In this book we find India made the Middle Kingdom and China treated as a foreign country. This is because the ecclesiastics give precedence to their religion, which anomaly is not worth arguing about. Again, Yü-t'ien,[1] or as it is now called Ho-t'ien, has been from time immemorial devoted to Mahommedanism, as is amply borne out in "the Illustrated Notices of Western Countries," reproduced in the present dynasty by Imperial authority. Yet Fa Hsien informs us that there were fourteen Buddhist monasteries and several tens of thousands of priests, which statement we need not accept as literally true. Nevertheless, the old Buddhistic records of the Six Dynasties have stood the test of time; and since both the style in which they are written is antique and elegant, and as narratives they have not been equalled in later generations, there is no reason why they should not be preserved to extend the stock of information on such marvellous subjects.
In Fa Hsien's work we have "the third year of Hung Shih, being the cyclical year Chi Hai." According to the History of the Chin dynasty, speaking of Yao Ch'ang, the second year of Hung Shih corresponds with the fourth year of Lung Ngan,[2] and should be the cyclical year Kêng Tzŭ. Fa Hsien's "Record" is therefore one year wrong.[3] On the other hand, the History of the Chin dynasty (§ National Records), speaking of Chao Shih-hu,
