Page:Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms (Faxian, Giles).djvu/19



The "Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms," in one volume, was composed by Sung Shih, otherwise called Fa Hsien. Tu Yu in his T'ung Tien quotes this work, but makes the author Fa Ming. He did so because the word Hsien had been appropriated by the emperor Chung Tsung, and men of the T'ang dynasty had substituted Ming. For this reason there occur in the original commentary the four words "changed because imperially appropriated."

Fa Hsien returned during the I Hsi period of the Chin dynasty, having started from Ch'ang-ngan and travelled