ON THE WAY BACK TO PATNA. VARANASI, OR BENARES. SAKYAMUNI’S FIRST
DOINGS AFTER BECOMING BUDDHA.
Fâ-Hien(1) returned (from here) towards Pataliputtra,(2) keeping along
the course of the Ganges and descending in the direction of the west.
After going ten yojanas he found a vihâra, named “The Wilderness,”—a
place where Buddha had dwelt, and where there are monks now.
Pursuing the same course, and going still to the west, he arrived,
after twelve yojanas, at the city of Varanasi(3) in the kingdom of
Kasi. Rather more than ten le to the north-east of the city, he found
the vihâra in the park of “The rishi’s Deer-wild.”(4) In this park
there formerly resided a Pratyeka Buddha,(5) with whom the deer were
regularly in the habit of stopping for the night. When the
World-honoured one was about to attain to perfect Wisdom, the devas
sang in the sky, “The son of king Suddhodana, having quitted his family
and studied the Path (of Wisdom),(6) will now in seven days become
Buddha.” The Pratyeka Buddha heard their words, and immediately
attained to nirvâna; and hence this place was named “The Park of the
rishi’s Deer-wild.”(7) After the World-honoured one had attained to
perfect Wisdom, men build the vihâra in it.
Buddha wished to convert Kaundinya(8) and his four companions; but
they, (being aware of his intention), said to one another, “This
Sramana Gotama(9) for six years continued in the practice of painful
austerities, eating daily (only) a single hemp-seed, and one grain of
rice, without attaining to the Path (of Wisdom); how much less will he
do so now that he has entered (again) among men, and is giving the
reins to (the indulgence of) his body, his speech, and his thoughts!
What has he to do with the Path (of Wisdom)? To-day, when he comes to
us, let us be on our guard not to speak with him.” At the places where
the five men all rose up, and respectfully saluted (Buddha), when he
came to them; where, sixty paces north from this, he sat with his face
to the east, and first turned the wheel of the Law, converting
Kaundinya and the four others; where, twenty paces further to the
north, he delivered his prophecy concerning Maitreya;(10) and where, at
a distance of fifty paces to the south, the dragon Elapattra(11) asked
him, “When shall I get free from this naga body?”—at all these places
topes were reared, and are still existing. In (the park) there are two
monasteries, in both of which there are monks residing.
When you go north-west from the vihâra of the Deer-wild park for
thirteen yojanas, there is a kingdom named Kausambi.(12) Its vihâra is
named Ghochiravana(13)—a place where Buddha formerly resided. Now, as
of old, there is a company of monks there, most of whom are students of
the hinayana.
East from (this), when you have travelled eight yojanas, is the place
where Buddha converted(14) the evil demon. There, and where he walked
(in meditation) and sat at the place which was his regular abode, there
have been topes erected. There is also a monastery, which may contain
more than a hundred monks.
NOTES
(1) Fâ-Hien is here mentioned singly, as in the account of his visit to
the cave on Gridhra-kuta. I think that Tao-ching may have remained at
Patna after their first visit to it.
(2) See chap. xxvii, note 1.
(3) “The city surrounded by rivers;” the modern Benares, lat. 25° 23′
N., lon. 83° 5′ E.
(4) “The rishi,” says Eitel, “is a man whose bodily frame has undergone
a certain transformation by dint of meditation and ascetism, so that he
is, for an indefinite period, exempt from decrepitude, age, and death.
As this period is believed to extend far beyond the usual duration of
human life, such persons are called, and popularly believed to be,
immortals.” Rishis are divided into various classes; and rishi-ism is
spoken of as a seventh part of transrotation, and rishis are referred
to as the seventh class of sentient beings. Taoism, as well as
Buddhism, has its Seen jin.
(5) See chap. xiii, note 15.
(6) See chap. xxii, note 2.
(7) For another legend about this park, and the identification of “a
fine wood” still existing, see note in Beal’s first version, p. 135.
(8) A prince of Magadha and a maternal uncle of Sâkyamuni, who gave him
the name of Ajnata, meaning automat; and hence he often appears as
Ajnata Kaundinya. He and his four friends had followed Sâkyamuni into
the Uruvilva desert, sympathising with him in the austerities he
endured, and hoping that they would issue in his Buddhaship. They were
not aware that that issue had come; which may show us that all the
accounts in the thirty-first chapter are merely descriptions, by means
of external imagery, of what had taken place internally. The kingdom of
nirvâna had come without observation. These friends knew it not; and
they were offended by what they considered Sâkyamuni’s failure, and the
course he was now pursuing. See the account of their conversion in M.
B., p. 186.
(9) This is the only instance in Fâ-Hien’s text where the Bodhisattva
or Buddha is called by the surname “Gotama.” For the most part our
traveller uses Buddha as a proper name, though it properly means “The
Enlightened.” He uses also the combinations “Sakya Buddha,”=“The Buddha
of the Sakya tribe,” and “Sâkyamuni,”=“The Sakya sage.” This last is
the most common designation of the Buddha in China, and to my mind best
combines the characteristics of a descriptive and a proper name. Among
other Buddhistic peoples “Gotama” and “Gotama Buddha” are the more
frequent designations. It is not easy to account for the rise of the
surname Gotama in the Sakya family, as Oldenberg acknowledges. He says
that “the Sakyas, in accordance with the custom of Indian noble
families, had borrowed it from one of the ancient Vedic bard families.”
Dr. Davids (“Buddhism,” p. 27) says: “The family name was certainly
Gautama,” adding in a note, “It is a curious fact that Gautama is still
the family name of the Rajput chiefs of Nagara, the village which has
been identified with Kapilavastu.” Dr. Eitel says that “Gautama was the
sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, which counted the ancient rishi
Gautama among its ancestors.” When we proceed, however, to endeavour to
trace the connexion of that Brahmanical rishi with the Sakya house, by
means of 1323, 1468, 1469, and other historical works in Nanjio’s
Catalogue, we soon find that Indian histories have no surer foundation
than the shifting sand;—see E. H., on the name Sakya, pp. 108, 109. We
must be content for the present simply to accept Gotama as one of the
surnames of the Buddha with whom we have to do.
(10) See chap. vi, note 5. It is there said that the prediction of
Maitreya’s succession to the Buddhaship was made to him in the Tushita
heaven. Was there a repetition of it here in the Deer-park, or was a
prediction now given concerning something else?
(11) Nothing seems to be known of this naga but what we read here.
(12) Identified by some with Kusia, near Kurrah (lat. 25° 41′ N., lon.
81° 27′ E.); by others with Kosam on the Jumna, thirty miles above
Allahabad. See E. H., p. 55.
(13) Ghochira was the name of a Vaisya elder, or head, who presented a
garden and vihâra to Buddha. Hardy (M. B., p. 356) quotes a statement
from a Singhalese authority that Sâkyamuni resided here during the
ninth year of his Buddhaship.
(14) Dr. Davids thinks this may refer to the striking and beautiful
story of the conversion of the Yakkha Alavaka, as related in the
Uragavagga, Alavakasutta, pp. 29-31 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. x,
part ii).