pagodas abounded.That is to say, he came at the right time.

Xuanzang arrived more than 200 years later than Faxian, which is the late period of Mahayana Buddhism.But luckier than Faxian, he met the last great monarch in the history of ancient India, King Jiri.King Jieri is revitalizing the declining Mahayana Buddhism with his high political prestige and cultural ability, and he is also very polite to Xuanzang.Then, Xuanzang came at the right time.After King Jie Ri, Buddhism declined, and then entered the era of Esoteric Buddhism. They arrived during the glorious period of history, and their quick-seeking eyes cannot fail to pay attention to the source and destination of the glory.Therefore, what they actually obtained was much more than the classics they brought back.

When they study Buddhism, they have to trace the background culture before the emergence of Buddhism, such as Vedic literature, and the Upanishads among them, as well as the epics "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" and so on.In this way, religion has collided with the source of an ancient civilization, which is both independent and profound, with endless taste. I myself have studied the "Fifty Upanishads" translated by Mr. Xu Fancheng for a while, and studied Brahmanuni's "On Dance" in order to explore the history of ancient oriental art. I have already deeply felt the grandeur and difficulty of this civilization.Facing an ancient civilization is like facing an unfathomable ocean.It is not enough to just read the description of the sea from books, at least one should stand on the shore and smell the fishy smell of the sea.Faxian and Xuanzang understood this, so they were willing to go through hardships and became the first messengers of deep communication between East Asian civilization and Central Asian civilization.All in-depth communication cannot rely solely on written materials, but must use footsteps, eyes and even the whole flesh and blood as a raft.

Life is too short to fully understand one civilization, let alone multiple civilizations.So everyone became in a hurry, and in a hurry, they were most likely to be deceived. They believed some misrepresented information as the basis of judgment, which hurt both themselves and civilization.Therefore, we should seize the time to walk more roads and get out of the trap of being bullied with the hard work of walking.Faxian and Xuanzang are in front, which is a kind of eternal candlelight. We don't look at the wheels rolling, but we are actually following them. December 7, 1999, Islamabad, overnight from Marriott Hotel