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A record of Buddhist practices sent home from the Southern Sea (simplified Chinese: 南海寄归内法传; traditional Chinese: 南海寄歸内法傳; Wade–Giles: Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan) is a Buddhist travelogue by the Tang Chinese monk Yijing detailing his twenty five-year stay in India and Srivijaya. The title has also been translated as Accounts of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Sea and various other similar titles. A translation in English was first given in A record of the Buddhist religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago by J. Takakusu in 1896.
Content
The book records Yijing's stay at Nalanda, a Buddhist Mahāvihāra in North-eastern India, and describes the life and practices of the monks therein. It also provides geographical and religious information on countries in the South Sea area, of which there were more than ten, during the Tang dynasty. It recorded that, for example, Buddhism flourished in the countries of the South Sea, and most of these countries practiced Hinayana Buddhism, but Buddhism in Funan had been eliminated after it was conquered.
The book is divided into forty sections. Unlike his predecessor, Xuanzang's travelogue which gives descriptions of the area he visited, Yijing prefers to restrict itself to descriptions of the customs, rules, and regulations of Buddhism as it was practised in its homeland. His detailed account of monastic rules and practices is valuable for the study of Buddhism and Buddhist literature of the period as many of the sources he cited are now lost.