~North India--Image of Maitreya Bodhisattva~
From this the travellers went westward towards North India, and after
being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting across and
through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests on them both
winter and summer. There are also among them venomous dragons, which,
when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of snow and
storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten thousand of those who
encounter these dangers escapes with his life. The people of the country
call the range by the name of "The Snow mountains." When the travellers
had got through them, they were in North India, and immediately on
entering its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called
T'oleih, where also there were many monks, all students of the hînayâna.
In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan, [1] who by his supernatural
power took a clever artificer up to the Tushita [2] heaven, to see the
height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva, [3] and then
return and make an image of him in wood. First and last, this was done
three times, and then the image was completed, eighty cubits in height,
and eight cubits at the base from knee to knee of the crossed legs. On
fast-days it emits an effulgent light. The kings of the surrounding
countries vie with one another in presenting offerings to it. Here it
is--to be seen now as of old.
[Footnote 1: Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat are all designations of the perfected
Ârya, the disciple who has passed the different stages of the Noble
Path, or eightfold excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is
not to be reborn again. Arhatship implies possession of certain
supernatural powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but
implies the fact of the saint having already attained Nirvâna.]
[Footnote 2: Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are
reborn before finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in
Tushita four thousand years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to
four hundred years on earth.]
[Footnote 3: Maitreya was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed, of
Sâkyamuni's retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary disciples,
nor is anything told of his antecedents. It was in the Tushita heaven
that Sâkyamuni met him and appointed him as his successor, to appear as
Buddha after the lapse of five thousand years. Maitreya is therefore the
expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing at present in Tushita.]