Kong Posh: Fa Hein-A Chinese Traveller

Sham S. Misri

He visited Ladakh (J and K) in 400 A.D. He was a native of Wu Yang in the Shansi district of west China. His three elder brothers having died in infancy, is father had vowed to dedicate him to the service of Buddhism if he lived. He, therefore, had him entered as a religious school at the age of three. But after some time when the boy was taken dangerously ill his parents immediately sent him to the monastery which he refused to leave even when he was well again. Here he devoted himself to the study of Buddhist scriptures. Later when he had received full monastic orders he was distressed “to observe the imperfect rules of the discipline of the monks” in Changan. He there, decided to come to India along with four more monks to secure complete and authentic copies of the Vinaya -pitaka.

Fa Hein came to Ladakh from Khotan. The ruler of the place was then holding an assembly, initiated by Asoka. On such an occasion the Chinese pilgrim tells us, the king invites scholars from all quarters. After they are assembled in large numbers their meeting place is decorated with silken streamers canopies are hung out on it. Water Lilies in gold and silver are made and fixed up behind the place where the chief monks are to sit. The other monks are seated on other clean mats.

The assembly took place in the first, second or the third month of spring. It lasted about a month, at the end of which the king and his ministers made offerings. These included fine white woolen cloth, possibly white Pashmina, and all sorts of precious things.

The presentation of these things took from one to seven days at the end of which they were redeemed by their owners for some value.

Fa Hein mentions of two relics of Buddha. One of them was his spittoon, or bowl made of stone and in colour like his alms bowl. The other was a tooth of Buddha for which the people had erected a stupa.

Writing in 1853 A.D. Cunningham says, “Now one of these relics (the alms bowl) still exists in a temple to the north of Leh. It is a large earthenware vase similar in shape to the largest steatite vases. But Ladakh also possessed a tooth of Buddha, which was formerly enshrined at Le in a dung ten or solid mound of masonry. The dung ten still exists, though ruinous, but the holy tooth is said to have been carried away by Ali Sher, of Balti, upwards of 200 years ago, when Ladakh was invaded and plundered by the Muslims of the west, who most probably threw the much prized relic into the Indus. At any rate it has never since been heard of.