gh, through
the dread power of the three Honoured Ones,(15) to receive help and
protection in his perils; and therefore he wrote out an account of his
experiences, that worthy readers might share with him in what he had
heard and said.(15)

It was in the year Keah-yin,(16) the twelfth year of the period E-he
of the (Eastern) Tsin dynasty, the year-star being in Virgo-Libra,
in the summer, at the close of the period of retreat, that I met the
devotee Fa-Hsien. On his arrival I lodged him with myself in the winter
study,(17) and there, in our meetings for conversation, I asked him
again and again about his travels. The man was modest and complaisant,
and answered readily according to the truth. I thereupon advised him
to enter into details where he had at first only given a summary, and
he proceeded to relate all things in order from the beginning to the
end. He said himself, "When I look back on what I have gone through,
my heart is involuntarily moved, and the perspiration flows forth.
That I encountered danger and trod the most perilous places, without
thinking of or sparing myself, was because I had a definite aim,
and thought of nothing but to do my best in my simplicity and
straightforwardness. Thus it was that I exposed my life where death
seemed inevitable, if I might accomplish but a ten-thousandth part of
what I hoped." These words affected me in turn, and I thought:--"This
man is one of those who have seldom been seen from ancient times to
the present. Since the Great Doctrine flowed on to the East there has
been no one to be compared with Hien in his forgetfulness of self and
search for the Law. Henceforth I know that the influence of sincerity
finds no obstacle, however great, which it does not overcome, and
that force of will does not fail to accomplish whatever service it
undertakes. Does not the accomplishing of such service arise from
forgetting (and disregarding) what is (generally) considered as
important, and attaching importance to what is (generally) forgotten?"

NOTES

(1) No. 1122 in Nanjio's Catalogue, translated into Chinese by
Buddhajiva and a Chinese Sramana about A.D. 425. Mahisasakah means
"the school of the transformed earth," or "the sphere within which the
Law of Buddha is influential." The school is one of the subdivisions
of the Sarvastivadah.

(2) Nanjio's 545 and 504. The Agamas are Sutras of the hinayana,
divided, according to Eitel, pp. 4, 5, into four cl