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Faxian (pronounced Fa-Hsien) was born in Wu-yang, located in China’s Shan Si province, in 374 A.D. His birth name is Sehi, but he later changed his name to Faxian, meaning “splendor of dharma”.
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At the age of three, Faxian went to live in a Buddhist monastery. At this monastery, he converted to Buddhism. His father sent him here because his three older brothers had died in childhood and he wanted to protect him.
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25 days after leaving Khotan (present town Hetian), Faxian reached Yarkand (a caravan town).
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One month after leaving Yarkand, Faxian reached Kashgar (the westernmost part of China. It is not China Turkestan).
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Leaving Kashgar, he traveled through the Pamir Mountain and the Indus River in 406. Then he went throuh Gilgit and down the Kabul River to the city Peshawar. Then he went across the Punjab plains into the "heartland" of India.
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Traveled down the Ganges River in 412, visiting holy sites along the way.
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Faxian reached Tamrilipti in 414.
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Left Sri Lanka in 414.
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In 414, On his way to the Peninsula, (leaving from Sri Lanka) his ship got wrecked on a small island off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Then he reached Java and stayed there for 5 months until a ship to China came. Then the ship got blown off course and drifted for 70 days until it turned northward and reached land on the Shantung Peninsula in northnern China in 414.
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In 415, Faxian went to the capital of China (at that time, in Nanjing), where he translated some of the texts that he had brought back.
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Faxian completed his manuscript at a monastery in the province of Hupei. This story of his travels i called the Fo-Kwe-Ki (Memoirs of the Buddhist Realms). It told the future Chinese pilgrims of the way to India overland and by the sea.
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Faxian died when he was 88 years old in the monastery in the province of Hupel.
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When Faxian was ten, his father died. His uncle asked him to return home.
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Faxian eventually listened to his uncle and came home, but it was only for a short time for when his mother died.
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When Faxian was 20 years old, he became a full monk.
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Fa-Hsien felt that the Chinese translations of the Buddhist manuscripts where inadequate. So, when he was 25, he set out to retrieve the original manuscripts from India so he could make new translations. He set off towards North China (through the cities Xi'an and Xining). Then he went on to the south side of the Nan Shan mountains to Dunhaung and on to the dried lakebed of Lop Nor. Then he traveled along the Tarim and Khotan and Tivers around the Takia Makan desert and arrived at Khotan.
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Then Faxian reached Magada (a holy city near modern Patna) and stayed there three years. During those three years, he collected and copied Buddhuist texts.
