VAIŚÂLÎ. THE TOPE CALLED ‘WEAPONS LAID DOWN.’ THE COUNCIL OF VAIŚÂLÎ.
East from this city ten yojanas, (the travellers) came to the kingdom
of Vaiśâlî. North of the city so named is a large forest, having in it
the double-galleried vihâra[1] where Buddha dwelt, and the tope over
half the body of Ânanda.[2] Inside the city the woman Âmbapâlî[3]
built a vihâra in honour of Buddha, which is now standing as it was at
first. Three le south of the city, on the west of the road, (is the)
garden (which) the same Âmbapâlî presented to Buddha, in which he
might reside. When Buddha was about to attain to his pari-nirvâṇa,
as he was quitting the city by the west gate, he turned round, and,
beholding the city on his right, said to them, ‘Here I have taken my
last walk.’[4] Men subsequently built a tope at this spot.
Three le north-west of the city there is a tope called, ‘Bows and
weapons laid down.’ The reason why it got that name was this:—The
inferior wife of a king, whose country lay along the river Ganges,
brought forth from her womb a ball of flesh. The superior wife,
jealous of the other, said, ‘You have brought forth a thing of evil
omen,’ and immediately it was put into a box of wood and thrown
into the river. Farther down the stream another king was walking and
looking about, when he saw the wooden box (floating) in the water. (He
had it brought to him), opened it, and found a thousand little boys,
upright and complete, and each one different from the others. He
took them and had them brought up. They grew tall and large, and very
daring, and strong, crushing all opposition in every expedition which
they undertook. By-and-by they attacked the kingdom of their real
father, who became in consequence greatly distressed and sad. His
inferior wife asked what it was that made him so, and he replied,
‘That king has a thousand sons, daring and strong beyond compare, and
he wishes with them to attack my kingdom; this is what makes me sad.’
The wife said, ‘You need not be sad and sorrowful. Only make a high
gallery on the wall of the city on the east; and when the thieves
come, I shall be able to make them retire.’ The king did as she said;
and when the enemies came, she said to them from the tower, ‘You are
my sons; why are you acting so unnaturally and rebelliously?’ They
replied, ‘If you do not believe me,’ she said, ‘look, all of you,
towards me, and open your mouths.’ She then pressed her breasts with
her two hands, and each sent forth 500 jets of milk, which fell into
the mouths of the thousand sons. The thieves (thus) knew that she was
their mother, and laid down their bows and weapons.[5] The two kings,
the fathers, thereupon fell into reflection, and both got to be
Pratyeka Buddhas.[6] The tope of the two Pratyeka Buddhas is still
existing.
In a subsequent age, when the World-honoured one had attained to
perfect Wisdom (and become Buddha), he said to is disciples, ‘This is
the place where I in a former age laid down my bow and weapons.’[7] It
was thus that subsequently men got to know (the fact), and raised the
tope on this spot, which in this way received its name. The thousand
little boys were the thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa.[8]
It was by the side of the ‘Weapons laid down’ tope that Buddha, having
given up the idea of living longer, said to Ânanda, ‘In three months
from this I will attain to pavi-nirvâṇa;’ and king Mâra[9] had so
fascinated and stupefied Ânanda, that he was not able to ask Buddha to
remain longer in this world.
Three or four le east from this place there is a tope (commemorating
the following occurrence):—A hundred years after the pari-nirvâṇa
of Buddha, some Bhikshus of Vaiśâlî went wrong in the matter of
the disciplinary rules in ten particulars, and appealed for their
justification to what they said were the words of Buddha. Hereupon the
Arhats and Bhikshus observant of the rules, to the number in all of
700 monks, examined afresh and collated the collection of disciplinary
books.[10] Subsequently men built at this place the tope (in
question), which is still existing.
NOTES
[1] It is difficult to tell what was the peculiar form of this vihâra
from which it gets its name; something about the construction of its
door, or cupboards, or galleries.
[2] See the explanation of this in the next chapter.
