Śakra, Ruler of Devas, wishing to excite the idea in his mind, assumed the appearance of a little herd-boy, and was making a tope right in the way (of the king), who asked what sort of a thing he was making. The boy said, 'I am making a tope for Buddha.' The king said, 'Very good;' and immediately, right over the boy's tope, he (proceeded to) rear another, which was more than four hundred cubits high, and adorned with layers of all the precious substances. Of all the topes and temples which (the travellers) saw in their journeyings, there was not one comparable to this in solemn beauty and majestic grandeur. There is a current saying that this is the finest tope in Jambudvîpa'. When the king's tope was completed, the little tope (of the boy) came out from its side on the south, rather more than three cubits in height.

Buddha's alms-bowl is in this country. Formerly, a king of Yüehshe raised a large force and invaded this country, wishing to carry the bowl away. Having subdued the kingdom, as he and his captains were sincere believers in the Law of Buddha, and wished to carry off the bowl, they proceeded to present their offerings on a great scale. When they had done so to the Three Precious Ones, he made a large elephant be grandly caparisoned, and placed the bowl upon it. But the elephant knelt down on the ground, and was unable to go forward. Again he caused a four-wheeled waggon to be prepared in which the bowl was put to be conveyed away. Eight elephants were then yoked to it, and dragged it with their united strength; but neither were they able to

1

1 Jambudvipa is one of the four great continents of the universe, representing the inhabited world as fancied by the Buddhists, and so called because it resembles in shape the leaves of the jambu tree. It is south of mount Meru, and divided among four fabulous kings (E. H., p. 36). It is often used, as here perhaps, merely as the Buddhist name for India. This king was perhaps Kanishka himself, Fâ-hien mixing up, in an inartistic way, different legends about him. Eitel suggests that a relic of the old name of the country may still exist in that of the Jats or Juts of the present day. A more common name for it is Tukhâra, and he observes that the people were the Indo-Scythians of the Greeks, and the Tartars of Chinese writers, who, driven on by the Huns (180 B. c.), conquered Transoxiana, destroyed the Bactrian kingdom (126 B.C.), and finally conquered the Punjâb, Cashmere, and great part of India, their greatest king being Kanishka (E. H., p. 152).

go forward. The king knew that the time for an association between himself and the bowl had not yet arrived1, and was sad and deeply ashamed of himself. Forthwith he built a tope at the place and a monastery, and left a guard to watch (the bowl), making all sorts of contributions.

There may be there more than seven hundred monks. When it is near midday, they bring out the bowl, and, along with the common people2, make their various offerings to it, after which they take their midday meal. In the evening, at the time of incense, they bring the bowl out again 3. It may contain rather more than two pecks, and is of various colours, black predominating, with the seams that show its fourfold composition distinctly marked. Its thickness is about the fifth of an inch, and it has a bright and glossy lustre. When poor people throw into it a few flowers, it becomes immediately full, while some very rich people, wishing to make offering of many flowers, might not stop till they had thrown in hundreds, thousands, and myriads of bushels, and yet would not be able to fill it 5.

1 Watters, clearly understanding the thought of the author in this sentence, renders his destiny did not extend to a connexion with the bowl;' but the term 'destiny' suggests a controlling or directing power without. The king thought that his virtue in the past was not yet sufficient to give him possession of the bowl.

2 The text is simply 'those in white clothes.' This may mean 'the laity,' or the 'upâsakas;' but it is better to take the characters in their common Chinese acceptation, as meaning 'commoners,' 'men who have no rank.' See in Williams' Dictionary under

.

I do not wonder that Rémusat should give for this-'et s'en retournent après.' But Fâ-hien's use of in the sense of 'in the same way' is uniform throughout the narrative.

Hardy's M. B., p. 183, says: The alms-bowl, given by Mahâbrahma, having vanished (about the time that Gotama became Buddha), each of the four guardian deities brought him an alms-bowl of emerald, but he did not accept. them. They then brought four bowls made of stone, of the colour of the mung fruit; and when each entreated that his own bowl might be accepted, Buddha caused them to appear as if formed into a single bowl, appearing at the upper rim as if placed one within the other.' See the account more correctly given in the 'Buddhist Birth Stories,' p. 110.

Pâo-yun and Săng-king here merely made their offerings to the almsbowl, and (then resolved to) go back. Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and Tâoching had gone on before the rest to Nagâra1, to make their offerings at (the places of) Buddha's shadow, tooth, and the flat-bone of his skull. (There) Hwuy-king fell ill, and Tâo-ching remained to look after him, while Hwuy-tah came alone to Purushapura, and saw the others, and (then) he with Pâo-yun and Săng-king took their way back to the land of Ts'in. Hwuy-king2 came to his end3 in the monastery of Buddha's alms-bowl, and on this Fâ-hien went forward alone towards the place of the flat-bone of Buddha's skull.

CHAPTER XIII.

NAGARA. FESTIVAL OF BUDDHA'S SKULL-BONE.

HIS SHADOW.

