On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c10.18

v1.c10.18

Julien understood the words of this passage, 為羯利王割截肢體, to mean that the rishi cut off his own limbs on behalf of the king. But the word wei (為) here, as often, is used to convert the following active verb into a passive one and has the sense of "was by"; so used the word is said to be in the *ch‘u-shêng* and to be equivalent to pei (被) in the sense of "by". The "Patiently-enduring rishi" is the Kshānti or Kshānti-vādin (Pali, Khantivādi), or Kshānti-bāla or Kshāntivat of the Buddhist scriptures, and called Kuṇḍakakumāra in the Jātaka. The "Ka-li king" is the king named Kali or the king of the country named Kali or Kalinga. The word Kshānti means "patient endurance", and Kali is interpreted as meaning "fighting", or "quarreling". We find the story of this wicked king Kali hacking to pieces the good hermit who was endeavouring to make himself perfect in patient endurance told in several Buddhist books with some variations of detail. It forms the Kshāntibala chapter of the *Hsien-yü-ching* or "Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish",¹ and it is the "Khantivādi Jātaka" in the Pali Jātaka.² In these books the scene of the action is laid in the vicinity of Benares, and in some of the other accounts the name of the locality is not given. The Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish calls the king Kali, but the Jātaka and some other authorities call him Kalabu, in Chinese transcription *Ka-lan-fu* (迦藍浮). The wording of our author's text here recalls the reference to the story in the 14th chapter of the Chin-kang-ching or Vajra-chchedikā, and there the Sanskrit text leaves no doubt as to the meaning of the words. In the Jātaka the king orders his executioner to flog and mutilate the patient rishi and the king personally only administers a parting kick. But in other versions it is the king himself who in his wrath hacks off the various limbs of the Kshānti rishi who is not in all versions the P'usa destined to become Gautama Buddha.