been built at which offerings are made. The staff is made of Gośîrsha Chandana, and is quite sixteen or seventeen cubits long. It is contained in a wooden tube, and though a hundred or a thousand men were to (try to) lift it, they could not move it.

Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha's Sanghâli1, where also there is reared a vihâra, and offerings are made. It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it, and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain from the sky.

South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great hill fronting the south-west; and here it was that Buddha left his shadow. Looking at it from a distance of more than ten paces, you seem to see Buddha's real form, with his complexion of gold, and his characteristic marks 2 in their nicety clearly and brightly displayed. The nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes, as if it were only in your fancy, When the kings from the regions all around have sent skilful artists to take a copy, none of them have been able to do so. Among the people of the country there is a saying current that 'the thousand Buddhas3 must all leave their shadows here.'

Rather more than four hundred paces west from the shadow, when Buddha was at the spot, he shaved off his hair and clipt his nails, and proceeded, along with his disciples, to build a tope seventy or eighty

wood, said to be produced most abundantly on a mountain of (the fabulous. continent) Ullarakuru, north of mount Meru, which resembles in shape the head of a cow (E. H., pp. 42, 43). It is called a 'pewter staff' from having on it a head and rings of pewter. See Watters, China Review,' viii, pp. 227, 228, and Williams' Dictionary, under .

1 Or Sanghâți, the double or composite robe, part of a monk's attire, reaching from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round the waist (E. H., p. 118).

2 These were the marks and beauties' on the person of a supreme Buddha. The rishi Kalâ Devala saw them on the body of the infant Śâkya prince to the number of 328, those on the teeth, which had not yet come out, being visible to his spirit-like eyes (M. B., pp. 148, 149).

cubits high, to be a model for all future topes; and it is still existing. By the side of it there is a monastery, with more than seven hundred monks in it. At this place there are as many as a thousand topes1 of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas 2.

CHAPTER XIV.

DEATH OF HWUY-KING IN THE LITTLE SNOWY MOUNTAINS. LO-E. ΡΟΗΝΑ. CROSSING THE INDUS TO THE EAST.

HAVING stayed there till the third month of winter, Fâ-hien and the two others, proceeding southwards, crossed the Little Snowy mountains*. On them the snow lies accumulated both winter and summer. On the north (side) of the mountains, in the shade, they suddenly encountered a cold wind which made them shiver and become unable to speak. Hwuyking could not go any farther. A white froth came from his mouth,

1 The number may appear too great. topes in note 1, page 17.

But see what is said on the size of

2 In Singhalese, Pasê Buddhas; called also Nidâna Buddhas, and Pratyeka Jinas, and explained by individually intelligent,' 'completely intelligent,' 'intelligent as regards the nidânas.' This, says Eitel (pp. 96, 97), is 'a degree of saintship unknown to primitive Buddhism, denoting automats in ascetic life who attain to Buddhaship "individually," that is, without a teacher, and without being able to save others. As the ideal hermit, the Praty eka Buddha is compared with the rhinoceros khadga that lives lonely in the wilderness. He is also called Nidâna Buddha, as having mastered the twelve nidânas (the twelve links in the everlasting chain of cause and effect in the whole range of existence, the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of all forms of existence, and preparing the mind for nirvâna). He is also compared to a horse, which, crossing a river, almost buries its body under the water, without, however, touching the bottom of the river. Thus in crossing samsâra he "suppresses the errors of life and thought, and the effects of habit and passion, without attaining to absolute perfection." Whether these Buddhas were unknown, as Eitel says, to primitive Buddhism, may be doubted. See Davids' Hibbert Lectures, p. 146.

4

These must have been Tâo-ching and Hwuy-king.

• Probably the Safeid Koh, and on the way to the Kohat pass.

and he said to Fâ-hien, I cannot live any longer. Do you immediately go away, that we do not all die here;' and with these words he died1. Fâ-hien stroked the corpse, and cried out piteously, 'Our original plan has failed; it is fate 2. What can we do?' He then again exerted himself, and they succeeded in crossing to the south of the range, and arrived in the kingdom of Lo-e3, where there were nearly three thousand monks, students of both the mahâyâna and hînayâna. Here they stayed for the summer retreat, and when that was over, they went on to the south, and ten days' journey brought them to the kingdom of Poh-nâ 5, where there are also more than three thousand monks, all students of the hînayâna. Proceeding from this place for three days, they again crossed the Indus, where the country on each side was low and level 6.

BHIDA.

CHAPTER XV.

SYMPATHY OF MONKS WITH THE PILGRIMS.

