Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/36

14 continued for several centuries to visit India, which they regarded as their Holy Land, begins with Fa-hien (Fa-hsien), who started on his travels in 399 and returned to China fifteen years later. The book in which he recorded his journeys has been preserved complete, and has been translated once into French and four times into English. It includes a very interesting and valuable description of the government and social condition of the Ganges provinces during the reign of Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya. Several other pilgrims left behind them works which contribute something to the elucidation of Indian history, and their testimony will be cited in due course.

But the prince of pilgrims, the illustrious Hiuen Tsang, whose fame as Master of the Law still resounds through all Buddhist lands, deserves more particular notice. His travels, described in a work entitled Records of the Western World, which has been translated into French, English, and German, extended from 629 to 645 or 646, and covered an enormous area, including almost every part of India, except the extreme south. His book is a treasure-house of accurate information, indispensable to every student of Indian antiquity, and has done more than any archæological discovery to render possible the remarkable resuscitation of lost Indian history which has recently been effected. Although the chief historical value of Hiuen Tsang 's work consists in its contemporary description of political and social institutions, the pilgrim has increased the debt of gratitude due to his memory by