OTHER RELICS, AND

GOING west for sixteen yojanas, he came to the city He-lo 5 in the borders of the country of Nagâra, where there is the flat-bone of Buddha's skull, deposited in a vihâra adorned all over with gold-leaf

1 See chapter viii.

6

2 This, no doubt, should be Hwuy-ying. King was at this time ill in Nagâra, and indeed afterwards he dies in crossing the Little Snowy Mountains; but all the texts make him die twice. The confounding of the two names has been pointed out by Chinese critics.

Came to his end;' i. e., according to the text, 'proved the impermanence and uncertainty,' namely, of human life. See Williams' Dictionary under 常 The phraseology is wholly Buddhistic.

* Now in India, Fâ-hien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was. The estimates of it are

more.

very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to seven, and sometimes See the subject exhaustively treated in Davids' Ceylon Coins and Measures,' pp. 15-17.

The present Hidda, west of Peshâwur, and five miles south of Jellalabad.

The vihâra,' says Hardy, is the residence of a recluse or priest;' and so Davidsthe clean little hut where the mendicant lives.' Our author, however, does not use the Indian name here, but the Chinese characters which express its meaning-tsing shay, 'a pure dwelling.' He uses the term occasionally, and

T

and the seven sacred substances. The king of the country, revering and honouring the bone, and anxious lest it should be stolen away, has selected eight individuals, representing the great families in the kingdom, and committed to each a seal, with which he should seal (its shrine) and guard (the relic). At early dawn these eight men come, and after each has inspected his seal, they open the door. This done, they wash their hands with scented water and bring out the bone, which they place outside the vihâra, on a lofty platform, where it is supported on a round pedestal of the seven precious substances, and covered with a bell of lapis lazuli, both adorned with rows of pearls. Its colour is of a yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches round1, curving upwards to the centre. Every day, after it has been brought forth, the keepers of the vihâra ascend a high gallery, where they beat great drums, blow conchs, and clash their copper cymbals. When the king hears them, he goes to the vihâra, and makes his offerings of flowers and incense. When he has done this, he (and his attendants) in order, one after another, (raise the bone), place it (for a moment) on the top of their heads2, and then depart, going out by the door on the west as they had entered by that on the east. The king every morning makes his offerings and performs his worship, and afterwards gives

evidently, in this sense; more frequently it occurs in his narrative in connexion with the Buddhist relic worship; and at first I translated it by 'shrine' and 'shrine-house;' but I came to the conclusion, at last, to employ always the Indian name. The first time I saw a shrine-house was, I think, in a monastery near Foo-chow;—a small pyramidal structure, about ten feet high, glittering as if with the precious substances, but all, it seemed to me, of tinsel. It was in a large apartment of the building, having many images in it. The monks said it was the most precious thing in their possession, and that if they opened it, as I begged them to do, there would be a convulsion that would destroy the whole establishment. See E. H., p. 166. The name of the province of Behar was given to it in consequence of its many vihâras. 1 According to the characters, 'square, round, four inches.' Hsüan-chwang says it was twelve inches round.

2 In Williams' Dictionary, under J, the characters, used here, are employed in the phrase for 'to degrade an officer,' that is, 'to remove the token of his rank worn on the crown of his head ;' but to place a thing on the crown is a Buddhistic form of religious homage.

audience on the business of his government. The chiefs of the Vaiśyas1 also make their offerings before they attend to their family affairs. Every day it is so, and there is no remissness in the observance of the custom. When all the offerings are over, they replace the bone in the vihâra, where there is a vimoksha tope 2, of the seven precious substances, and rather more than five cubits high, sometimes open, sometimes shut, to contain it. In front of the door of the vihâ ra, there are parties who every morning sell flowers and incense 3, and those who wish to make offerings buy some of all kinds. The kings of various countries are also constantly sending messengers with offerings. The vihâra stands in a square of thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth be rent, this place would not move.

Going on, north from this, for a yojana, (Fâ-hien) arrived at the capital of Nagâra, the place where the Bodhisattva once purchased with money five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the Dîpânkara Buddha1. In the midst of the city there is also the tope of Buddha's tooth, where offerings are made in the same way as to the flat-bone of his skull.

A yojana to the north-east of the city brought him to the mouth of a valley, where there is Buddha's pewter staff 5; and a vihâra also has

1 The Vaisyas, or bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are described here as ' resident scholars.'

2 See Eitel's Handbook under the name vimoksha, which is explained as 'the act of self-liberation,' and 'the dwelling or state of liberty.' There are eight acts of liberating one's self from all subjective and objective trammels, and as many states of liberty (vimukti) resulting therefrom. They are eight degrees of self-inanition, and apparently eight stages on the way to nirvâņa. The tope in the text would be emblematic in some way of the general idea of the mental progress conducting to the Buddhistic consummation of existence.

3 This incense would be in long sticks,' small and large, such as are sold to-day throughout China, as you enter the temples.

The illuminating Buddha,' the twenty-fourth predecessor of Śâkyamuni, and who, so long before, gave him the assurance that he would by-and-by be Buddha. See Jâtaka Tales, p. 23.

The staff was, as immediately appears, of Gośirsha Chandana, or 'sandal-wood from the Cow's-head mountain,' a species of copper-brown sandal