River called the Indus.[1] In former times men had
chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face
of them, to the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there
was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its
banks being there eighty paces apart.[2] The (place and arrangements)
are to be found in the Records of the Nine Interpreters,[3] but
neither Chang K'een[4] nor Kan Ying[5] had reached the spot.
The monks[6] asked Fa-hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha
first went to the east. He replied, "When I asked the people of those
countries about it, they all said that it had been handed down by
their fathers from of old that, after the setting up of the image of
Maitreya Bodhisattva, there were Sramans of India who crossed this
river, carrying with them Sutras and Books of Discipline. Now the
image was set up rather more than 300 years after the nirvana[7] of
Buddha, which may be referred to the reign of king P'ing of the Chow
dynasty.[8] According to this account we may say that the diffusion of
our great doctrines (in the east) began from (the setting up of) this
image. If it had not been through that Maitreya,[9] the great
spiritual master[10] (who is to be) the successor of the Sakya, who
could have caused the 'Three Precious Ones'[11] to be proclaimed so
far, and the people of those border lands to know our Law? We know of
a truth that the opening of (the way for such) a mysterious
propagation is not the work of man; and so the dream of the emperor
Ming of Han[12] had its proper cause."
NOTES
[1] The Sindhu. We saw in a former note that the earliest name in
China for India was Shin-tuh. So, here, the river Indus is called by a
name approaching that in sound.
[2] Both Beal and Watters quote from Cunningham (Ladak, pp. 88, 89)
the following description of the course of the Indus in these parts,
in striking accordance with our author's account: - "From Skardo to
Rongdo, and from Rongdo to Makpou-i-shang-rong, for upwards of 100
miles, the Indus sweeps sullen and dark through a mighty gorge in the
mountains, which for wild sublimity is perhaps unequalled. Rongdo
means the country of defiles. . . . Between these points the Indus
raves from side to side of the gloomy chasm, foaming and chafing with
ungovernable fury. Yet even in these inaccessible places has daring
and ingenious man triumphed over opposing nature. The yawning abyss is
spanned by frail rope bridges, and the narrow ledges of rocks are
connected by ladders to form a giddy pathway overhanging the seething
cauldron below."
[3] The Japanese edition has a different reading here from the Chinese
copies, - one which Remusat (with true critical instinct) conjectured
should take the place of the more difficult text with which alone he
was acquainted.
