TAKSHASILA. LEGENDS. THE FOUR GREAT TOPES.
Seven days’ journey from this to the east brought the travellers to the
kingdom of Takshasila,(1) which means “the severed head” in the
language of China. Here, when Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave away
his head to a man;(2) and from this circumstance the kingdom got its
name.
Going on further for two days to the east, they came to the place where
the Bodhisattva threw down his body to feed a starving tigress.(2) In
these two places also large topes have been built, both adorned with
layers of all the precious substances. The kings, ministers, and
peoples of the kingdoms around vie with one another in making offerings
at them. The trains of those who come to scatter flowers and light
lamps at them never cease. The nations of those quarters all those (and
the other two mentioned before) “the four great topes.”
NOTES
(1) See Julien’s “Methode pour dechiffrer et transcrire les Nomes
Sanscrits,” p. 206. Eitel says, “The Taxila of the Greeks, the region
near Hoosun Abdaul in lat. 35° 48′ N., lon. 72° 44′ E.” But this
identification, I am satisfied, is wrong. Cunningham, indeed, takes
credit (“Ancient Geography of India,” pp. 108, 109) for determining
this to be the site of Arrian’s Taxila,—in the upper Punjâb, still
existing in the ruins of Shahdheri, between the Indus and Hydaspes (the
modern Jhelum). So far he may be correct; but the Takshasila of Fâ-Hien
was on the other, or western side of the Indus; and between the river
and Gandhara. It took him, indeed, seven days travelling eastwards to
reach it; but we do not know what stoppages he may have made on the
way. We must be wary in reckoning distances from his specifications of
days.
(2) Two Jataka stories. See the account of the latter in Spence Hardy’s
“Manual of Buddhism,” pp. 91, 92. It took place when Buddha had been
born as a Brahman in the village of Daliddi; and from the merit of the
act, he was next born in a devaloka.