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Stops in Pakistan/India

The Indus River, "In former times men had chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the number altogether of 700, at teh bottom of which there was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its banks being there eighty paces across"

Saravasti where he visited the Jetavana monastery: {The Jetavana vihara was originally of seven storeys.


The kings and people of the countries around ... [hung] about it silken streamers and canopies, scattering flowers, burning incense, lighting lamps so as to make the nigth the day"

Kapilavastu: "The country of Kapilavastu is a great scene of empty desolation. The inhabitants are few and far between. On the roads people have to be on their guard against white elephants and lions, and should not travel incautiously.")

Patna: "The royal palace and halls in the midst of the city, which exist now as of old, were all made by spirits which he employed, and which piled up the stones, reared the walls and gates, and executed the elegant carving and inlaid sculpture- work, — in a way which no human hands of this world could accomplish."

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Abhayagiri Monastery in Sri Lanka: "There is in it a hall of Buddha, adorned with carved and inlaid work of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious substances, in which there is an image (of Buddha) in green jade, more than twenty cubits in height, glittering all over with those substances and having the appearance of solemn dignity which words cannot express."

Java: "where various forms of error and Brahmanism are flourishing, while Buddhism in it is not worth speaking of."

Sources

This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Archaeology of Buddhism, Ancient Writers, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.

All of the English translations are long out of copyright, and can be found in numerous places and forms throughout the Internet.

Beal S. (transl) 1869. Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.). London: Trubner and Co. Includes a large introduction on the state of Buddhism at the time of Faxian's writing.

Giles HA. (transl) 2012 [1923]. The Travels of Fa-hsien (399-414 AD), or record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms: Cambridge University Press. The most cited of the three English versions listed here.
Legge J. (transl) 1886.A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, being an account of the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (AD 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Has the best biographical data collected.