Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms

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Four yojanas to the east from this, (the travellers) came to the
Charcoal tope,(2) where there is also a monastery.

Going on twelve yojanas, still to the east, they came to the city of
Kusanagara,(3) on the north of which, between two trees,(4) on the
bank of the Nairanjana(5) river, is the place where the World-honoured
one, with his head to the north, attained to pari-nirvana (and
died). There also are the places where Subhadra,(6) the last (of his
converts), attained to Wisdom (and became an Arhat); where in his
coffin of gold they made offerings to the World-honoured one for seven
days,(7) where the Vajrapani laid aside his golden club,(8) and where
the eight kings(9) divided the relics (of the burnt body):--at all
these places were built topes and monasteries, all of which are now
existing.

In the city the inhabitants are few and far between, comprising only
the families belonging to the (different) societies of monks.

Going from this to the south-east for twelve yojanas, they came to the
place where the Lichchhavis(10) wished to follow Buddha to (the place
of) his pari-nirvana, and where, when he would not listen to them and
they kept cleaving to him, unwilling to go away, he made to appear a
large and deep ditch which they could not cross over, and gave them
his alms-bowl, as a pledge of his regard, (thus) sending them back to
their families. There a stone pillar was erected with an account of
this event engraved upon it.

NOTES

(1) This was on the night when Sakyamuni finally left his palace
and family to fulfil the course to which he felt that he was called.
Chandaka, in Pali Channa, was the prince's charioteer, and in sympathy
with him. So also was the white horse Kanthaka (Kanthakanam Asvaraja),
which neighed his delight till the devas heard him. See M. B., pp.
158-161, and Davids' Manual, pp. 32, 33. According to "Buddhist Birth
Stories," p. 87, the noble horse never returned to the city, but died
of grief at being left by his master, to be reborn immediately in the
Trayastrimsas heaven as the deva Kanthaka!

(2) Beal and Giles call this the "Ashes" tope. I also would have
preferred to call it so; but the Chinese character is {.}, not {.}.
Remusat has "la tour des charbons." It was over the place of Buddha's
cremation.

(3) In Pali Kusinara. It got its name from the Kusa grass (the _poa
cynosuroides_); and its ruins are still extant, near Kusiah, 180 N.W.
from Patna; "about," says Davids, "120 miles N.N.E. of Benares, and 80
miles due east of Kapilavastu."

(4) The Sala tree, the _Shorea robusta_, which yields the famous teak
wood.

(5) Confounded, according to Eitel, even by Hsuan-chwang, with the
Hiranyavati, which flows past the city on the south.

(6) A Brahman of Benares, said to have been 120 years old, who came to
learn from Buddha the very night he died. Ananda would have repulsed
him; but Buddha ordered him to be introduced; and then putting aside
the ingenious but unimportant question which he propounded, preached
to him the Law. The Brahman was converted and attained at once to
Arhatship. Eitel says that he attained to nirvana a few moments before
Sakyamuni; but see the full account of him and his conversion in
"Buddhist Suttas," p. 103-110.

(7) Thus treating the dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti
king. Hardy's M. B., p. 347, says:--"For the place of cremation, the
princes (of Kusinara) offered their own coronation-hall, which was
decorated with the utmost magnificence, and the body was deposited in
a golden sarcophagus." See the account of a cremation which Fa-hien
witnessed in Ceylon, chap. xxxix.

(8) The name Vajrapani is explained as "he who holds in his hand the
diamond club (or pestle=sceptre)," which is one of the many names of
Indra or Sakra. He therefore, that great protector of Buddhism, would
seem to be intended here; but the difficulty with me is that neither
in Hardy nor Rockhill, nor any other writer, have I met with any
manifestation of himself made by Indra on this occasion. The princes
of Kusanagara were called mallas, "strong or mighty heroes;" so also
were those of Pava and Vaisali; and a question arises whether
the language may not refer to some story which Fa-hien had
heard,--something which they did on this great occasion. Vajrapani is
also explained as meaning "the diamond mighty hero;" but the epithet
of "diamond" is not so applicable to them as to Indra. The clause may
hereafter obtain more elucidation.

(9) Of Kusanagara, Pava, Vaisali, and other kingdoms. Kings, princes,
brahmans,--each wanted the whole relic; but they agreed to an
eightfold division at the suggestion of the brahman Drona.

