priests number several tens of thousands,[1] mostly belonging to the Greater Development.[2] They all obtain their food from a common fund.[3] The people live scattered about;[4] and before the door of every house they build small pagodas. The smallest may be about two chang[5] high. They build houses for travelling priests[6] and entertain all who arrive, giving them anything else they may want. The King of the country lodged Fa Hsien and his companions comfortably in a monastery called Chü-ma-ti belonging to the Greater Development. At the sound of the gong,[7] three thousand priests assemble to eat.
- ↑ Mr. Beal translates "ten thousand men," and says he prefers "taking sho as a verb." But such a preference is totally uncalled for and inadmissible.
- ↑ "La grande translation a pour base une théologie abstruse, une ontologie raffinée, le mysticisme le plus exalte." Rémusat. The Mahayama.
- ↑ The text is 皆有家食 and it is truly somewhat tempting to copy Mr. Beal and make them all sit down to dinner together. But the sentence means that there is a single fund for the support of all the priests, and that the revenues of the various temples, contributions of subscribers &c., are all thrown into a common stock from which an allowance of so much is made for the keep of each member mentioned are too great to admit of Mr. Beal's translation.
- ↑ 人民星居. Mr. Beal says "this is a perplexing passage," but the phrase is common enough in ordinary books, novels, and often met with in proclamations. Compare 星羅棋布.
- ↑ Twenty Chinese feet.
- ↑ 四方僧. Literally, "priests from the four quarters." Mr. Beal makes this improvement on Rémusat's "de forme carrée."
- ↑ The text is 三千僧其犍槌食. Mr. Beal's note says "Kien for Kien-ti, i.e., Ghantâ or Gong." We have nothing better to offer, and commit this sentence to the ingenuity of our readers.
ils jouissent." Mr. Beal:—"take delight in attending to ther religious duties." The text:—以法樂相娛. The character 樂 is here unquestionably yo music, and not lê joy. We also venture to think that our own translation is the only one which disposes satisfactorily of 相 "to each other."
