between the two countries were effected by a detour through the Oxus basin. The Buddhist religion itself was not propagated directly, and penetrated into the empire not from the south, but from the west. During the periods of its peaceful expansion China included the Tarim basin, and maintained free intercourse with the Oxus basin over the Pamir passes. At that time traders followed the famous "Silk Highway," which was also known to the Greeks, and it was by this or other routes across the plateaux that were introduced the rich products of Southern Asia, as well as the more or less legendary reports of the marvellous region of the Ganges. The same road was also followed by the Buddhist pilgrims. After three centuries of religious propaganda the new faith was finally established in the country of Confucius, and received official recognition in the sixty-fifth year of the new era. Buddhism found favour with the Chinese people from its pompous rites, the rich ornaments of its temples, the poetry of the symbolic lotus blooming in the midst of the waters. It also pleased them, because it opened up vistas of those magnificent Southern lands hitherto concealed from their gaze by the intervening snowy ranges and plateaux. But after all the Fo-Kiao, or worship of Buddha, changed little in the social life of China. The ceremonial was modified, but the substance remained much the same. Whatever be the sacred emblems, the religion that has survived is still that which is associated with the rites in honour of ancestry, with the conjuring of evil spirits, and especially with the strict observance of the old traditional formulas.
But at any rate the relations established between China and Hindustan during the period of Buddhist propagandism were never again completely interrupted, and from that time China has no longer remained, even for Europeans, excluded from the limits of the known world. Communication by sea was kept up between India and South China, especially through the Gulf of Tonkin. Even two hundred years before the vulgar era an emperor had sent a whole fleet to the Sunda Islands to cull the "flower of immortality." Later on, other vessels were sent to Ceylon in search of relics, sacred writings, statues of Buddha, and besides these things brought back rich textiles, gems, precious stones, taking them in exchange for their silks, porcelains, and enamelled vases. This route was also followed by the embassies, amongst others by that which, according to the Chinese annals, came from the great Tsin; that is to say, from Rome, sent by the Emperor An-tun (Aurelius Antoninus) in the year 166 of the Christian era.
In the seventh century, when the Chinese Empire, after a series of disasters and internal convulsions, resumed its expansive force and shone with renewed splendour, at the very time when Europe had again lapsed into barbarism, exploring expeditions became still more numerous. China now took the lead, and the pilgrim, H'wen-Tsang, whose itinerary in Central Asia has since been rivalled only by Marco Polo, was a true explorer in the modern sense of the term. His writings, embodied in the annals of the Tang dynasty, have a special value for the geography of Central Asia and India in mediæval times, and their importance is fully appreciated by European savants. Thanks to the Chinese documents, it has been found possible to determine with some certainty the whole of his itinerary, even in those
