In 399 ce a Chinese Buddhist monk by the name of Faxian set out from his home in Chang’an to undertake a fourteen-year pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy land of India. After following a path westward across the length of China, he eventually worked his way south via the Karakorum trail and entered the northwestern portion of the Indian subcontinent, in the regions of Uddiyāna and Gandhāra (in what is currently northern Pakistan).

At the time of Faxian’s visit, Buddhism in this region (under the Later Kus ān as and Śakas) was flourishing, and in addition to the many large monasteries and thriving monastic communities Faxian encountered, there were a number of impressive Buddhist holy sites associated with the biography of the Buddha. But since the original homeland of the historical Buddha lay far away in the central Gangetic plain, this region of northwest India could not lay claim to the more standard and well known episodes of the Buddha’s life. Instead, the holy sites of northwest India were of two major types: Some commemorated the events that took place during a purely apocryphal and supernatural nighttime journey the Buddha is said