~Festival of Buddha's Skull-bone~
Going west for sixteen yojanas, [1] he came to the city He-lo [2] in the
borders of the country of Nagâra, where there is the flat-bone of
Buddha's skull, deposited in a vihâra [3] adorned all over with
gold-leaf and the seven sacred substances. The king of the country,
revering and honoring the bone, and anxious lest it should be stolen
away, has selected eight individuals, representing the great families in
the kingdom, and committed to each a seal, with which he should seal its
shrine and guard the relic. At early dawn these eight men come, and
after each has inspected his seal, they open the door. This done, they
wash their hands with scented water and bring out the bone, which they
place outside the vihâra, on a lofty platform, where it is supported on
a round pedestal of the seven precious substances, and covered with a
bell of lapis lazuli, both adorned with rows of pearls. Its color is of
a yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches round,
curving upwards to the centre. Every day, after it has been brought
forth, the keepers of the vihâra ascend a high gallery, where they beat
great drums, blow conches, and clash their copper cymbals. When the king
hears them, he goes to the vihâra, and makes his offerings of flowers
and incense. When he has done this, he and his attendants in order, one
after another, raise the bone, place it for a moment on the top of their
heads, and then depart, going out by the door on the west as they had
entered by that on the east. The king every morning makes his offerings
and performs his worship, and afterwards gives audience on the business
of his government. The chiefs of the Vaisyas [4] also make their
offerings before they attend to their family affairs. Every day it is
so, and there is no remissness in the observance of the custom. When all
of the offerings are over, they replace the bone in the vihâra, where
there is a vimoksha tope, of the seven precious substances, and rather
more than five cubits high, sometimes open, sometimes shut, to contain
it. In front of the door of the vihâra, there are parties who every
morning sell flowers and incense, and those who wish to make offerings
buy some of all kinds. The kings of various countries are also
constantly sending messengers with offerings. The vihâra stands in a
square of thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth be
rent, this place would not move.
Going on, north from this, for a yojana, Fâ-hien arrived at the capital
of Nagâra, the place where the Bodhisattva once purchased with money
five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the Dipânkara Buddha. In the
midst of the city there is also the tope of Buddha's tooth, where
offerings are made in the same way as to the flat-bone of his skull.
A yojana to the northeast of the city brought him to the mouth of a
valley, where there is Buddha's pewter staff; and a vihâra also has been
built at which offerings are made. The staff is made of Gosirsha
Chandana, and is quite sixteen or seventeen cubits long. It is contained
in a wooden tube, and though a hundred or a thousand men were to try to
lift it, they could not move it.
Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha's
Sanghâli, [5] where also there is reared a vihâra, and offerings are
made. It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for
the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it,
and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain from the
sky.
South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great
hill fronting the southwest; and here it was that Buddha left his
shadow. Looking at it from a distance of more than ten paces, you seem
to see Buddha's real form, with his complexion of gold, and his
characteristic marks in their nicety, clearly and brightly displayed.
The nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes, as if it were
only in your fancy. When the kings from the regions all around have sent
skilful artists to take a copy, none of them have been able to do so.
Among the people of the country there is a saying current that "the
thousand Buddhas must all leave their shadows here."
Rather more than four hundred paces west from the shadow, when Buddha
was at the spot, he shaved off his hair and clipped his nails, and
proceeded, along with his disciples, to build a tope seventy or eighty
cubits high, to be a model for all future topes; and it is still
existing. By the side of it there is a monastery, with more than seven
hundred monks in it. At this place there are as many as a thousand topes
of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas.
[Footnote 1: Now in India, Fâ-hien used the Indian measure of distance;
but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was.
The estimates of it are very different, and vary from four and a half or
five miles to seven, and sometimes more.]
[Footnote 2: The present Hidda, west of Peshâwur, and five miles south
of Jellalabad.]
[Footnote 3: "The vihara," says Hardy, "is the residence of a recluse or
priest;" and so Davids--"the clean little hut where the mendicant
lives."]
[Footnote 4: The Vaisyas, or the bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are
described here as "resident scholars."]
[Footnote 5: Or Sanghâti, the double or composite robe, part of a monk's
attire, reaching from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round the
waist.]