Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

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(7) Eitel (p. 37) says:--"A noted vihara in the suburbs of Sravasti,
erected in a park which Anatha-pindika bought of prince Jeta, the son
of Prasenajit. Sakyamuni made this place his favourite residence for
many years. Most of the Sutras (authentic and supposititious) date
from this spot."

(8) See chapter xvii.

(9) See chapter xiii.

(10) Arya, meaning "honourable," "venerable," is a title given only to
those who have mastered the four spiritual truths:--(1) that "misery"
is a necessary condition of all sentient existence; this is duhkha:
(2) that the "accumulation" of misery is caused by the passions; this
is samudaya: (3) that the "extinction" of passion is possible; this is
nirodha: and (4) that the "path" leads to the extinction of passion;
which is marga. According to their attainment of these truths,
the Aryas, or followers of Buddha, are distinguished into four
classes,--Srotapannas, Sakridagamins, Anagamins, and Arhats. E. H., p.
14.

(11) This is the first time that Fa-hien employs the name Ho-shang
{.} {.}, which is now popularly used in China for all Buddhist monks
without distinction of rank or office. It is the representative of
the Sanskrit term Upadhyaya, "explained," says Eitel (p. 155) by "a
self-taught teacher," or by "he who knows what is sinful and what is
not sinful," with the note, "In India the vernacular of this term is
{.} {.} (? munshee (? Bronze)); in Kustana and Kashgar they say {.}
{.} (hwa-shay); and from the latter term are derived the Chinese
synonyms, {.} {.} (ho-shay) and {.} {.} (ho-shang)." The Indian term
was originally a designation for those who teach only a part of the
Vedas, the Vedangas. Adopted by Buddhists of Central Asia, it was made
to signify the priests of the older ritual, in distinction from the
Lamas. In China it has been used first as a synonym for {.} {.}, monks
engaged in popular teaching (teachers of the Law), in distinction
from {.} {.}, disciplinists, and {.} {.}, contemplative philosophers
(meditationists); then it was used to designate the abbots of
monasteries. But it is now popularly applied to all Buddhist monks.
In the text there seems to be implied some distinction between
the "teachers" and the "ho-shang;"--probably, the Pali Akariya and
Upagghaya; see Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii, Vinaya Texts, pp.
178, 179.

(12) It might be added, "as depending on it," in order to bring out
the full meaning of the {.} in the text. If I recollect aright, the
help of the police had to be called in at Hong Kong in its early
years, to keep the approaches to the Cathedral free from the number
of beggars, who squatted down there during service, hoping that
the hearers would come out with softened hearts, and disposed to be
charitable. I found the popular tutelary temples in Peking and other
places, and the path up Mount T'ai in Shan-lung similarly frequented.

(13) The wife of Anatha-pindika, and who became "mother superior" of
many nunneries. See her history in M. B., pp. 220-227. I am surprised
it does not end with the statement that she is to become a Buddha.

(14) See E. H., p. 136. Hsuan-chwang does not give the name of this
murderer; see in Julien's "Vie et Voyages de Hiouen-thsang," p.
125,--"a heretical Brahman killed a woman and calumniated Buddha." See
also the fuller account in Beal's "Records of Western Countries," pp.
7, 8, where the murder is committed by several Brahmacharins. In this
passage Beal makes Sundari to be the name of the murdered person (a
harlot). But the text cannot be so construed.

(15) Eitel (p. 144) calls her Chancha; in Singhalese, Chinchi. See the
story about her, M. B., pp. 275-277.

(16) "Earth's prison," or "one of Earth's prisons." It was the Avichi
naraka to which she went, the last of the eight hot prisons, where
the culprits die, and are born again in uninterrupted succession
(such being the meaning of Avichi), though not without hope of final
redemption. E. H. p. 21.

(17) Devadatta was brother of Ananda, and a near relative therefore
of Sakyamuni. He was the deadly enemy, however, of the latter. He had
become so in an earlier state of existence, and the hatred continued
in every successive birth, through which they reappeared in the world.
See the accounts of him, and of his various devices against Buddha,
and his own destruction at the last, in M. B., pp. 315-321, 326-330;
and still better, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya
Texts, pp. 233-265. For the particular attempt referred to in the
text, see "The Life of the Buddha," p. 107. When he was engulphed, and
the flames were around him, he cried out to Buddha to save him, and we
are told that he is expected yet to appear as a Buddha under the name
of Devaraja, in a universe called Deva-soppana. E. H., p. 39.

