About the Book
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms
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About the Author
Fa-Hien or Fa-hsien (ca.337-ca.422)
Fa Xian (Traditional Chinese: ??; Simplified Chinese: ??; Pinyin: Faxian; also romanized as Fa-Hien or Fa-hsien) (337 – ca. 422 CE) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Nepal, India, and SriLanka to acquire Buddhist scriptures between 399 and 412. His journey is described in his important travelogue, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. He is most known for his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.
On Fa Xian's return to China, after a two-year stay in Ceylon, a violent storm drove his ship onto an island that was probably Java. Faxian landed at Laoshan in what is now Shandong province, 30 km east of the city of Qingdao and went to Shandong's then-capital, Qingzhou, where he remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he had collected.
His work is a travel book, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Roads at the turn of the 5th century CE.
