Fa hien biography of albert

FA-HIEN (fl. A.D. 1 4), Chinese Buddhist monk, pilgrimtraveller, and writer, author of one of the earliest and most valuable Chinese accounts of India.

He started from Changgan or Si-gan-fu, then the capital of the Tsin empire, and passing the Great Wall, crossed the " River of Sand "or Gobi Desert beyond, that home of " evil demons and hot winds," which he vividly describes, - where the only way-marks were the bones of the dead, where no bird appeared in the air above, no animal on the ground below.

Arriving at Khotan, the traveller witnessed a great Buddhist festival; here, as in Yarkand, Afghanistan and other parts thoroughly Islamized before the close of the middle ages, Fa-Hien shows us Buddhism still prevailing. India was reached by a perilous descent of " ten thousand cubits " from the " wall-like hills " of the Hindu Kush into the Indus valley (about A.D.

); and the pilgrim passed the next ten years in the " central " Buddhist realm, - making jour