(18) "A devalaya ({.} {.} or {.} {.}), a place in which a deva is
worshipped,--a general name for all Brahmanical temples" (Eitel, p.
30). We read in the Khang-hsi dictionary under {.}, that when Kasyapa
Matanga came to the Western Regions, with his Classics or Sutras, he
was lodged in the Court of State-Ceremonial, and that afterwards there
was built for him "The Court of the White-horse" ({.} {.} {.}), and
in consequence the name of Sze {.} came to be given to all Buddhistic
temples. Fa-hien, however, applies this term only to Brahmanical
temples.

(19) Their speech was somewhat unconnected, but natural enough in
the circumstances. Compare the whole account with the narrative in
I Samuel v. about the Ark and Dagon, that "twice-battered god of
Palestine."

(20) "Entered the doctrine or path." Three stages in the Buddhistic
life are indicated by Fa-hien:--"entering it," as here, by becoming
monks ({.} {.}); "getting it," by becoming Arhats ({.} {.}); and
"completing it," by becoming Buddha ({.} {.}).

(21) It is not quite clear whether the author had in mind here Central
India as a whole, which I think he had, or only Kosala, the part of it
where he then was. In the older teaching, there were only thirty-two
sects, but there may have been three subdivisions of each. See Rhys
Davids' "Buddhism," pp. 98, 99.

(22) This mention of "the future world" is an important difference
between the Corean and Chinese texts. The want of it in the latter has
been a stumbling-block in the way of all previous translators. Remusat
says in a note that "the heretics limited themselves to speak of the
duties of man in his actual life without connecting it by the notion
that the metempsychosis with the anterior periods of existence through
which he had passed." But this is just the opposite of what Fa-hien's
meaning was, according to our Corean text. The notion of "the
metempsychosis" was just that in which all the ninety-six erroneous
systems agreed among themselves and with Buddhism. If he had wished to
say what the French sinologue thinks he does say, moreover, he would
probably have written {.} {.} {.} {.} {.}. Let me add, however, that
the connexion which Buddhism holds between the past world (including
the present) and the future is not that of a metempsychosis, or
transmigration of souls, for it does not appear to admit any separate
existence of the soul. Adhering to its own phraseology of "the wheel,"
I would call its doctrine that of "The Transrotation of Births." See
Rhys Davids' third Hibbert Lecture.

(23) Or, more according to the phonetisation of the text, Vaidurya.
He was king of Kosala, the son and successor of Prasenajit, and the
destroyer of Kapilavastu, the city of the Sakya family. His hostility
to the Sakyas is sufficiently established, and it may be considered as
certain that the name Shay-e, which, according to Julien's "Methode,"
p. 89, may be read Chia-e, is the same as Kia-e ({.} {.}), one of the
phonetisations of Kapilavastu, as given by Eitel.

(24) This would be the interview in the "Life of the Buddha" in
Trubner's Oriental Series, p. 116, when Virudhaha on his march found
Buddha under an old sakotato tree. It afforded him no shade; but he
told the king that the thought of the danger of "his relatives and
kindred made it shady." The king was moved to sympathy for the time,
and went back to Sravasti; but the destruction of Kapilavastu was only
postponed for a short space, and Buddha himself acknowledged it to be
inevitable in the connexion of cause and effect.



CHAPTER XXI

THE THREE PREDECESSORS OF SAKYAMUNI IN THE BUDDHASHIP.

Fifty le to the west of the city bring (the traveller) to a town named
Too-wei,(1) the birthplace of Kasyapa Buddha.(1) At the place where he
and his father met,(2) and at that where he attained to pari-nirvana,
topes were erected. Over the entire relic of the whole body of him,
the Kasyapa Tathagata,(3) a great tope was also erected.

Going on south-east from the city of Sravasti for twelve yojanas,
(the travellers) came to a town named Na-pei-kea,(4) the birthplace of
Krakuchanda Buddha. At the place where he and his father met, and
at that where he attained to pari-nirvana, topes were erected. Going
north from here less than a yojana, they came to a town which had been
the birthplace of Kanakamuni Buddha. At the place where he and his
father met, and where he attained to pari-nirvana, topes were erected.

NOTES

(1) Identified, as Beal says, by Cunningham with Tadwa, a village nine
miles to the west of Sahara-mahat. The birthplace of Kasyapa Buddha is
generally thought to have been Benares. According to a calculation of
Remusat, from his birth to A.D. 1832 there were 1,992,859 years!

