Paper 2
Group A : Write the travel accounts of Fa-hien
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A.d. 399-414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline.
Fa-Hien was the first Chinese monk to travel to India in search of great Buddhist scriptures. At the age of sixty-five, he travelled, mostly on foot, from Central China taking the southern route through Shenshen, Dunhuang, Khotan, and then over the Himalayas, to Gandhara and Peshawar.
Fa-Hien was about 77 years old when he reached back home. In AD 414 he recorded his travels in ‘Record of Buddhist Countries’ today known as the ‘Travels of Fa-Hien’. It is an excellent geographic account of his journey along the Silk Route and the first comprehensive eyewitness account of the history and customs of Central Asia and India. His account includes the description of local Buddhist monasteries, the approximate number of Buddhist monks in the region, the teachings and rituals practiced by them, and the Buddhist legends.