THE CHINESE PILGRIM
Amongst Indian historical documents there is none more fascinating than the books of their travels written by the early Chinese pilgrims. Of these the two now best known to us are those of Fa-Hian, who came to India about A.D. 400, and Hiouen Tsang, about A.D. 640. Hiouen Tsang, owing partly to the accident that his life was afterwards written by his disciples, appears to us as a personality, as the head and master of a large religious following, as a saint as well as a scholar, a monk as well as a traveller. But Fa-Hian is a lonelier, more impersonal figure. Monk and pilgrim as he was, it is rather the geographer that impresses us in him. Grave and sparing of words, he tells us little or nothing of himself. For all we know, he may have been the very first of the travellers who came to India on the task of Buddhistic research. From the surprise with which he is everywhere received and the complimentary exclamations that he records, it would appear indeed as if this had been so. On the other hand, from the quietness with which he comes and goes, from his silence about royal favours, and his own freedom from self-consciousness, it would seem as if the sight of Chinese visitors had not been rare in
