as a whole, calling it from the great dynasty which had ruled it, first and last, for between four and five centuries.  Occasionally, as we shall immediately see, he speaks of “the territory of Ts’in or Ch’in,” but intending thereby only the kingdom or Ts’in, having its capital, as described in the first note on the last chapter, in Ch’ang-gan.

(3) So I prefer to translate the character {.} (sang) rather than by “priests.”  Even in Christianity, beyond the priestly privilege which belongs to all believers, I object to the ministers of any denomination or church calling themselves or being called “priests;” and much more is the name inapplicable to the sramanas or bhikshus of Buddhism which acknowledges no God in the universe, no soul in man, and has no services of sacrifice or prayer in its worship.  The only difficulty in the use of “monks” is caused by the members of the sect in Japan which, since the middle of the fifteenth century, has abolished the prohibition against marrying on the part of its ministers, and other prohibitions in diet and dress.  Sang and sang-kea represent the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members, and empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit persons to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the communio sanctorum, or the Buddhist order.  The name is used by our author of the monks collectively or individually as belonging to the class, and may be considered as synonymous with the name sramana, which will immediately claim our attention.

(4) Meaning the “small vehicle, or conveyance.”  There are in Buddhism the triyana, or “three different means of salvation, i.e. of conveyance across the samsara, or sea of transmigration, to the shores of nirvana.  Afterwards the term was used to designate the different phases of development through which the Buddhist dogma passed, known as the mahayana, hinayana, and madhyamayana.”  “The hinayana is the simplest vehicle of salvation, corresponding to the first of the three degrees of saintship.  Characteristics of it are the preponderance of active moral asceticism, and the absence of speculative mysticism and quietism.”  E. H., pp. 151-2, 45, and 117.

(5) The name for India is here the same as in the former chapter and throughout the book,—­T’een-chuh ({.} {.}), the chuh being pronounced, probably, in Fa-hien’s time as tuk.  How the earliest name for India, Shin-tuk or duk=Scinde, came to be changed into Thien-tuk, it would take too much space to explain.  I believe it was done by the Buddhists, wishing to give a good auspicious name to the fatherland of their Law, and calling it “the Heavenly Tuk,” just as the Mohammedans call Arabia “the Heavenly region” ({.} {.}), and the court of China itself is called “the Celestial” ({.} {.}).

(6) Sraman may in English take the place of Sramana (Pali, Samana; in Chinese, Sha-man),