[3] Âmbapâlî, Âmrapâlî, or Âmradarikâ, ‘the guardian of the Âmra
(probably the mango) tree,’ is famous in Buddhist annals. See the
account of her in M. B., pp. 456–8. She was a courtesan. She had
been in many narakas or hells, was 100,000 times a female beggar, and
10,000 times a prostitute; but maintaining perfect continence during
the period of Kâśyapa Buddha, Śâkyamuni’s predecessor, she had been
born a devi, and finally appeared in earth under an Âmra tree in
Vaiśâlî. There again she fell into her old ways, and had a son by
king Bimbisâra; but she was won over by Buddha to virtue and chastity,
renounced the world, and attained to the state of an Ârhat. See the
earliest account of Âmbapâlî’s presentation of the garden in ‘Buddhist
Suttas,’ pp. 30–33, and the note there from Bishop Bigandet on pp. 33,
34.
[4] Beal gives, ‘In this place I have performed the last religious act
of my earthly career;’ Giles, ‘This is the last place I shall visit;’
Rémusat, ‘C’est un lieu où je reviendrai bien longtemps après ceci.’
Perhaps the ‘walk’ to which Buddha referred had been for meditation.
[5] See the account of this legend in the note in M. B., pp. 235, 236,
different, but not less absurd. The first part of Fâ-hien’s narrative
will have sent the thoughts of some of my readers to the exposure of
the infant Moses, as related in Exodus.
[6] See chap. xiii, note 15.
[7] Thus Śâkyamuni had been one of the thousand little boys who
floated in the box in the Ganges. How long back the former age was we
cannot tell. I suppose the tope of the two fathers who became Pratyeka
Buddhas had been built like the one commemorating the laying down of
weapons after Buddha had told his disciples of the strange events in
the past.
[8] Bhadra-kalpa, ‘the Kalpa of worthies or sages.’ ‘This,’ says
Eitel, p. 22, ‘is a designation for a Kalpa of stability, so called
because 1000 Buddhas appear in the course of it. Our present period is
a Bhadra-kalpa, and four Buddhas have already appeared. It is to last
236 million years, but over 151 millions have already elapsed.’
[9] ‘The king of demons.’ The name Mâra is explained by ‘the
murderer,’ ‘the destroyer of virtue,’ and similar appellations. ‘He
is,’ says Eitel, ‘the personification of lust, the god of love,
sin, and death, the arch-enemy of goodness, residing in the heaven
Paranirmita Vaśavartin on the top of the Kâmadhâtu. He assumes
different forms, especially monstrous ones, to tempt or frighten the
saints, or sends his daughters, or inspires wicked men like Devadatta
or the Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100
arms, and riding on an elephant.’ The oldest form of the legend in
this paragraph is in ‘Buddhist Suttas,’ Sacred Books of the East, vol.
xi, pp. 41–55, where Buddha says that, if Ânanda had asked him thrice,
he would have postponed his death.
[10] Or the Vinaya-piṭaka. The meeting referred to was an important
one, and is generally spoken of as the second Great Council of the
Buddhist Church. See, on the formation of the Buddhist Canon, Hardy’s
E. M., chap. xviii, and the last chapter of Davids’ Manual, on the
History of the Order. The first Council was that held at Râjagṛiha,
shortly after Buddha’s death, under the presidency of Kâśyapa;—say
about B.C. 410. The second was that spoken of here;—say about B.C.
300. In Davids’ Manual (p. 216) we find the ten points of discipline,
in which the heretics (I can use that term here) claimed at least
indulgence. Two meetings were held to consider and discuss them.
At the former the orthodox party barely succeeded in carrying their
condemnation of the laxer monks; and a second and larger meeting, of
which Fâ-hien speaks, was held in consequence, and a more emphatic
condemnation passed. At the same time all the books and subjects of
discipline seem to have undergone a careful revision.
The Corean text is clearer than the Chinese as to those who composed
the Council,—the Arhats and orthodox monks. The leader among them was
a Yaśas, or Yaśada, or Yedśaputtra, who had been a disciple of Ânanda,
and must therefore have been a very old man.