Tribes in Ancient India c53.36

c53.36

Hsüan Tsang, who visited India in the seventh century A.D., narrates that Kapilavastu, the country of the Śākyas, was about four thousand li in circuit. The royal precincts built of brick were within the city, measuring fourteen or fifteen li round.² He says that, long after the passing away of the Buddha, topes and shrines were built in or near Kapilavastu.³ The villages were few and desolate. The monasteries (saṅghārāmas) which were then in ruins, were more than one thousand in number. There still existed a saṅghārāma near the royal precincts which contained thirty (3,000 according to one text) followers who read ‘the little vehicle of the Sammatiya school’. There were two deva-temples where different sectarians worshipped. There were some dilapidated foundation walls, the remains of the principal palace of King Śuddhodana, above which a vihāra (monastery) was built containing a stūpa of the king. Near it was a foundation in ruins, representing the sleeping palace of Queen Mahāmāyā. Above it a vihāra was built containing a figure of the queen. Close by stood a vihāra, on the spot where the Bodhisattva was supposed to have entered the womb of his mother. A stūpa was built to the north-east of ‘the palace of spiritual conception’ of the Bodhisattva.⁴ To the north-west of the capital, a stūpa was built where King Viḍūḍabha massacred the Śākyas.⁵ The cultured land was rich and fertile and the climate of the country was bracing.