The
Han shu 漢書
– a history of
the western or former Han dynasty compiled around 82 CE – provides
details on a certain country named Jibin 罽賓
as one of many
nations in the Western Regions 西域.
As was common in Chinese dynastic histories, a section of the Han
shu details the relative locations, customs and commodities of
numerous countries as well as their respective relationships with the
Chinese court. The text positions the Great Yuezhi 大月氏
to the northwest of Jibin,
which means Jibin was somewhere in northwestern India.
Jibin
is significant to Buddhist history because many of the early Indian
monks in the fourth and early fifth centuries who taught Buddhism in
China were either from or had studied in Jibin (for instance, Jibin
monks had a significant role in the translation of the Āgama and
Vinaya texts). Jibin was also the center of the Sarvāstivāda
school. According to the Han shu, its first diplomatic contact
with China occurred under Emperor Wu 武帝
(r. 140–87 BCE). This
would have been before the Kuṣāṇa empire during the
Indo-Scythian period. The Han shu also seems to suggest the people
of Jibin were originally Saka or Scythians:
昔匈奴破大月氏，大月氏西君大夏，而塞王南君罽賓。塞種分散，往往為數國。
Long
ago the Xiongnu destroyed the Great Yuezhi. The Great Yuezhi Western
Lord [governed] Daxia while the Saka King the Southern Lord
[governed] Jibin. The Saka peoples scattered and became numerous
countries all over.
The
identification of Jibin has thus been important in reconstructing the
Buddhism taught and practiced in northwestern India in these early
centuries, especially in the large absence of materials from India
itself. Modern scholarship on Buddhism often heavily depends on
Indian literature translated into Chinese as well as Chinese accounts
of India. Chinese materials are thus quite important to the study of
ancient India in the first millennium CE. Tibetan materials only become
available from around the seventh and eighth centuries.
This
country of Jibin was thus an important source of Buddhism in China
early on, but where was it? The capital was Xunxian 循鮮城
as it was rendered into
Chinese. The modern Japanese scholar Shiratori Kurakichi 白鳥庫吉
(1865–1942) believed
this was the ancient capital of Gandhāra, which is Pushkalavati in
modern Peshawar. However, the Sinologist and linguist Edwin
Pulleyblank (1922–2013), who specialized in the reconstruction of
old and middle Chinese, identified Jibin as “*Kaspir for Kashmir.”1 Pushkalavati is about 280 km from modern Srinagar in the Kashmir
valley.
As Enomoto notes, “Previous studies have showed that Jibin
indicated Gandhāra up to the beginning of the 4th cent.”2
Kāśmīra and Gandhāra are strictly speaking separate regions,
though they are relatively close to each other. This brings to mind the
possibility that travelers to China from this general area identified it *Kaspir.
In
the Eastern Jin (317–420) and Northern and Southern Dynasties
(420–589) periods, Jibin was at least in some cases very clearly identified as
Kāśmīra. The Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya 倶舍論
(T 1559) translated by
Paramārtha 眞諦
(499–569) translates
Kāśmīra as Jibin 罽賓,
whereas Xuanzang 玄奘
(685–762) phonetically
transliterates Kāśmīra into Chinese.
eṣa
tu kāśmīravaibhāṣikāṇāṃ siddhāntaḥ
【真諦】
罽賓國毘婆沙師悉檀判如此
【玄奘】
然迦濕彌羅國毘婆沙宗說
Enomoto's
work however notes that “Ji-bin found in the works of Chinese
Buddhist monks between the 4th and 6th
centuries indicated a wider area including Kashmir, Gandhāra and
possibly Tokharistan, that is to say, the whole of north and
north-west India.”3 This therefore requires one to be cautious in assuming that Jibin must refer to Kāśmīra simply because Paramārtha translated it as such.
