Faxian << fa shee ahn >> (A.D. 337?-422?), also spelled Fa-hsien, was a Chinese monk and scholar who traveled to South Asia and Indonesia . He was the first Chinese Buddhist monk known to go to India and return. Buddhism is a major world religion that was founded in India about 500 B.C. Faxian brought back valuable information about the places he visited. He also edited and translated into Chinese many original Buddhist texts that he found on his journey.
Faxian was born in eastern China in about A.D. 337. He became a monk while he was a young man, and then went to Chang’an (now Xi’an ) to study. At that time, Chang’an was China’s capital. Faxian found that complete collections of the Vinaya, Buddhist writings on how to live as a monk, did not exist in China. He wanted to find and study the Vinaya in their place of origin. In 399, when Faxian was more than 60 years old, he set out on foot for India. He crossed the Taklimakan Desert in far western China and the snow-covered mountain ranges bordering northwestern India. It took him about three years to complete the journey of more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers).
Faxian visited Buddhist centers of learning and sacred places throughout India. He studied there and copied Buddhist scriptures by hand. In what is now Sri Lanka, he copied Buddhist books that were unknown in China. From Sri Lanka, Faxian sailed through the Strait of Malacca, spent several months in what is now Indonesia, then returned to China. In all, his travels took some 15 years.
Faxian worked tirelessly for the rest of his life editing and translating the manuscripts that he had collected. He wrote about his travels in A Record of the Buddhist Countries (Foguoji or Fo-kuo-chi in Chinese). His book provided information about events, people, and places previously unknown to the Chinese. Early Chinese histories say that Faxian died at the Xin (Hsin) Monastery of Jingzhou, in Hubei province. He probably died in about 422.
