accurate knowledge of Fa-hien's route.

There is no difficulty in laying it down after he crossed the Indus
from east to west into the Punjab, all the principal places, at which
he touched or rested, having been determined by Cunningham and
other Indian geographers and archaeologists. Most of the places from
Ch'ang-an to Bannu have also been identified. Woo-e has been put down
as near Kutcha, or Kuldja, in 43d 25s N., 81d 15s E. The country of
K'ieh-ch'a was probably Ladak, but I am inclined to think that the
place where the traveller crossed the Indus and entered it must have
been further east than Skardo. A doubt is intimated on page 24 as to
the identification of T'o-leih with Darada, but Greenough's "Physical
and Geological Sketch-Map of British India" shows "Dardu Proper,"
all lying on the east of the Indus, exactly in the position where
the Narrative would lead us to place it. The point at which Fa-hien
recrossed the Indus into Udyana on the west of it is unknown.
Takshasila, which he visited, was no doubt on the west of the river,
and has been incorrectly accepted as the Taxila of Arrian in the
Punjab. It should be written Takshasira, of which the Chinese
phonetisation will allow;--see a note of Beal in his "Buddhist Records
of the Western World," i. 138.

We must suppose that Fa-hien went on from Nan-king to Ch'ang-an, but
the Narrative does not record the fact of his doing so.




INTRODUCTION