PURUSHAPURA, OR PESHAWUR. PROPHECY ABOUT KING KANISHKA AND HIS TOPE.
BUDDHA’S ALMS-BOWL. DEATH OF HWUY-YING.
Going southwards from Gandhara, (the travellers) in four days arrived
at the kingdom of Purushapura.(1) Formerly, when Buddha was travelling
in this country with his disciples, he said to Ananda,(2) “After my
pari-nirvâna,(3) there will be a king named Kanishka,(4) who shall on
this spot build a tope.” This Kanishka was afterwards born into the
world; and (once), when he had gone forth to look about him, Sakra,
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 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 Jambudvipa.(5) 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 Yueh-she(6)
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 go forward.
The king knew that the time for an association between himself and the
bowl had not yet arrived,(7) 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 people,(8)
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.(9) 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.(10) 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.(11)
Pao-yun and Sang-king here merely made their offerings to the
alms-bowl, and (then resolved to) go back. Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and
Tao-ching had gone on before the rest to Negara,(12) 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 Tao-ching remained to
look after him, while Hwuy-tah came alone to Purushapura, and saw the
others, and (then) he with Pao-yun and Sang-king took their way back to
the land of Ts’in. Hwuy-king(13) came to his end(14) 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.
NOTES
(1) The modern Peshawur, lat. 34° 8′ N., lon. 71° 30′ E.
(2) A first cousin of Sâkyamuni, and born at the moment when he
attained to Buddhaship. Under Buddha’s teaching, Ananda became an
Arhat, and is famous for his strong and accurate memory; and he played
an important part at the first council for the formation of the
Buddhist canon. The friendship between Sâkyamuni and Ananda was very
close and tender; and it is impossible to read much of what the dying
Buddha said to him and of him, as related in the Maha-pari-nirvâna
Sutra, without being moved almost to tears. Ananda is to reappear on
earth as Buddha in another Kalpa. See E. H., p. 9, and the Sacred Books
of the East, vol. xi.
(3) On his attaining to nirvâna, Sâkyamuni became the Buddha, and had
no longer to mourn his being within the circle of transmigration, and
could rejoice in an absolute freedom from passion, and a perfect
purity. Still he continued to live on for forty-five years, till he
attained to pari-nirvâna, and had done with all the life of sense and
society, and had no more exercise of thought. He died; but whether he
absolutely and entirely _ceased_ to be, in any sense of the word
_being_, it would be difficult to say. Probably he himself would not
and could not have spoken definitely on the point. So far as our use of
language is concerned, apart from any assured faith in and hope of
immortality, his pari-nirvâna was his death.
(4) Kanishka appeared, and began to reign, early in our first century,
about A.D. 10. He was the last of three brothers, whose original seat
was in Yueh-she, immediately mentioned, or Tukhara. Converted by the
sudden appearance of a saint, he became a zealous Buddhist, and
patronised the system as liberally as Asoka had done. The finest topes
in the north-west of India are ascribed to him; he was certainly a
great man and a magnificent sovereign.
(5) 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.
(6) 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 Tukhara,
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 Kanishak (E. H., p. 152).
(7) 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.
(8) The text is simply “those in white clothes.” This may mean “the
laity,” or the “upasakas;” 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 {.}.
(9) I do not wonder that Rémusat should give for this—“et s’en
retournent apres.” But Fâ-Hien’s use of {.} in the sense of “in the
same way” is uniform throughout the narrative.
(10) Hardy’s M. B., p. 183, says:—“The alms-bowl, given by Mahabrahma,
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.
(11) Compare the narrative in Luke’s Gospel, xxi. 1-4.
(12) See chapter viii.
(13) This, no doubt, should be Hwuy-ying. King was at this time ill in
Nagara, 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.
(14) “Came to his end;” i.e., according to the text, “proved the
impermanence and uncertainty,” namely, of human life. See Williams’
Dictionary under {.}. The phraseology is wholly Buddhistic.