釋迦方志 1.87

1.87

Beside it is a stūpa where the Buddha, having once been a six-tusked elephant king, pulled out his tusks and gave them to a hunter because he saw the hunter wearing a monastic robe. Beside it is another stūpa where the Buddha was once a bird and questioned a monkey and an elephant as to who was the eldest. In the great forest there is another stūpa where the Buddha and Devadatta were once deer kings, and the Buddha offered his life in place of a pregnant doe, from which the name Deer Park (Mṛgadāva) arose. Three li southwest of the monastery is a great stūpa, three hundred feet high, rising upon a grand and imposing base. Beside it is another stūpa where the five men welcomed the Buddha. Three li east of the great forest, a stūpa marks where the Buddha, having once been a hare dwelling among beasts and knowing his body was small, cast himself into a fire to offer it as food, moving the Lord of the Devas to descend in praise and causing the image of a hare to appear on the disk of the moon. Traveling east from the monastery along the Ganges for more than three hundred li, one reaches the kingdom of Yodhapatipura (in Central India), which is more than two thousand li in circuit. The capital borders the Ganges and is more than ten li in circuit. The population is abundant. There are ten monasteries with less than a thousand monks, all belonging to the Hīnayāna. There are twenty deva temples, where various non-Buddhists live intermixed. Northwest of the city is a monastery and stūpa with one drona of the Buddha's relics, where the Buddha in the past taught the Dharma for seven days, along with the traces of the walking and sitting of the four Buddhas. It contains an image of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, small in form but of great awe-inspiring virtue. More than two hundred li northeast of the city, one arrives at the Aviddhakarṇa Monastery (meaning "Unpierced Ears"), established on account of monks from the north. Crossing the Ganges more than one hundred li southeast of the monastery, one reaches a large town. On the north bank of the river, a temple to the deva Nārāyaṇa has multistoried pavilions of great solemnity. More than thirty li farther southeast is the Demon-Subduing Stūpa, half-sunk into the earth, in front of which stands a stone pillar more than twenty feet tall; this is where the Buddha preached the Dharma to the man-eating demon. The demon set out stone seats numbering in the thousands. Lush forests and clear ponds are not far away. Several monasteries all have resident monks who study the Mahāyāna. Crossing the river more than one hundred li to the southeast, a stūpa marks the place of the vessel used to divide the relics and remaining relics, which emits light on every fast day. Crossing the Ganges one hundred and fifty li to the northeast, one arrives at: