country more than four thousand monks,3 who were all students of the hinayana.4 The common people of this and other kingdoms (in that region), as well as the sramans,5 all practise the rules of India,6 o
nly that the latter do so more exactly, and the former more loosely. So (the travellers) found it in all the kingdoms through which they went on their way from this to the west, o
nly that each had its own peculiar barbarous speech.7 (The monks), however, who had (given up the worldly life) and quitted their