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Sai R Vaidyanathan
India’s material and spiritual riches have attracted foreign travellers over millennia. On reaching here, after crossing numerous hurdles, they found India to be better than what they had expected.
Thirst for knowledge
By the age of 20, Hiuen Tsang was already a scholar. So, he decided to come to India to learn more. But the king had forbidden foreign travel as “it was dangerous”.
One night, Hiuen Tsang left home on his horse. Soon, the horse died and the Chinese scholar was caught by the royal guards. Seeing his determination to go to India, the commander of the guards permitted him to leave.
Then, Hiuen Tsang reached the city of Turfan. The ruler there urged him to stay and reform the ignorant people of the region. On Hiuen Tsang’s refusal, he was put under house arrest. So, he went on a hunger strike. After three days, the ruler freed him.
On reaching the Turkish Khan, he had to give a discourse on Buddha’s teachings for several days before he was allowed to resume his journey.
Then, through Samarkand and Bamiyan, he reached India at Nagarahara, where the skull-bone of Buddha was enshrined. Later, he studied at Takshashila and Nalanda universities.
Observe closely
Indian scholar Kumarajiva went to China in 401 AD. Among his disciples was Fa Hien.
When Fa Hien met his teacher before starting for India, Kumarajiva advised him not to spend all his time in gathering religious knowledge only and also study the life of people, so that China might understand India as a whole. In India, Fa Hien studied at Pataliputra University.
Valuable lesson
After the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC against Indian King Porus, Alexander decided to retreat. At that point, some Jain philosophers passed that way without even noticing Alexander the Great and his mighty men. The philosophers were brought before Alexander. “I am Alexander, the great world conqueror. How can you just walk past me like that?” he said.
“O King, every man can possess only so much of the Earth’s surface as one is standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others! You will soon be dead, and then, you will own just as much of the Earth as will suffice to bury you,” the monks said and went away.
Krishna’s Greek link
In 305 BC, the forces of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya clashed with those of Greek General Seleucus Nicator on the banks of the Indus. The Greeks lost.
Under the truce pact, Seleucus appointed Megasthenes as an ambassador to the Chandragupta Maurya’s court.
The Mauryan emperor assigned an assistant to the Greek envoy and permitted them to proceed to capital Pataliputra.
On the way, they reached Mathura. On seeing devotees singing paeans to Lord Krishna, Megasthenes asked the assistant who Krishna was.
When he was told about Krishna’s adventures, Megasthenes found them parallel to the tale of Heracles, a divine hero in the Greek mythology.
The author can be contacted at author.sai@gmail.com
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