violent storm drove his ship onto an island, probably Java. After five months there, Faxian took another ship for southern China; but, again, it was blown off course and he ended up landing at Mount Lao in what is now Shandong in northern China, east of the city of Qingdao. He spent the rest of his life translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. These were influential to the history of Chinese Buddhism that followed. Faxian wrote a book on his travels, filled with accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the Silk Road as they were, at the turn of the 5th century CE. He wrote about cities like Taxila, Pataliputra, Mathura, and Kannauj in Madhyadesha. He also wrote that inhabitants of Madhyadesha eat and dress like Chinese people. He declared Patliputra to be a prosperous city. He returned in 412 and settled in what is now Nanjing. In 414, he wrote (or dictated) Foguoji (A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms; also known as Faxian's Account). He spent the next decade, until his death, translating the Buddhist sutras he had brought with him from India. Legge's biographical notes on Faxian The following is the introduction to a 19th-century translation of Faxian's work by James Legge. The speculations of Legge below, such as Faxian visiting India at the age of 25, have been discredited by later scholarship. His introduction provides some useful biographical information about Faxian: Faxian memoir Faxian's memoirs are an independent record of the society and culture of places he visited, particularly ancient India around 400 CE. His translations of Sanskrit texts he took with him to China are an important means to date texts, named individuals and Buddhist traditions. They provide a terminus ante quem for many historical names, manuscripts, events, and ideas therein. He noted that central Asian cities such as Khotan were Buddhist, with the clergy reading Indian manuscripts in Indian languages. The local community revered the monks. In Taxila (now in Pakistan), states Faxian, he mentions a flourishing Buddhist community midst non-Buddhists. He describes elaborate rituals and public worship ceremonies, with support of the king, in the honor of the Buddha in India and Sri Lanka. He left India about 409 from Tamralipti – a port he states to be on its eastern coast. However, some of his Chinese companion pilgrims who came with him on the journey