PURUSHAPURA, OR PESHÂWAR. PROPHECY ABOUT KING KANISHKA AND HIS TOPE.
BUDDHA’S ALMS-BOWL. DEATH OF HWUY-YING.
Going southwards from Gandhâra, (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 Ânanda,[2] ‘After my
pari-nirvâṇa,[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, Śakra,
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 Jambudvîpa.[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 Yüeh-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 wagon 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]
Pâo-yun and Săng-king here merely made their offerings to the
alms-bowl, and (then resolved to) go back. Hwuy-king, Hwuy-tah, and
Tâo-ching had gone on before the rest to Nagâra,[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 Tâo-ching remained to
look after him, while Hwuy-tah came alone to Purushapura, and saw the
others, and (then) he with Pâo-yun and Săng-king took their way
back to the land of Tsʽin. 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 Peshâwar, lat. 34° 8′ N., lon. 71° 30′ E.
[2] A first cousin of Śâkyamuni, and born at the moment when he
attained to Buddhaship. Under Buddha’s teaching, Ânanda 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 Śâkyamuni and Ânanda 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 Mahâ-pari-nirvâṇa
sûtra, without being moved almost to tears. Ânanda 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 nirvâṇa, Śâkyamuni 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-nirvâṇa, 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-nirvâṇa 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 Yüeh-she, immediately mentioned, or Tukhâra. Converted by
the sudden appearance of a saint, he became a zealous Buddhist, and
patronised the system as liberally as Aśoka 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] Jambudvîpa 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 Tukhâra,
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 ‘upâsakas;’ 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 白.
[9] I do not wonder that Rémusat should give for this—‘et s’en
retournent après.’ But Fâ-hien’s use of 爾 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
Mahâbrahma, 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 Nagâra, 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 常. The phraseology is wholly Buddhistic.