Fa Hien at the ruins of Ashoka palace Wuyang, near modern
Linfen, which used to be known as Pingyang (平阳), in Shanxi
Province |Works||Foguoji or A Record of the Buddhist Countries.|
Faxian (traditional Chinese: 法顯; simplified Chinese: 法显; pinyin:
Fǎxiǎn; also romanized as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien, Fa Xian, et al.)
(337 – c. 422 CE) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who travelled by
foot all the way from China to India, visiting many sacred
Buddhist sites in what are now Xinjiang, China, Pakistan, India,
Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and between 399 and 412 to
acquire Buddhist scriptures. His journey is described in his
important travelogue, A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, Being an
Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Xian of his Travels in India and
Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. He visited
India during the reign of Chandragupta II and is most known for
his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha in
modern Nepal. Faxian claimed that demons and dragons were the
original inhabitants of Ceyl