Ancient Chinese geography was only approximate and based on hearsay rather than on objective surveys. Just as an example, consider the following map in a later historical account of Buddhism, the Fozu tongji 佛祖統紀 (fasc. 32), by Song dynasty monk Zhipan 志磐 (1220-1275) which provides a map of the regions west of India based on Xuanzang's account. The map notes it is only approximate. Note that the Himalayas are on the right, the top represents Central Asia and the bottom right is SE Asia. The sea is the Indian Ocean.
As to Jibin's culture, the number of monks from there visiting China in the early centuries immediately indicates a significant Buddhist presence. There is an
interesting account of Jibin, likely from between 265–420, found in the
Zhiseng zai 支僧載,
Waiguo shi 外國事
(“Accounts of
Foreign Countries”) preserved in fascicle 76 of the Yiwen leiju
藝文類聚
(compiled in 624):
罽賓國在舍衛之西。國王民人悉奉佛。道人及沙門，到冬未，中前飲少酒，過中不復飯．
The
country of Jibin is west of Śrāvastī. The king and people all
venerate the Buddha. Religious practitioners and śramaṇa-s
in the winter drink a little alcohol before noon. After noon they do
not eat again.
This
brings to mind the issue of wine consumption in India (see here) and in
particular Falk's research on wine production in Gandhāra by
Buddhist monastics. This account might indicate that monks in Kāśmīra
also consumed wine at least ostensibly in the winter.
Over
the course of the Sui-Tang period (581–907), Jibin largely ceased
referring to Kāśmīra and instead referred to Kapiśā which is
west of Gandhāra in modern Afghanistan. A Chinese-Sanskrit lexicon
from the Tang period – the Fanyu zaming 梵語雜名
(T 2135) – defines Jibin
as Karpiśaya 劫比舍也.
A Buddhist catalog of texts from the year 800 also has a note stating
that Jibin (as a homeland of a monk) is a mistaken abbreviation of Kapiśā 迦畢試,
which is on the border of northern India (it seems it was not
considered a part of India proper).4
This
shift westward away from Gandhāra is noteworthy. As is well known
in Buddhist Studies, by the time Xuanzang visited in the seventh
century, many old Buddhist sites were in ruins and the religion was
visibly in decline. The collapse of Gandhāran Buddhism and the
migration of Buddhist monks along with Buddhist trading routes to
outlying areas due to Brahmanical colonization and hostility is
something Verardi has discussed (see here for the paper).5
Curiously, the Sui shu 隋書
(fasc. 83) – the history
of the Sui compiled in 629 – identifies Caoguo 漕國
(*Zabula) as the Jibin of
Han times. As Verardi notes, Zabula continued to host Buddhist
communities while the religion was attacked elsewhere.6 Monks from 'Jibin' visiting China might therefore have been coming from even Zabula rather than Gandhāra and Kāśmīra. In other words, the seeming 'westward shift' of the definition of Jibin perhaps reflects the movement of Buddhist clergy over time due to external pressures. If Verardi's thesis is correct, this westward movement of Buddhist centers was caused primarily by hostility from Brahmanical traditions and the nobility which supported them.
Much later
the understanding of Jibin's location changed again as the Ming
shi 明史 (fasc.
332) – compiled in 1729 – identifies Samarkand 撒馬兒罕
as Jibin!
Notes:
1 E.G.
Pulleyblank, “The Consonantal System of Old Chinese. Part II,”
Asia Major 9, part 2 (1962): 218.
2 ENOMOTO
Fumio, “A Note on Kashmir as Referred to in Chinese Literature:
Ji-bin,” in A Study on the Nīlamata: Aspects of Hinduism in
Ancient Kashmir, ed. Yasuke IKARI (Kyoto: Institute for Research
in Humanities, 1994), 357.
3 Ibid.,
361.
4 《貞元新定釋教目錄》卷17：「北天竺境迦畢試國人也(言罽賓者訛略)」(CBETA,
T55, no. 2157, p. 891, c10)
5 Giovanni
Verardi, “Buddhism in North-western India and Eastern Afghanistan,
Sixth to Ninth Century AD,” ZINBUN 43 (2012): 147–183.
6 Ibid.,
165.