(2) It seems to be necessary to have a meeting between every Buddha
and his father. One at least is ascribed to Sakyamuni and his father
(real or supposed) Suddhodana.

(3) This is the highest epithet given to every supreme Buddha; in
Chinese {.} {.}, meaning, as Eitel, p. 147 says, "_Sic profectus
sum_." It is equivalent to "Rightful Buddha, the true successor in
the Supreme Buddha Line." Hardy concludes his account of the Kasyapa
Buddha (M. B., p. 97) with the following sentence:--"After his
body was burnt, the bones still remained in their usual position,
presenting the appearance of a perfect skeleton; and the whole of the
inhabitants of Jambudvipa, assembling together, erected a dagoba over
his relics one yojana in height!"

(4) Na-pei-kea or Nabhiga is not mentioned elsewhere. Eitel says this
Buddha was born at the city of Gan-ho ({.} {.} {.}) and Hardy gives
his birthplace as Mekhala. It may be possible, by means of Sanskrit,
to reconcile these statements.



CHAPTER XXII

KAPILAVASTU. ITS DESOLATION. LEGENDS OF BUDDHA'S BIRTH, AND OTHER
INCIDENTS IN CONNEXION WITH IT.

Less than a yojana to the east from this brought them to the city of
Kapilavastu;(1) but in it there was neither king nor people. All was
mound and desolation. Of inhabitants there were only some monks and a
score or two of families of the common people. At the spot where stood
the old palace of king Suddhodana(2) there have been made images of
the prince (his eldest son) and his mother;(3) and at the places where
that son appeared mounted on a white elephant when he entered his
mother's womb,(4) and where he turned his carriage round on seeing
the sick man after he had gone out of the city by the eastern gate,(5)
topes have been erected. The places (were also pointed out)(6) where
(the rishi) A-e(7) inspected the marks (of Buddhaship on the body) of
the heir-apparent (when an infant); where, when he was in company with
Nanda and others, on the elephant being struck down and drawn to one
side, he tossed it away;(8) where he shot an arrow to the south-east,
and it went a distance of thirty le, then entering the ground and
making a spring to come forth, which men subsequently fashioned into
a well from which travellers might drink;(9) where, after he had
attained to Wisdom, Buddha returned and saw the king, his father;(10)
where five hundred Sakyas quitted their families and did reverence to
Upali(11) while the earth shook and moved in six different ways; where
Buddha preached his Law to the devas, and the four deva kings and
others kept the four doors (of the hall), so that (even) the king, his
father, could not enter;(12) where Buddha sat under a nyagrodha tree,
which is still standing,(13) with his face to the east, and (his aunt)
Maja-prajapati presented him with a Sanghali;(14) and (where)
king Vaidurya slew the seed of Sakya, and they all in dying became
Srotapannas.(15) A tope was erected at this last place, which is still
existing.

Several le north-east from the city was the king's field, where the
heir-apparent sat under a tree, and looked at the ploughers.(16)

Fifty le east from the city was a garden, named Lumbini,(17) where the
queen entered the pond and bathed. Having come forth from the pond
on the northern bank, after (walking) twenty paces, she lifted up her
hand, laid hold of a branch of a tree, and, with her face to the east,
gave birth to the heir-apparent.(18) When he fell to the ground, he
(immediately) walked seven paces. Two dragon-kings (appeared) and
washed his body. At the place where they did so, there was immediately
formed a well, and from it, as well as from the above pond, where (the
queen) bathed,(19) the monks (even) now constantly take the water, and
drink it.

There are four places of regular and fixed occurrence (in the history
of) all Buddhas:--first, the place where they attained to perfect
Wisdom (and became Buddha); second, the place where they turned the
wheel of the Law;(20) third, the place where they preached the Law,
discoursed of righteousness, and discomfited (the advocates of)
erroneous doctrines; and fourth, the place where they came down, after
going up to the Trayatrimsas heaven to preach the Law for the
benefit of their mothers. Other places in connexion with them became
remarkable, according to the manifestations which were made at them at
particular times.

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(21) and lions, and should not
travel incautiously.

NOTES

(1) Kapilavastu, "the city of beautiful virtue," was the birthplace
of Sakyamuni, but was destroyed, as intimated in the notes on last
chapter, during his lifetime. It was situated a short distance
north-west of the present Goruckpoor, lat. 26d 46s N., lon. 83d 19s E.
Davids says (Manual, p. 25), "It was on the banks of the river Rohini,
the modern Kohana, about 100 miles north-west of the city of Benares."

(2) The father, or supposed father, of Sakyamuni. He is here called
"the king white and pure" ({.} {.} {.}). A more common appellation
is "the king of pure rice" ({.} {.} {.}); but the character {.}, or
"rice," must be a mistake for {.}, "Brahman," and the appellation=
"Pure Brahman king."

(3) The "eldest son," or "prince" was Sakyamuni, and his mother had
no other son. For "his mother," see chap. xvii, note 3. She was a
daughter of Anjana or Anusakya, king of the neighbouring country of
Koli, and Yasodhara, an aunt of Suddhodana. There appear to have been
various intermarriages between the royal houses of Kapila and Koli.

(4) In "The Life of the Buddha," p. 15, we read that "Buddha was now
in the Tushita heaven, and knowing that his time was come (the time
for his last rebirth in the course of which he would become Buddha),
he made the necessary examinations; and having decided that Maha-maya
was the right mother, in the midnight watch he entered her womb under
the appearance of an elephant." See M. B., pp. 140-143, and, still
better, Rhys Davids' "Birth Stories," pp. 58-63.

(5) In Hardy's M. B., pp. 154, 155, we read, "As the prince
(Siddhartha, the first name given to Sakyamuni; see Eitel, under
Sarvarthasiddha) was one day passing along, he saw a deva under the
appearance of a leper, full of sores, with a body like a water-vessel,
and legs like the pestle for pounding rice; and when he learned
from his charioteer what it was that he saw, he became agitated, and
returned at once to the palace." See also Rhys Davids' "Buddhism," p.
29.

(6) This is an addition of my own, instead of "There are also topes
erected at the following spots," of former translators. Fa-hien does
not say that there were memorial topes at all these places.

(7) Asita; see Eitel, p. 15. He is called in Pali Kala Devala, and had
been a minister of Suddhodana's father.

(8) In "The Life of Buddha" we read that the Lichchhavis of Vaisali
had sent to the young prince a very fine elephant; but when it was
near Kapilavastu, Devadatta, out of envy, killed it with a blow of
his fist. Nanda (not Ananda, but a half-brother of Siddhartha), coming
that way, saw the carcase lying on the road, and pulled it on one
side; but the Bodhisattva, seeing it there, took it by the tail, and
tossed it over seven fences and ditches, when the force of its fall
made a great ditch. I suspect that the characters in the column have
been disarranged, and that we should read {.} {.} {.} {.}, {.} {.},
{.} {.}. Buddha, that is Siddhartha, was at this time only ten years
old.

(9) The young Sakyas were shooting when the prince thus surpassed them
all. He was then seventeen.

(10) This was not the night when he finally fled from Kapilavastu,
and as he was leaving the palace, perceiving his sleeping father, and
said, "Father, though I love thee, yet a fear possesses me, and I may
not stay;"--The Life of the Buddha, p. 25. Most probably it was that
related in M. B., pp. 199-204. See "Buddhist Birth Stories,"
pp. 120-127.

(11) They did this, I suppose, to show their humility, for Upali was
only a Sudra by birth, and had been a barber; so from the first did
Buddhism assert its superiority to the conditions of rank and caste.
Upali was distinguished by his knowledge of the rules of discipline,
and praised on that account by Buddha. He was one of the three leaders
of the first synod, and the principal compiler of the original Vinaya
books.

(12) I have not met with the particulars of this preaching.

(13) Meaning, as explained in Chinese, "a tree without knots;" the
_ficus Indica_. See Rhys Davids' note, Manual, p. 39, where he says
that a branch of one of these trees was taken from Buddha Gaya to
Anuradhapura in Ceylon in the middle of the third century B.C, and is
still growing there, the oldest historical tree in the world.

(14) See chap. xiii, note 11. I have not met with the account of this
presentation. See the long account of Prajapati in M. B., pp. 306-315.

(15) See chap. xx, note 10. The Srotapannas are the first class of
saints, who are not to be reborn in a lower sphere, but attain to
nirvana after having been reborn seven times consecutively as men or
devas. The Chinese editions state there were "1000" of the Sakya seed.
The general account is that they were 500, all maidens, who refused
to take their place in king Vaidurya's harem, and were in consequence
taken to a pond, and had their hands and feet cut off. There Buddha
came to them, had their wounds dressed, and preached to them the Law.
They died in the faith, and were reborn in the region of the four
Great Kings. Thence they came back and visited Buddha at Jetavana in
the night, and there they obtained the reward of Srotapanna. "The Life
of the Buddha," p. 121.

