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Fusang () refers to several different entities in ancient Chinese literature, often either a mythological tree or a mysterious land to the East. In the ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', and in several other similar text of this period,〔 it refers to a mythological mulberry tree of life allegedly growing far to the east of China, and later to the Hibiscus genus, and perhaps to various more concrete territories east of China.〔 A country named Fusang was described by the native Buddhist missionary Hui Shen () in 499 AD,〔《梁書•諸夷列傳》 (Collective Biographies of Foreign Countries, ''Book of Liang''): 扶桑國者，齊永元元年，其國有沙門慧深來至荊州，说云：“扶桑在大漢國東二萬餘里，（……）” （The country of Fusang, in the year Yong-yuan 1 of the Qi Dynasty, a Shramana monk from there called Hui Shen came to Jingzhou, and said: "Fusang is 20,000 li to the East of the country of Dàhàn，(......)"〕 as a place 20,000 Chinese ''li'' east of Da-han, and also east of China (according to Joseph Needham, Da-han corresponds to the Buriat region of Siberia).〔 Hui Shen went by ship to Fusang, and upon his return reported his findings to the Chinese Emperor. His descriptions are recorded in the 7th-century text ''Book of Liang'' by Yao Silian, and describe a Bronze Age civilization inhabiting the Fusang country. The Fusang described by Shen has been variously posited to be the Americas, Sakhalin island, the Kamchatka Peninsula or the Kuril Islands. The American hypothesis was the most hotly debated one in the late 19th and early 20th century after the 18th-century writings of Joseph de Guignes were revived and disseminated by Charles Godfrey Leland in 1875. Sinologists including Emil Bretschneider, Berthold Laufer, and Henri Cordier refuted this hypothesis however, and according to Needham the American hypothesis was all but refuted by the time of the First World War.〔 Later Chinese accounts used the name Fusang for other, even less well identified places.〔 == Mythological accounts == An earlier account claims that in 219 BC emperor Shi Huang sent an expedition of some 3,000 convicts to a place lying far off to the east, across the ocean, called Fusang, to be a sacrifice to a volcano god who holds the elixir of life. There were, apparently, two expeditions under Xu Fu, the court sorcerer, to seek the elixir of life. The first expedition returned c. 210 BC when Xufu claimed a giant sea creature was blocking their path. Archers were then sent to deal with this monster when the expedition set out a second time, but it was never heard from again. However, "... asides in the ''Record of the Historian'' imply that its leader Xu Fu had returned to China long ago and was lurking somewhere near Langya, frittering away the expedition's impressive budget."〔Clements, Jonathan (2007). ''The First Emperor of China''. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7509-3960-7. p. 150〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fusang」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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