THE ŚRATAPARṆA CAVE, OR CAVE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL. LEGENDS. SUICIDE OF
A BHIKSHU.
Out from the old city, after walking over 300 paces, on the west of
the road, (the travellers) found the Karaṇḍa Bamboo garden,[1] where
the (old) vihâra is still in existence, with a company of monks, who
keep (the ground about it) swept and watered.
North of the vihâra two or three le there was the Śmaśânam, which
name means in Chinese ‘the field of graves into which the dead are
thrown.’[2]
As they kept along the mountain on the south, and went west for
300 paces, they found a dwelling among the rocks, named the Pippala
cave,[3] in which Buddha regularly sat in meditation after taking his
(midday) meal.
Going on still to the west for five or six le, on the north of the
hill, in the shade, they found the cavern called Śrataparṇa,[4] the
place where, after the nirvâṇa[5] of Buddha, 500 Arhats collected the
Sûtras. When they brought the Sûtras forth, three lofty seats[6] had
been prepared and grandly ornamented. Śâriputtra occupied the one on
the left, and Maudgalyâyana that on the right. Of the number of five
hundred one was wanting. Mahâkaśyapa was president (on the middle
seat). Ânanda was then outside the door, and could not get in.[7]
At the place there was (subsequently) raised a tope, which is still
existing.
Along (the sides of) the hill, there are also a very great many cells
among the rocks, where the various Arhans sat and meditated. As you
leave the old city on the north, and go down east for three le, there
is the rock dwelling of Devadatta, and at a distance of fifty paces
from it there is a large, square, black rock. Formerly there was a
bhikshu, who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon it, thought
with himself:—‘This body[8] is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and
vanity,[9] and which cannot be looked on as pure.[10] I am weary of
this body, and troubled by it as an evil.’ With this he grasped a
knife, and was about to kill himself. But he thought again:—‘The
World-honoured one laid down a prohibition against one’s killing
himself.’[11] Further it occurred to him:—‘Yes, he did; but I now
only wish to kill three poisonous thieves.’[12] Immediately with
the knife he cut his throat. With the first gash into the flesh he
attained the state of a Śrotâpanna;[13] when he had gone half through,
he attained to be an Anâgâmin;[14] and when he had cut right through,
he was an Ârhat, and attained to pari-nirvâṇa;[15] (and died).
NOTES
[1] Karaṇḍa Veṇuvana; a park presented to Buddha by king Bimbisâra,
who also built a vihâra in it. See the account of the transaction in
M. B., p. 194. The place was called Karaṇḍa, from a creature so named,
which awoke the king just as a snake was about to bite him, and thus
saved his life. In Hardy the creature appears as a squirrel, but Eitel
says that the Karaṇḍa is a bird of a sweet voice, resembling a magpie,
but herding in flocks; the cuculus melanoleucus. See ‘Buddhist Birth
Stories,’ p. 118.
[2] The language here is rather contemptuous, as if our author had no
sympathy with any other mode of disposing of the dead, but by his own
Buddhistic method of cremation.
[3] The Chinese characters used for the name of this cavern serve also
to name the pippala (peepul) tree, the ficus religiosa. They make us
think that there was such a tree overshadowing the cave; but Fâ-hien
would hardly have neglected to mention such a circumstance.
[4] A very great place in the annals of Buddhism. The Council in the
Śrataparṇa cave did not come together fortuitously, but appears
to have been convoked by the older members to settle the rules and
doctrines of the order. The cave was prepared for the occasion by
king Ajâtaśatru. From the expression about the ‘bringing forth of the
King,’ it would seem that the Sûtras or some of them had been already
committed to writing. May not the meaning of King (經) here be extended
to the Vinaya rules, as well as the sûtras, and mean ‘the standards’
of the system generally? See Davids’ Manual, chapter ix, and Sacred
Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, pp. 370–385.
[5] So in the text, evidently for pari-nirvâṇa.
[6] Instead of ‘high’ seats, the Chinese texts have ‘vacant.’ The
character for ‘prepared’ denotes ‘spread;’—they were carpeted;
perhaps, both cushioned and carpeted, being rugs spread on the ground,
raised higher than the other places for seats.
[7] Did they not contrive to let him in, with some cachinnation, even
in so august an assembly, that so important a member should have been
shut out?
[8] ‘The life of this body’ would, I think, fairly express the idea of
the bhikshu.
[9] See the account of Buddha’s preaching in chapter xviii.
[10] The sentiment of this clause is not easily caught.
[11] See E. M., p. 152:—‘Buddha made a law forbidding the monks to
commit suicide. He prohibited any one from discoursing on the miseries
of life in such a manner as to cause desperation.’ See also M. B., pp.
464, 465.
[12] Beal says:—‘Evil desire; hatred; ignorance.’
[13] See chap. xx, note 10
[14] The Anâgâmin belong to the third degree of Buddhistic saintship,
the third class of Âryas (chap. xx, note 10), who are no more liable
to be reborn as men, but are to be born once more as devas, when they
will forthwith become Arhats, and attain to nirvâṇa. E. H., pp. 8, 9.
[15] Our author expresses no opinion of his own on the act of this
bhikshu. Must it not have been a good act, when it was attended, in
the very act of performance, by such blessed consequences? But if
Buddhism had not something better to show than what appears here,
it would not attract the interest which it now does. The bhikshu
was evidently rather out of his mind; and the verdict of a coroner’s
inquest of this nineteenth century would have pronounced that he
killed himself ‘in a fit of insanity.’
[Illustration: IV. BUDDHA IN SOLITUDE AND ENDURING AUSTERITIES.]