(16) See the account of this event in M. B., p. 150. The account of
it reminds me of the ploughing by the sovereign, which has been an
institution in China from the earliest times. But there we have no
magic and no extravagance.

(17) "The place of Liberation;" see chap. xiii, note 7.

(18) See the accounts of this event in M. B., pp. 145, 146; "The Life
of the Buddha," pp. 15, 16; and "Buddhist Birth Stories," p. 66.

(19) There is difficulty in construing the text of this last
statement. Mr. Beal had, no doubt inadvertently, omitted it in his
first translation. In his revised version he gives for it, I cannot
say happily, "As well as at the pool, the water of which came down
from above for washing (the child)."

(20) See chap. xvii, note 8. See also Davids' Manual, p. 45. The
latter says, that "to turn the wheel of the Law" means "to set
rolling the royal chariot wheel of a universal empire of truth and
righteousness;" but he admits that this is more grandiloquent than the
phraseology was in the ears of Buddhists. I prefer the words quoted
from Eitel in the note referred to. "They turned" is probably
equivalent to "They began to turn."

(21) Fa-hien does not say that he himself saw any of these white
elephants, nor does he speak of the lions as of any particular colour.
We shall find by-and-by, in a note further on, that, to make them
appear more terrible, they are spoken of as "black."



CHAPTER XXIII

RAMA, AND ITS TOPE.

East from Buddha's birthplace, and at a distance of five yojanas,
there is a kingdom called Rama.(1) The king of this country, having
obtained one portion of the relics of Buddha's body,(2) returned with
it and built over it a tope, named the Rama tope. By the side of it
there was a pool, and in the pool a dragon, which constantly kept
watch over (the tope), and presented offerings to it day and night.
When king Asoka came forth into the world, he wished to destroy the
eight topes (over the relics), and to build (instead of them) 84,000
topes.(3) After he had thrown down the seven (others), he wished next
to destroy this tope. But then the dragon showed itself, took the king
into its palace;(4) and when he had seen all the things provided for
offerings, it said to him, "If you are able with your offerings to
exceed these, you can destroy the tope, and take it all away. I will
not contend with you." The king, however, knew that such appliances
for offerings were not to be had anywhere in the world, and thereupon
returned (without carrying out his purpose).

(Afterwards), the ground all about became overgrown with vegetation,
and there was nobody to sprinkle and sweep (about the tope); but
a herd of elephants came regularly, which brought water with their
trunks to water the ground, and various kinds of flowers and incense,
which they presented at the tope. (Once) there came from one of the
kingdoms a devotee(5) to worship at the tope. When he encountered
the elephants he was greatly alarmed, and screened himself among the
trees; but when he saw them go through with the offerings in the most
proper manner, the thought filled him with great sadness--that there
should be no monastery here, (the inmates of which) might serve
the tope, but the elephants have to do the watering and sweeping.
Forthwith he gave up the great prohibitions (by which he was
bound),(6) and resumed the status of a Sramanera.(7) With his own
hands he cleared away the grass and trees, put the place in good
order, and made it pure and clean. By the power of his exhortations,
he prevailed on the king of the country to form a residence for
monks; and when that was done, he became head of the monastery. At the
present day there are monks residing in it. This event is of recent
occurrence; but in all the succession from that time till now, there
has always been a Sramanera head of the establishment.

NOTES

(1) Rama or Ramagrama, between Kapilavastu and Kusanagara.

(2) See the account of the eightfold division of the relics of
Buddha's body in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, Buddhist
Suttas, pp. 133-136.

(3) The bones of the human body are supposed to consist of 84,000
atoms, and hence the legend of Asoka's wish to build 84,000 topes, one
over each atom of Sakyamuni's skeleton.

(4) Fa-hien, it appears to me, intended his readers to understand that
the naga-guardian had a palace of his own, inside or underneath the
pool or tank.

(5) It stands out on the narrative as a whole that we have not here
"some pilgrims," but one devotee.

(6) What the "great prohibitions" which the devotee now gave up
were we cannot tell. Being what he was, a monk of more than ordinary
ascetical habits, he may have undertaken peculiar and difficult vows.

(7) The Sramanera, or in Chinese Shamei. See chap. xvi, note 19.



CHAPTER XXIV

WHERE BUDDHA FINALLY RENOUNCED THE WORLD, AND WHERE HE DIED.

East from here four yojanas, there is the place where the
heir-apparent sent back Chandaka, with his white horse;(1) and there
also a tope was erected.