like Pisachas who had offended Waissrawana. Again he dispelled the darkness, and made himself visible to them in the womb of the sky, like the disc of the rising sun, and struck terror among the army of yakshas by volumes of smoke emitted from his body, and then again he stood in their sight like the face of the moon, clear of the five obstructions, issuing ambrosial beams.

32. At this moment the army of yakshas, who had seen these miracles, saw Buddha and prayed him, saying, “O Lord, who art great and possessed of such influence as this, remove these calamities from us, and give us safety." Then Buddha addressed himself to the yakshas, who had supplicated him for safety, and said, "O yakshas, if ye all wish for safety, bestow on me as much space on the ground as will suffice for me to sit," and having obtained as much space as would suffice him to sit, he removed the consternation among the yakshas, and sat in the midst of their army, upon the skin carpet spread on the piece of ground given by them; the place where Buddha sat being the site of the Mahiyangana monument; and from the four edges of the skin carpet he emitted four streams of fire, which spreading on all the ten directions, struck terror among the yakshas, and dispersed them in different directions. Buddha then collected them on the sea-shore, and shewed them as if the isle of Yakgiri had been caused to be brought near by his supernatural influence; he then presented that isle of Yakgiri to them, and settled the great yaksha army in it, but he remained there on the sea-shore.

33. At that instant the chief of the gods, Sumana, resident at the peak of Samanala, (Adam's Peak), together with all the aerial, domiciliary, and other gods dwelling on trees, mountains and other places, arrived there; and when they stood there making offerings of lights, incense, perfumes, flowers, and such other things;

Buddha, who was sitting in that place, declared his sound doctrines to all the gods and goddesses, presided over by the chief god Sumana, and established numerous Kelas (ten millions) of the multitude of the gods in the enjoyment of the fruits of the paths, and admitted an Asankya of gods into the initiatory Sila.

34. The chief god Sumana, who on that day attained unto the holy path of Sówán, besought for a relic suitable for himself to worship and make offerings to. Then the meritorious Supreme Buddha rubbed his head and gave a handful of hair relics to the chief god Sumana to worship and make offerings to, and circumambulated three times round the Island of Lanka, like a meteor that moved rapidly in the darkness, and gave it his protection, and returned to Jambudwípa on that very day.

35.

Then the chief god, great Sumana, placed in a golden shrine the handful of hair relic which he had obtained, and collected a heap of gems on the spot where Buddha had sat for subduing yakshas, and on the top of that heap of gems he interred the shrine with the hair relic, and built thereupon a dágoba of blue sapphire gems, and made immense offerings to it.

The first visit of Buddha to the Island of Lanka.

36. Moreover in the fifth year of our Buddha, who is a refuge to the refugeless, and in the fifteenth day of the waning moon of the month of Bhaga (March), two Nága kings, Chulódara and Mahó dara, maternal uncle and nephew, commenced a war on account of a gem throne, taking with them separate armies of eighty kelas of Nágas dwelling in water and in land, being twenty kelas of Nágas from Kelani, together with thirty kelas from Wadunnágala, against thirty kelas of Maninága isle; and the two armies boasting violently, like two oceans stirred up by the vehemence of the wind

and rushing upon the land, arranged line by line like the rows of the waves moving thereon, taking various weapons, such as swords, shields, darts, circular swords, clubs, bows, spears, lances, javelins, crowbars, maces, and arrows, and waving them like continuous flashings of lightnings, rendering the whole battle-field a universal shout, and continually running forward with bravery of heart, intoxicated with the pride of each outvieing the other, and pressing hard each upon the other.

37. Then our Buddha saw by inspiration the affliction suffered by the army of Nágas who were thus boastingly assembled in the battle field of the civil war; and impelled by compassion towards them, he started in the morning of that day from Jétawanaáráma, and came through the air under the shade of that very Kiripalu tree, which had been standing near the gate of the temple of Jétawana, and which the king of the gods, Samirdhi Sumana, who had been residing on that self-same Kiripalu tree, rooted up and held over his head, and descended at the isle of Maninaga, and presented himself in the midst of the two Nága armies, who had the sharpest battle, and seated himself in the air under the shade of the blue-sapphire-banner-like Kiripalu tree. He then created a darkness for the purpose of frightening the Nágas, and afterwards threw a light upon them like that of the rising sun. The Nagas being thus frightened by the darkness, he shewed them many wonders, and preached his doctrines, and reconciled the two armies.

38. Then all the Nága people, having thrown their weapons out of their hands, brought, in company with the Nága virgins, various kinds of splendid offerings and presents, and bestowed them upon him and they prayed Buddha to descend on the ground; and he, sitting upon the gem throne which the Nagas had bestowed upon him, made a repast of the divine food which the Nágas gave

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him, and preached his doctrines to eighty kelas of Nágas, and established them in the initiatory sila. And in that Nága company, the Naga king Maniak, the maternal uncle of the Naga king Mahódara, supplicated Buddha to visit Kelani.

39. Afterwards Buddha, having by his silence consented to the invitation, made the Kiripalu tree, and the gem throne, páriblógika monuments,* that they might worship and make offerings to them, in order that their advancing merits might increase; and he sat on the gem throne, leaning against the Kiripalu tree.

40. Thus having quelled the dissensions of the Nágas, he left as páribhógika monuments both the gem throne which he had received, and the Kiripalu tree, which the god had brought from Jétawana with him, holding it as a shade over his head, in order that the eighty kelas of Nágas, and their females inhabiting the three Nága abodes, which have the three Naga kings, Chúlódara, Mahódara, and Maniakkha, as their chiefs, may worship and make offerings to them, in whatever way they choose. And he established protection to the glorious Island of Lanka, and returned to Jétawana Vihara in the city of Sewet in Dambadiva.

41. Thus, the gem throne and the Kiripalu tree, which our Buddha received when he came to Maninaga isle, on his second visit to Lanka, were placed in the oceanic Nága abode, and on the sea shore, as páribhógika monuments.

This is the account of the second visit of our Buddha to the Island of Lanka.

* Articles or relics that have been sanctified by having been used or owned by Buddha.

42.

Moreover our great Buddha, the teacher of the three worlds, who has a glorious face like a lotus, residing in the Vihára of Jétawana, thus thought about his third visit to the Island of Lanka; namely, "when I am dead (my) tooth relic, the jaw "bone relic, the forehead relic, and about a drona* of other relics, "which the inhabitants of the city of Rambagam will receive "at my demise; the hair relics and many other relics, will be "settled in the glorious Island of Lanka; and many hundreds "and thousands of monasteries will be established there. And as a great many people, such as Kshastrias, Brahmans, Waisyas, "Shuddras, and many others, who will delight in the three gems "will dwell there, I ought therefore to go to the Island of Lanka, "and visit the sites where the sixteen great places will have to "be situated, and indulge myself in the enjoyment of Samápatti, "and then return here."

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43. So in the eighth year of his Buddhaship he, at the invitation of the great priest Sunáparanta together with five hundred sanctified theras, mounted upon five hundred golden palanquins which the god Sekraia had created and presented to them, came to the territory of Sunáparant, and received the hall named Chandana-mandalamálaka, built by some merchants in the monastery of Muhulu ; and there he preached his doctrines to sentient beings, and established them in the enjoyment of the fruits of the paths, and dwelt there several days, and went to the market town of Suppáraka at the invitation of the priest Purna, and preached the doctrines to the people there. While he was returning to the city of Sewet, he came to the bank of the river Nermadá, and there he, at the

* A measure containing about a quarter of a bushel.