200 



GN THE ANCIENT 



Gurus in the West, to collect the sacred writings and to 

 refresh his mind by the precious knowledge he hoped to 

 obtain in the country of Buddha's birth concerning the 

 founder of his belief. He travelled through the country of 

 the Uigurs, Songaria, Transoxania, passed Balkh, Bamian 

 and Kabul, stayed for a long time at Attock and traversing 

 India, visited Kancivaram and then returned to China via 

 Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan. In 645 he reached his 

 fatherland, retired there into a convent in order to translate 

 the numerous Buddhistic writings he had acquired on his 

 travels. He died in 656. Hiuentsang was accompanied by 

 many other pilgrims, and we may infer from this fact, that 

 the roads to India were still used for commercial traffic. 

 Emperor Taitsung despatched an embassy to India between 

 717 and 720. The conquest of China by the Tatars created 

 at first a change for the worst, but by Central Asia, and China 

 being subjected to one nation the political and commercial 

 relations were otherwise facilitated, as the French and the 

 Papal embassies to China prove, and as I have previously 

 shown in one of my monographs on that subject. 2 



About the early sea trade between India and the Eastern 

 Archipelago and China we have spoken already, but we can 

 also prove, that it was carried on in later times. The 

 Chinese pilgrim Fahien arrived in 411 in Ceylon, stayed 

 there about two years, and embarked on a large vessel, which 

 was provided with a smaller safety boat, for Java. After 

 many disasters he had to encounter, he landed again on the 

 Chinese coast in 414. Kosmas Indikopleustes, who wrote in 

 547 his Topographia Christiana, gives us an account of the 

 lively trade in aloe, sandalwood, cloves and other products 

 carried on between the Philippines, the Sunda Islands, 

 Kamboja and Burmah on the one part and Ceylon on the 



(2) Compare "Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, " second 

 edition, page 4. 