AFTER they had crossed the river, there was a country named Pe-t'oo', where Buddhism was very flourishing, and (the monks) studied both the mahâyâna and hînayâna. When they saw their fellowdisciples from Ts'in passing along, they were moved with great pity and sympathy, and expressed themselves thus: How is it that these men

1 All the texts have Hwuy-king. See note 2, page 36.

A very natural exclamation, but out of place and inconsistent from the lips. of Fâ-hien. The Chinese character, which he employed, may be rendered rightly by 'fate' or ' destiny;' but the fate is not unintelligent. The term implies a factor, or fa-tor, and supposes the ordination of Heaven or God. A Confucian idea for the moment overcame his Buddhism.

Lo-e, or Rohî, is a name for Afghanistan; but only a portion of it can be here intended.

We are now therefore in 404.

No doubt the present district of Bannu, in the Lieutenant-Governorship of the Punjab, between 32° 10' and 33° 15′ N. lat., and 70° 26' and 72° E. lon. See Hunter's Gazetteer of India, i, p. 393.

They had done so, indeed, twice: first,

and second, as described in chap. vii.

• They had then crossed the Indus before. from north to south, at Skardo or east of it; Bhida. Eitel says, 'The present Punjâb;' i.e. it was a portion of that.

g

from a border-land should have learned to become monks 1, and come for the sake of our doctrines from such a distance in search of the Law of Buddha?' They supplied them with what they needed, and treated them in accordance with the rules of the Law.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON TO MATHURÂ OR MUTTRA. CONDITION AND CUSTOMS OF CENTRAL INDIA; OF THE MONKS, VIHÂRAS, AND MONASTERIES.

FROM this place they travelled south-east, passing by a succession of very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks, who might be counted by myriads. After passing all these places, they came to a country named Ma-t'âou-lo2. They still followed the course of the P'oo-na3 river, on the banks of which, left and right, there were twenty monasteries, which might contain three thousand monks; and (here) the Law of Buddha was still more flourishing. Everywhere, from the Sandy Desert, in all the countries of India, the kings had been firm believers in that Law. When they make their offerings to a community of monks, they take off their royal caps, and along with their relatives and ministers, supply them with food with their own hands. That done, (the king) has a carpet spread for himself on the ground, and sits down on it in front of the chairman ;—they dare not presume to sit on couches in front of the community. The laws and ways, according to which the kings presented their offerings when Buddha was in the world, have been handed down to the present day.

All south from this is named the Middle Kingdom 4. In it the cold and heat are finely tempered, and there is neither hoarfrost nor snow. The people are numerous and happy; they have not to register their households, or attend to any magistrates and their rules; only those who

1 'To come forth from their families;' that is, to become celibates, and adopt the tonsure.

2 Muttra, 'the peacock city;' lat. 27° 30′ N., lon. 77° 43′E. (Hunter); the birthplace of Krishna, whose emblem is the peacock.

3 This must be the Jumna, or Yamunâ. Why it is called, as here, the P'oo-na has yet to be explained.

In Pâli, Majjhima-desa, 'the Middle Country.' See Davids' Buddhist Birth Stories,' page 61, note.

cultivate the royal land have to pay (a portion of) the gain from it. If they want to go, they go; if they want to stay on, they stay. The king governs without decapitation or (other) corporal punishments. Criminals are simply fined, lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances (of each case). Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, they only have their right hands cut off. The king's body-guards and attendants all have salaries. Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic. The only exception is that of the Chanḍâlas1. That is the name for those who are (held to be) wicked men, and live apart from others. When they enter the gate of a city or a market-place, they strike a piece of wood to make themselves known, so that men know and avoid them, and do not come into contact with them. In that country they do not keep pigs and fowls, and do not sell live cattle; in the markets there are no butchers' shops and no dealers in intoxicating drink. In buying and selling commodities they use cowries 2. Only the Chanḍâlas are fishermen and hunters, and sell flesh meat.

After Buddha attained to pari-nirvâņa the kings of the various countries and the heads of the Vaiśyas built vihâras for the priests, and endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident populations and their cattle, the grants being engraved on plates of metal, so that afterwards they were handed down from king to king, without any one daring to annul them, and they remain even to the present time.

1 Eitel (pp. 145, 6) says, 'The name Chanḍâlas is explained by "butchers," wicked men," and those who carry "the awful flag," to warn off their betters ;— the lowest and most despised caste of India, members of which, however, when converted, were admitted even into the ranks of the priesthood.'

26

Cowries;', not 'shells and ivory,' as one might suppose; but cowries alone, the second term entering into the name from the marks inside the edge of the shell, resembling the teeth of fishes.'

3 See note 3, page 33, Buddha's pari-nirvâna is equivalent to Buddha's death.

4

• See note 1, page 38. The order of the characters is different here, but with the same meaning.

See the preparation of such a deed of grant in a special case, as related in chap. xxxix. No doubt in Fâ-hien's time, and long before and after it, it was the custom to engrave such deeds on plates of metal.