however, in the technology of boat building and navigation. We know
that larger trading vessels based on Indian prototypes were being con-
structed by the Cham and Funanese at this time, if not yet along the
Chinese coast. It would appear, too, that Indian and Southeast Asian
seamen were learning more about the winds and currents of the South
China Sea, using the southwest and northeast monsoons to cross open
water rather than hugging the coast. We also know that these ships
carried a new group of travellers making the long voyage between
China and India. These were ardent Buddhist pilgrims, seeking or
bringing back knowledge of this new religion.
Buddhism came to China both by land through central Asia
(then from Afghanistan to Xinjiang almost entirely Buddhist) to
northern China and by sea from India, Sri Lanka and Buddhist parts of
Southeast Asia to southern Chinese ports. Buddhism appealed to the
Chinese both on an intellectual level through its metaphysical psy-
chology and its pragmatic approach to spiritual fulfilment, and on a
popular level through its magical powers and its promise of reincar-
nation. The first few centuries CE were a period of great intellectual
excitement in the Buddhist world, as new schools of the Mahayana,
and later the Tantricism of the Vajrayana, contended with earlier
interpretations. Chinese Buddhists were eager to learn of these devel-
opments and to study the texts in which they were expounded. It was
in order to pursue their studies, and to collect both texts and relics,
that Chinese Buddhist pilgrims set out for India.
How many Chinese Buddhists made this long pilgrimage, and
how many failed in the attempt, we do not know. We do have impor-
tant accounts left by a handful of those who returned to acclaim and
honour. The first of these Chinese pilgrims whom we know to have
sailed via Southeast Asia was Fa-xian in 413, on his return on a
Malay-crewed ship that crossed directly from Java to Canton.
Others followed, not just Chinese, but Indian and Southeast Asian
Buddhists as well. Increasingly embassies from Southeast Asian king-
doms included Buddhist items (texts, relics and the paraphernalia of
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia