![]() |
ARH 382 |
![]() |
>> | Reading Questions | >> | Fa-Hsien and Hsuan-Tsang |
- Fa-Hsien:
- Why does he leave China (c. 399) to make the long journey to India?
- What is the country like along the Silk Route, on his way to Gandhara?
- In Khotan, for example, what is the nature of the community?
- What is the nature of their practice of Buddhism?
- How does he describe the travel through Gandhara? Easy? Treacherous? Why?
- Notice how he describes the country of Udayana, with its main sites of Takashila (!), Peshawur, etc….how it was still
- rich and flourishing; notice how he identifies specific sites with particular jataka tales….
- What happens to his traveling companions, and especially to Hui-ching? What does this suggest about travel through these regions? (see section from Nagarahara to Panjab)
- Notice the description of the Buddha skull relic treasured at Hidda (Hadda).
- In Fa-hsien's account, what is the relationship between what we would call reality and fantasy? How would you explain his easy shift between the two?
- Notice the story of Blue Nun, at Kapitha: what are the implications of that story for men and women?
- What has happened to the country of Kapilivastu? How does Fa-hsien describe this once rich city?
- Hsuan-Tsang:
- What was the reason for HT's trip to India?
- How does he describe the people of the various kingdoms through which he passed?
- What kinds of practices catch his attention?
- Would he have made a good anthropologist?
- How does he describe Bamiyan (Fan-yen-na)
- How does he describe Gandhara (Kien-t'o-lo)
- General questions for both the records of both travelers:
- What were the motives of these travelers for undertaking their journeys?
- What preparations did they appear to make?
- What dangers awaited them, and how did they overcome them?
- Who were their companions? Did they survive the trip?
- What sites, monasteries, did they see? What were their impressions?
- How long did the trip take each traveler? What routes did they follow?
- Were they sustained by their faith? Do they talk about that?
- Do the journals convey a real sense of the regions through which they travelered?
|