In 399 AD, Faxian, a 62-year old Chinese monk set out for India. His goal was to find and copy sacred Buddhist scripts that were missing or falling apart in his homeland.
The result would be an epic 13-year journey through 30 kingdoms. Faxian’s account of his journey is one of the earliest and most complete of India in this time period.
This topic is a single episode.
Faxian and his travels through the Buddhist Kingdoms
Download this episode or listen online.
Maps
In the Lives of Great Monks and Nuns document there is a nice map of Faxian’s journey. Click here to see that.
Resources
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms by Faxian, edited by James Ledge. This is the original text by Faxian. It is easily found for free online with a quick search. Here is a link to an HTML version of the text.
Lives of Great Monks and Nuns by Shi Huijiao, et al. This is an easier to read version of Faxian’s journey. It was a great help as it explained Faxian’s writings more clearly than the original text. I could only find this document via the linked text.
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