Faxian

Faxian ; also romanized as ''Fa-Hien'' or ''Fa-hsien'') was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Nepal, India and Sri Lanka to acquire and take back to China Buddhist scriptures between 399 and 412 . His journey is described in his work ''A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline''. He is most known for his pilgrimage to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

On Faxian's return to China he landed at Laoshan in modern Shandong province, 30km east of the city of Qingdao. After landing, he proceeded to Shandong's then-capital, Qingzhou, where he remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he had collected.

His work is not only one of the world's greatest travel books, but is filled with invaluable accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the so-called Silk Roads at the turn of the 5th century CE.

The following is from the introduction to a translation of Faxian's work by James Legge: