Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c13.s3.t2.77

v2.c13.s3.t2.77

According to the textual sources, the old location of Fulousha was to the northwest of Peshàwar, a city located in the northern part of present-day Pakistan, and it was the capital and major commercial city of the state of Gandhara. Kanishka, the king of the Kushàna empire and devout follower of Buddhism, moved his capital here and built a big tower in the city. As an important Buddhist cultural centre, the place was also famous for Buddha’s bowl and the peepal (Bodhi) tree. When Faxian reached here during the Eastern Jin Dynasty in 402 CE, Buddhism was still flourishing here. He recorded the local legend about Buddha’s bowl, its shape and structure and the miraculous feature: “(the bowl) can hold two *dou*\* and have different colours, which are mainly black. The bowl is glossy and has distinct edges with a thickness of 0.5 cm to 0.7 cm. The poor could fill the bowl with fewer coins while the rich might not be able to fill it with a million or even ten million coins”. The Chinese Baoyun, Sengjing and others had also visited Purushapura to make offerings to the Buddha bowl and then returned to China. Song Yun, the envoy of the Northern Wei dynasty, also visited here.