Shì Fǎ-xiǎn 釋法顯 / Faxian (conventional dates ca. 337 – ca. 422), secular surname Gōng 龔, native of Píng-yáng 平陽 in modern Shānxī (Wǔ-yáng / Wǔ-yáng-mén). Eastern-Jìn / Liú-Sòng monk, pilgrim, and translator. Tonsured at age 3; full ordination at 20. In Hóng-shǐ 3 (Yáo Qín; = Jìn Lóng-ān 3 = 399 CE), aged ca. 60, departed Cháng-ān with several companions on a fifteen-year pilgrimage to India in search of complete Vinaya texts; passed by the Hé-xī corridor, Khotan, Kashgar, the Pamirs, Gandhāra, the Punjab, central India (Pāṭaliputra, Bodh Gayā, Rājagṛha), to Sri Lanka, and returned by maritime route via Sumatra and Java, landing at Qīng-zhōu in Yì-xī 8 (412). At Jiànkāng (modern Nánjīng) collaborated with Buddhabhadra (覺賢) on the translation of the Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya (the principal Vinaya he had brought back), the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (Dà bān ní-huán jīng T376, 6 juan), the Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya-śāstra (Zá ā-pí-tán xīn lùn), and other texts. Composed the Fó-guó jì 佛國記 (KR2k0136) at Jiànkāng ca. 414–416 — the foundational document of Chinese Buddhist pilgrimage literature. Died at Jīng-zhōu’s Xīn-sì aged 86. Biography in Gāo-sēng zhuàn 3 (T2059) under the Yì-jīng (translators) section. The Tōng-diǎn of Dù Yòu cites the work under the form Fǎ-míng as a Táng Zhōng-zōng taboo replacement for Xiǎn (= Lǐ Xiǎn). DILA Buddhist Authority id A000750; Wikidata Q241389. Recent research: Jan Nattier and others have followed the conventional dating of ca. 337 – ca. 422.