Faxian or F-Hsien (towards 337 - 422) is a Buddhist monk Chinese, pilgrim and author of one of the first and invaluable descriptions of the India.

Faxian starts its Indian pilgrimage (399 - 414) by leaving Xi' year, then capital of the Qin, passes the great wall and crosses the Gobi Desert . Arrived at Khotan, he is the witness of a great Buddhist festival. There, as with Yarkand, in Afghanistan and in other grounds which will become exclusively Musulman be, Faxian shows us how much Buddhism was flourishing. He finally reaches in 402, India itself and spends the ten years which follow on the ground of Buddhism, making some voyages to Peshawar and in Afghanistan (in particular in the area of Kabul) and in the valley of Gange.

Its goal is the visit of the great places of the life of Bouddha, the copy of the Buddhist texts and the exchange with the monks and the wise Buddhists that the Counter-Reformation hindouist did not reject yet out of India. It makes the description of several sites then its text deviates from the historical and geographical considerations to become more mystical and theological.

Delta of Gange, it embarks for Ceylon which it reaches at the end of 14 days of navigation. In island, where it makes the transcription of all the unknown books crowned in China which fall into its hands, it attends the Perahera, the festival in the honor of the tooth of Buddha. He also testifies to the presence of Arab tradesmen in the island, two centuries before Mahomet.

In 413, Faxian turns over to China by sea, changing ship in a port of the island of Java (in current the Indonesia and escaping from little from a shipwreck.

Its relation of voyage shows the force and the preponderance of Buddhism in Central Asia and India at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Its descriptions are careful and precise, making it possible to find to it quasi totality of the described places ( to see Lumbinî ). Its devotion leads it to depreciate China which he sees only like one peripheral ground in India, ground of the Buddha, that of its belief.

See too