A RECORD OF BUDDHIST PRACTICES
SENT HOME FROM THE SOUTHERN SEA
By I-TSING.
INTRODUCTION.
In the beginning, as the three thousand worlds were being produced, there appeared a sign of their coming into existence. When all things were created, there was as yet no distinction between animate and inanimate things. The universe was an empty waste, without either sun or moon revolving. While misery and happiness were in an undistinguished state, there was no difference between positive and negative principles. When the Brahman gods (lit. 'pure heaven') came down to the earth, their bodily light naturally followed them. As they derived their nourishment from the fatness of the earth, there sprang up a greedy and grasping nature, and they began to consume one after another the creeping plants of the forest and fragrant grains of rice. When their bodily light gradually faded away, the sun and moon became manifest. The state of marriage and agriculture arose, and the principles relating to sovereign and subject, father and son, were established. Then the inhabitants looked up to the azure firmament above, and saw its heavenly bodies high and majestically floating in their splendour. Looking down they