(10) These "strong heroes" were the chiefs of Vaisali, a kingdom and
city, with an oligarchical constitution. They embraced Buddhism early,
and were noted for their peculiar attachment to Buddha. The second
synod was held at Vaisali, as related in the next chapter. The ruins
of the city still exist at Bassahar, north of Patna, the same, I
suppose, as Besarh, twenty miles north of Hajipur. See Beal's Revised
Version, p. lii.



CHAPTER XXV

VAISALI. THE TOPE CALLED "WEAPONS LAID DOWN." THE COUNCIL OF VAISALI.

East from this city ten yojanas, (the travellers) came to the kingdom
of Vaisali. North of the city so named is a large forest, having in it
the double-galleried vihara(1) where Buddha dwelt, and the tope over
half the body of Ananda.(2) Inside the city the woman Ambapali(3)
built a vihara in honour of Buddha, which is now standing as it was at
first. Three le south of the city, on the west of the road, (is the)
garden (which) the same Ambapali presented to Buddha, in which he
might reside. When Buddha was about to attain to his pari-nirvana,
as he was quitting the city by the west gate, he turned round, and,
beholding the city on his right, said to them, "Here I have taken my
last walk."(4) Men subsequently built a tope at this spot.

Three le north-west of the city there is a tope called, "Bows and
weapons laid down." The reason why it got that name was this:--The
inferior wife of a king, whose country lay along the river Ganges,
brought forth from her womb a ball of flesh. The superior wife,
jealous of the other, said, "You have brought forth a thing of evil
omen," and immediately it was put into a box of wood and thrown
into the river. Farther down the stream another king was walking and
looking about, when he saw the wooden box (floating) in the water. (He
had it brought to him), opened it, and found a thousand little boys,
upright and complete, and each one different from the others. He
took them and had them brought up. They grew tall and large, and very
daring, and strong, crushing all opposition in every expedition which
they undertook. By and by they attacked the kingdom of their real
father, who became in consequence greatly distressed and sad. His
inferior wife asked what it was that made him so, and he replied,
"That king has a thousand sons, daring and strong beyond compare, and
he wishes with them to attack my kingdom; this is what makes me sad."
The wife said, "You need not be sad and sorrowful. Only make a high
gallery on the wall of the city on the east; and when the thieves
come, I shall be able to make them retire." The king did as she said;
and when the enemies came, she said to them from the tower, "You are
my sons; why are you acting so unnaturally and rebelliously?" They
replied, "If you do not believe me," she said, "look, all of you,
towards me, and open your mouths." She then pressed her breasts with
her two hands, and each sent forth 500 jets of milk, which fell into
the mouths of the thousand sons. The thieves (thus) knew that she was
their mother, and laid down their bows and weapons.(5) The two kings,
the fathers, thereupon fell into reflection, and both got to be
Pratyeka Buddhas.(6) The tope of the two Pratyeka Buddhas is still
existing.

In a subsequent age, when the World-honoured one had attained to
perfect Wisdom (and become Buddha), he said to is disciples, "This is
the place where I in a former age laid down my bow and weapons."(7) It
was thus that subsequently men got to know (the fact), and raised the
tope on this spot, which in this way received its name. The thousand
little boys were the thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa.(8)

It was by the side of the "Weapons-laid-down" tope that Buddha, having
given up the idea of living longer, said to Ananda, "In three months
from this I will attain to pavi-nirvana;" and king Mara(9) had so
fascinated and stupefied Ananda, that he was not able to ask Buddha to
remain longer in this world.

Three or four le east from this place there is a tope (commemorating
the following occurrence):--A hundred years after the pari-nirvana
of Buddha, some Bhikshus of Vaisali went wrong in the matter of
the disciplinary rules in ten particulars, and appealed for their
justification to what they said were the words of Buddha. Hereupon the
Arhats and Bhikshus observant of the rules, to the number in all of
700 monks, examined afresh and collated the collection of disciplinary
books.(10) Subsequently men built at this place the tope (in
question), which is still existing.

NOTES

(1) It is difficult to tell what was the peculiar form of this vihara
from which it gets its name; something about the construction of its
door, or cupboards, or galleries.

(2) See the explanation of this in the next chapter.

(3) Ambapali, Amrapali, or Amradarika, "the guardian of the Amra
(probably the mango) tree," is famous in Buddhist annals. See the
account of her in M. B., pp. 456-8. She was a courtesan. She had
been in many narakas or hells, was 100,000 times a female beggar, and
10,000 times a prostitute; but maintaining perfect continence during
the period of Kasyapa Buddha, Sakyamuni's predecessor, she had been
born a devi, and finally appeared in earth under an Amra tree in
Vaisali. There again she fell into her old ways, and had a son by
king Bimbisara; but she was won over by Buddha to virtue and chastity,
renounced the world, and attained to the state of an Arhat. See the
earliest account of Ambapali's presentation of the garden in "Buddhist
Suttas," pp. 30-33, and the note there from Bishop Bigandet on pp. 33,
34.

(4) Beal gives, "In this place I have performed the last religious act
of my earthly career;" Giles, "This is the last place I shall visit;"
Remusat, "C'est un lieu ou je reviendrai bien longtemps apres ceci."
Perhaps the "walk" to which Buddha referred had been for meditation.

(5) See the account of this legend in the note in M. B., pp. 235, 236,
different, but not less absurd. The first part of Fa-hien's narrative
will have sent the thoughts of some of my readers to the exposure of
the infant Moses, as related in Exodus. (Certainly did.--JB.)

(6) See chap. xiii, note 14.

(7) Thus Sakyamuni had been one of the thousand little boys who
floated in the box in the Ganges. How long back the former age was we
cannot tell. I suppose the tope of the two fathers who became Pratyeka
Buddhas had been built like the one commemorating the laying down of
weapons after Buddha had told his disciples of the strange events in
the past.

(8) Bhadra-kalpa, "the Kalpa of worthies or sages." "This," says
Eitel, p. 22, "is a designation for a Kalpa of stability, so called
because 1000 Buddhas appear in the course of it. Our present period is
a Bhadra-kalpa, and four Buddhas have already appeared. It is to last
236 million years, but over 151 millions have already elapsed."

(9) "The king of demons." The name Mara is explained by "the
murderer," "the destroyer of virtue," and similar appellations. "He
is," says Eitel, "the personification of lust, the god of love,
sin, and death, the arch-enemy of goodness, residing in the heaven
Paranirmita Vasavartin on the top of the Kamadhatu. He assumes
different forms, especially monstrous ones, to tempt or frighten the
saints, or sends his daughters, or inspires wicked men like Devadatta
or the Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100
arms, and riding on an elephant." The oldest form of the legend in
this paragraph is in "Buddhist Suttas," Sacred Books of the East, vol.
xi, pp. 41-55, where Buddha says that, if Ananda had asked him thrice,
he would have postponed his death.

(10) Or the Vinaya-pitaka. The meeting referred to was an important
one, and is generally spoken of as the second Great Council of the
Buddhist Church. See, on the formation of the Buddhist Canon, Hardy's
E. M., chap. xviii, and the last chapter of Davids' Manual, on the
History of the Order. The first Council was that held at Rajagriha,
shortly after Buddha's death, under the presidency of Kasyapa;--say
about B.C. 410. The second was that spoken of here;--say about B.C.
300. In Davids' Manual (p. 216) we find the ten points of discipline,
in which the heretics (I can use that term here) claimed at least
indulgence. Two meetings were held to consider and discuss them.
At the former the orthodox party barely succeeded in carrying their
condemnation of the laxer monks; and a second and larger meeting, of
which Fa-hien speaks, was held in consequence, and a more emphatic
condemnation passed. At the same time all the books and subjects of
discipline seem to have undergone a careful revision.

The Corean text is clearer than the Chinese as to those who composed
the Council,--the Arhats and orthodox monks. The leader among them was
a Yasas, or Yasada, or Yedsaputtra, who had been a disciple of Ananda,
and must therefore have been a very old man.



CHAPTER XXVI

REMARKABLE DEATH OF ANANDA.

Four yojanas on from this place to the east brought the travellers
to the confluence of the five rivers.(1) When Ananda was going from
Magadha(2) to Vaisali, wishing his pari-nirvana to take place (there),
the devas informed king Ajatasatru(3) of it, and the king immediately
pursued him, in his own grand carriage, with a body of soldiers, and
had reached the river. (On the other hand), the Lichchhavis of Vaisali
had heard that Amanda was coming (to their city), and they on their
part came to meet him. (In this way), they all arrived together at the
river, and Ananda considered that, if he went forward, king Ajatasatru
would be very angry, while, if he went back, the Lichchhavis would
resent his conduct. He thereupon in the very middle of the river burnt
his body in a fiery ecstasy of Samadhi,(4) and his pari-nirvana was
attained. He divided his body (also) into two, (leaving) the half
of it on each bank; so that each of the two kings got one half as
a (sacred) relic, and took it back (to his own capital), and there
raised a tope over it.

