In 627 AD, Master Xuanzang, a high-ranking monk of the Tang Dynasty, embarked on the journey west to India. He crossed the desert quicksand, passed through the green mountains and snow-capped mountains, endured thousands of hardships, and endured all kinds of hardships, and finally returned to China after learning the scriptures, and made great contributions to the promotion of China's Buddhism, thus becoming famous in China.
In 399 A.D., Master Fa Xian, a senior monk of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, traveled west to India in order to seek Buddhist precepts, regardless of his age. The experience of his trip is truly a life of death. He traveled overland from China to India and then by sea to his homeland, which lasted for 14 years.
Fa Xian's inspirational spirit of seeking the Dharma shocked the Buddhist monks at that time. Both of the two eminent monks went to India to learn scriptures, but to our surprise, Fa Xian's trip was two hundred and twenty-eight years earlier than Xuanzang!
Xuanzang is a household name due to the wide circulation of "Journey to the West"; However, Fa Xian is really little known to people who have studied the history of Buddhism.
This cannot but be said to be the sorrow of the Fa, and it is also the sorrow of our modern people.
In the history of Chinese Buddhism, Fa Xian and Xuanzang were both pioneers in seeking the Dharma in the west, but in comparison, the two masters are very different in all aspects.
Yijing, a famous monk of the Tang Dynasty, has this comparison in "The Biography of the Monks Who Seek the Dharma in the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty": "Master Xian created a deserted road, and Master Zang opened the king's road." ”
From the perspective of modern innovation, it is obviously more difficult and greater to create a wilderness road than the road of Zhongkaiwang.
Fa Xian set out from Chang'an, took the Hexi Corridor, passed through the vast desert in today's Xinjiang, climbed over the green mountains with thin air and snow all year round, entered the Ganges River valley by the Indus River Valley, passed through southern Nepal and reached the Buddhist center of the lower reaches of the Ganges, and then crossed the sea to Shizi Country, which is now Sri Lanka, and then sailed eastward, passed through Sumatra (or Guawa), and turned to the north, suffering from storms and waves on the way, and finally landed near Laoshan Mountain in the southeast of Shandong.
Fa Xian went to the sea by land, compared with Xuanzang's land route to India, there is obviously more danger of turbulent waves.
When Fa Xian traveled west to seek the Dharma, he was already about 60 years old, and when Xuanzang set off for Chang'an, he was only 30 years old. In terms of physical fitness, Fa Xian cannot be compared with the Xuan class, but as an elderly traveler, Fa Xian can still rely on strong perseverance and unremitting efforts to realize his desire to learn from the West and seek the Fa. Compared with Xuanzang, Fa Xian's success comes from hard work.
When Xuanzang left Chang'an, like Fa Xian, he was an ordinary monk, but after arriving in Gaochang, Xuanzang was courteous to the king of Gaochang and was worshiped as a brother, and when he parted, he was strongly funded by the king of Gaochang. After that, Xuanzang traveled all the way west, and all the countries he passed through received a courtesy similar to that of King Gaochang.
As for Xuanzang's return to China, he engaged in the translation of scriptures under the various preferential treatment given by Tang Taizong and Tang Gaozong's father and son, which is a well-known thing.
In contrast, although Fa Xian has also received alms and offerings from Zhangye Wang Duan Ye, Dunhuang Taishou Li Xia and others, he has always been an ordinary monk who has to rely on himself to create conditions.
After Fa Xian returned to China, he also engaged in scripture translation activities, but his translation of scriptures had to be carried out by his own efforts, so he was just a lone and helpless ordinary scripture translation monk.
It can be said that there are many self-reliant people in Fa Xian, and few people who rely on external forces, which seems to be another difference between Fa Xian and Xuanzang.
Naturally, Xuanzang has great achievements that are different from others, which is worthy of praise by future generations.
Similarly, Fa Xian also has admirable deeds that are different from Xuanzang, which are worthy of future generations to understand.
Master Fa Xian traveled west to seek the Dharma, counting for 14 years and traveling to nearly 30 countries.
After returning to China, he engaged in the translation of scriptures, and died in the new temple in Jingzhou at the age of eighty. Because he devoted himself to translating the scriptures in his later years and was willing to be lonely, his deeds before his death were not very clear.
Generally, people always think that some people who have suffered setbacks and misfortunes in the world, or have a fiasco in their careers, or are emotionally unsatisfactory, will see through the red dust and escape into Buddhism. They have no ambition in their careers, no emotional sustenance, they are tired of death, and all their thoughts are empty. This is really a big misunderstanding of Buddhism!
Master Fa Xian is an aspiring monk, so he can persevere and persevere, and travel west to seek the Dharma; He also has emotions, so he will cry over the misfortunes of his companions, and he will grieve for not having the opportunity to live in the same era as the Buddha.
Master Fa Xian is a monk, but he is also a person with ambition and emotion.
It is also worth mentioning that some people believe that after leaving the country of Yavati, Fa Xian lost his way in a hurricane during the voyage and drifted 6,500 nautical miles to Mexico in the Americas.
In 1971, the Mexican historian Suriz believed that Fa Xian, a high-ranking monk from the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China, was the first person to discover the Americas, and pointed out that the place where Fa Xian landed at that time was the port of Acabucci in Mexico.
What are the facts? It's hard to say now.