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Vol. XIX, No. 3
167
Another famous scholar named Kumārajiva was born in Kuchi (Kive-tse) in 343 A.D. His father Kumārayāna was an Indian and his mother was a princess of Kuchi. After the birth of Kumāra, his mother Jival became a nun. The young child also became a monk at the age of seven, At a very young age he went to Kashmir and began to study the Buddhist religion and philosophy from a famous scholar named Buddhadatta. As the young monk was born brilliant, he became well-versed on the different branches of Buddhist scriptures within a very short time and after that he visited different centres of learning in Central Asia.
The Chinese attacked Kuchi in 388 A.D. and destroyed the country and took Kumāra to China. In China he was highly honoured as his fame was already spread over China. He spent rest of his life at China and studied the Chinese language for thirty years. During his life time he had translated more than a hundred works from Sanskrit and Pali. It is known that he had ten thousand monks as his disciples.
The well-known Chinese mook and traveller who came to India in 39910 A.D. and returned to China in 414 A.D. 11 had translated several texts into Chinese with the cooperation of an Indian Šramana named Buddhabhadra (Chi. Fo-t'a-po-to-lo) and others. Unfortunately, at present, only four translations are available. It is needless to say that his report of travel gives a complete and authentic picture of the then India.
Shih Che-man was an other famous Chinese monk who started for India in 404 A.D along with a group of fourteen friends while they were on the way, one member of their group was died. Another nine persons returned from the Himalayas, Che-man and ihe remaining four friends came to Pāțaliputra, the centre of learning. It is said that Che-man had collected a good number of manuscripts along with the Nirvāņa sūtra. However, the scholar died in the year 453 A.D. 12
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