NOTES

(1) This spot does not appear to have been identified. It could not be
far from Patna.

(2) Magadha was for some time the headquarters of Buddhism; the holy
land, covered with viharas; a fact perpetuated, as has been observed
in a previous note, in the name of the present Behar, the southern
portion of which corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Magadha.

(3) In Singhalese, Ajasat. See the account of his conversion in M.
B., pp. 321-326. He was the son of king Bimbisara, who was one of the
first royal converts to Buddhism. Ajasat murdered his father, or at
least wrought his death; and was at first opposed to Sakyamuni, and
a favourer of Devadatta. When converted, he became famous for his
liberality in almsgiving.

(4) Eitel has a long article (pp. 114, 115) on the meaning of Samadhi,
which is one of the seven sections of wisdom (bodhyanga). Hardy
defines it as meaning "perfect tranquillity;" Turnour, as "meditative
abstraction;" Burnouf, as "self-control;" and Edkins, as "ecstatic
reverie." "Samadhi," says Eitel, "signifies the highest pitch of
abstract, ecstatic meditation; a state of absolute indifference to
all influences from within or without; a state of torpor of both
the material and spiritual forces of vitality; a sort of terrestrial
nirvana, consistently culminating in total destruction of life." He
then quotes apparently the language of the text, "He consumed his body
by Agni (the fire of) Samadhi," and says it is "a common expression
for the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic self-annihilation." All
this is simply "a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge."
Some facts concerning the death of Ananda are hidden beneath the
darkness of the phraseology, which it is impossible for us to
ascertain. By or in Samadhi he burns his body in the very middle of
the river, and then he divides the relic of the burnt body into two
parts (for so evidently Fa-hien intended his narration to be taken),
and leaves one half on each bank. The account of Ananda's death in
Nien-ch'ang's "History of Buddha and the Patriarchs" is much more
extravagant. Crowds of men and devas are brought together to witness
it. The body is divided into four parts. One is conveyed to the
Tushita heaven; a second, to the palace of a certain Naga king; a
third is given to Ajatasatru; and the fourth to the Lichchhavis. What
it all really means I cannot tell.



CHAPTER XXVII

PATALIPUTTRA OR PATNA, IN MAGADHA. KING ASOKA'S SPIRIT-BUILT PALACE
AND HALLS. THE BUDDHIST BRAHMAN, RADHA-SAMI. DISPENSARIES AND
HOSPITALS.

Having crossed the river, and descended south for a yojana, (the
travellers) came to the town of Pataliputtra,(1) in the kingdom of
Magadha, the city where king Asoka(2) ruled. The royal palace and
halls in the midst of the city, which exist now as of old, were all
made by spirits which he employed, and which piled up the stones,
reared the walls and gates, and executed the elegant carving and
inlaid sculpture-work,--in a way which no human hands of this world
could accomplish.

King Asoka had a younger brother who had attained to be an Arhat, and
resided on Gridhra-kuta(3) hill, finding his delight in solitude and
quiet. The king, who sincerely reverenced him, wished and begged him
(to come and live) in his family, where he could supply all his
wants. The other, however, through his delight in the stillness of the
mountain, was unwilling to accept the invitation, on which the king
said to him, "Only accept my invitation, and I will make a hill for
you inside the city." Accordingly, he provided the materials of a
feast, called to him the spirits, and announced to them, "To-morrow
you will all receive my invitation; but as there are no mats for you
to sit on, let each one bring (his own seat)." Next day the spirits
came, each one bringing with him a great rock, (like) a wall, four or
five paces square, (for a seat). When their sitting was over, the king
made them form a hill with the large stones piled on one another, and
also at the foot of the hill, with five large square stones, to make
an apartment, which might be more than thirty cubits long, twenty
cubits wide, and more than ten cubits high.

In this city there had resided a great Brahman,(4) named
Radha-sami,(5) a professor of the mahayana, of clear discernment and
much wisdom, who understood everything, living by himself in spotless
purity. The king of the country honoured and reverenced him, and
served him as his teacher. If he went to inquire for and greet him,
the king did not presume to sit down alongside of him; and if, in his
love and reverence, he took hold of his hand, as soon as he let it go,
the Brahman made haste to pour water on it and wash it. He might be
more than fifty years old, and all the kingdom looked up to him. By
means of this one man, the Law of Buddha was widely made known, and
the followers of other doctrines did not find it in their power to
persecute the body of monks in any way.

