WOO-CHANG, OR UDYÂNA. MONASTERIES, AND THEIR WAYS. TRACES OF BUDDHA.
After crossing the river, (the travellers) immediately came to the
kingdom of Woo-chang,[1] which is indeed (a part) of North India. The
people all use the language of Central India, ‘Central India’ being
what we should call the ‘Middle Kingdom.’ The food and clothes of
the common people are the same as in that Central Kingdom. The Law of
Buddha is very (flourishing in Woo-chang). They call the places where
the monks stay (for a time) or reside permanently Saṅghârâmas;[2] and
of these there are in all 500, the monks being all students of the
hînayâna. When stranger bhikshus[3] arrive at one of them, their
wants are supplied for three days, after which they are told to find a
resting-place for themselves.
There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he came at
once to this country, and that here he left a print of his foot,
which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder (on
the subject). It exists, and the same thing is true about it, at the
present day. Here also are still to be seen the rock on which he dried
his clothes, and the place where he converted the wicked dragon.[4]
The rock is fourteen cubits high, and more than twenty broad, with one
side of it smooth.
Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and Tâo-ching went on ahead towards (the place
of) Buddha’s shadow in the country of Nagâra;[5] but Fâ-hien and the
others remained in Woo-chang, and kept the summer retreat.[6]
That over, they descended south, and arrived in the country of
Soo-ho-to.[7]
NOTES
[1] Udyâna, meaning ‘the Park;’ just north of the Punjâb, the country
along the Subhavastu, now called the Swat; noted for its forests,
flowers, and fruits (E. H., p. 153).
[2] See chap. iii note 6.
[3] Bhikshu is the name for a monk as ‘living by alms,’ a mendicant.
All bhikshus call themselves Śramans. Sometimes the two names are used
together by our author.
[4] Nâga is the Sanskrit name for the Chinese lung or dragon; often
meaning a snake, especially the boa. ‘Chinese Buddhists,’ says Eitel,
p. 79, ‘when speaking of nâgas as boa spirits, always represent them
as enemies of mankind, but when viewing them as deities of rivers,
lakes, or oceans, they describe them as piously inclined.’ The dragon,
however, is in China the symbol of the Sovereign and Sage, a use of it
unknown in Buddhism, according to which all nâgas need to be converted
in order to obtain a higher phase of being. The use of the character
too (度), as here, in the sense of ‘to convert,’ is entirely
Buddhistic. The six pâramitâs are the six virtues which carry
men across (度) the great sea of life and death, as the sphere of
transmigration to nirvâṇa. With regard to the particular conversion
here, Eitel (p. 11) says the Nâga’s name was Apatâla, the guardian
deity of the Subhavastu river, and that he was converted by Śâkyamuni
shortly before the death of the latter.
[5] In Chinese Na-kʽeeh, an ancient kingdom and city on the southern
bank of the Cabul river, about thirty miles west of Jellalabad.
[6] We would seem now to be in 403.
[7] Soo-ho-to has not been clearly identified. Beal says that later
Buddhist writers include it in Udyâna. It must have been between the
Indus and the Swat. I suppose it was what we now call Swastene.