By the side of the tope of Asoka, there has been made a mahayana
monastery, very grand and beautiful; there is also a hinayana one;
the two together containing six or seven hundred monks. The rules of
demeanour and the scholastic arrangements(6) in them are worthy of
observation.

Shamans of the highest virtue from all quarters, and students,
inquirers wishing to find out truth and the grounds of it, all resort
to these monasteries. There also resides in this monastery a Brahman
teacher, whose name also is Manjusri,(7) whom the Shamans of greatest
virtue in the kingdom, and the mahayana Bhikshus honour and look up
to.

The cities and towns of this country are the greatest of all in the
Middle Kingdom. The inhabitants are rich and prosperous, and vie with
one another in the practice of benevolence and righteousness. Every
year on the eighth day of the second month they celebrate a procession
of images. They make a four-wheeled car, and on it erect a structure
of four storeys by means of bamboos tied together. This is supported
by a king-post, with poles and lances slanting from it, and is rather
more than twenty cubits high, having the shape of a tope. White and
silk-like cloth of hair(8) is wrapped all round it, which is then
painted in various colours. They make figures of devas, with gold,
silver, and lapis lazuli grandly blended and having silken streamers
and canopies hung out over them. On the four sides are niches, with
a Buddha seated in each, and a Bodhisattva standing in attendance on
him. There may be twenty cars, all grand and imposing, but each one
different from the others. On the day mentioned, the monks and laity
within the borders all come together; they have singers and skilful
musicians; they pay their devotion with flowers and incense. The
Brahmans come and invite the Buddhas to enter the city. These do so
in order, and remain two nights in it. All through the night they keep
lamps burning, have skilful music, and present offerings. This is the
practice in all the other kingdoms as well. The Heads of the Vaisya
families in them establish in the cities houses for dispensing charity
and medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans,
widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who
are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind
of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and
medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and
when they are better, they go away of themselves.

When king Asoka destroyed the seven topes, (intending) to make
eighty-four thousand,(9) the first which he made was the great tope,
more than three le to the south of this city. In front of this there
is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihara has been built. The door of
it faces the north, and on the south of it there is a stone pillar,
fourteen or fifteen cubits in circumference, and more than thirty
cubits high, on which there is an inscription, saying, "Asoka gave the
jambudvipa to the general body of all the monks, and then redeemed
it from them with money. This he did three times."(10) North from the
tope 300 or 400 paces, king Asoka built the city of Ne-le.(11) In it
there is a stone pillar, which also is more than thirty feet high,
with a lion on the top of it. On the pillar there is an inscription
recording the things which led to the building of Ne-le, with the
number of the year, the day, and the month.

NOTES

(1) The modern Patna, lat. 25d 28s N., lon. 85d 15s E. The Sanskrit
name means "The city of flowers." It is the Indian Florence.

(2) See chap. x, note 3. Asoka transferred his court from Rajagriha
to Pataliputtra, and there, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he
convoked the third Great Synod,--according, at least, to southern
Buddhism. It must have been held a few years before B.C. 250; Eitel
says in 246.

(3) "The Vulture-hill;" so called because Mara, according to Buddhist
tradition, once assumed the form of a vulture on it to interrupt the
meditation of Ananda; or, more probably, because it was a resort of
vultures. It was near Rajagriha, the earlier capital of Asoka, so that
Fa-hien connects a legend of it with his account of Patna. It abounded
in caverns, and was famous as a resort of ascetics.

(4) A Brahman by cast, but a Buddhist in faith.

(5) So, by the help of Julien's "Methode," I transliterate the Chinese
characters {.} {.} {.} {.}. Beal gives Radhasvami, his Chinese text
having a {.} between {.} and {.}. I suppose the name was Radhasvami or
Radhasami.

(6) {.} {.}, the names of two kinds of schools, often occurring in
the Li Ki and Mencius. Why should there not have been schools in those
monasteries in India as there were in China? Fa-hien himself grew up
with other boys in a monastery, and no doubt had to "go to school."
And the next sentence shows us there might be schools for more
advanced students as well as for the Sramaneras.