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On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c11: Chapter VIII

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c11

Language
English

Contents

Chapter VIII

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KASHMIR TO RAJAPUR.

Kashmir

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For an account of the pilgrim's entry into Kashmir, and his arrival at the capital of that country, we are indebted to the narrative in the Life.¹ This treatise tells us that Yuan-chuang entered Kashmir territory by the rocky Pass which formed the western approach to the country. At the outer end of the Pass he was received by the maternal uncle of the king, who had been sent with horses and conveyances to escort him to the capital. On the way thither the pilgrim passed several Buddhist monasteries in which he performed worship; and at one, the Hushkara (護瑟迦)-vihāra, he spent a night. During the night the Brethren of the monastery had dreams in which they were informed by a deity that their guest was a Brother from Mahā-China who, desirous of learning, was travelling in India on a pilgrimage to Buddhist sacred places; the Brethren were also exhorted by the deity to rouse themselves to religious exercises in order to earn by their proficiency the praise of their illustrious guest. This was repeated on each of the few days occupied by the pilgrim and his party in reaching the royal Dharma-sāla which was about a yojana from the capital. At this building the king was waiting to receive the pilgrim and conduct him into the city. His Majesty was attended by his grandees, and by certain Buddhist monks from the capital, and he had a magnificent retinue of above 1000 men. He treated his Chinese visitor with marked ceremonious respect, and mounted him on one of his large elephants when setting out for the city. On his arrival here the pilgrim lodged for one night in the Jayendra (闍耶因陀羅)-monastery, but next day on the king's invitation he took up his quarters in the palace. Then His Majesty appointed some scores of Brethren with the illustrious Bhadanta Ch'êng (稱), or ? Yaśa, at their head to wait on his Chinese guest. He also invited Yuan-chuang to read and expound the Scriptures, gave him twenty clerks to copy out Mss, and five men to act as attendants. The pilgrim remained here two years and devoted his time to the study of certain sūtras and śāstras, and to paying reverence at sacred vestiges (that is, places held in reverence by Buddhists).

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¹ Ch. 2.

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Neither the Records nor the Life gives the name of the king of Kashmir who so hospitably entertained our pilgrim. It was, apparently, the same king who about this time, as we learn on I-ching's authority, received another Chinese pilgrim, by name Süan-hui (玄會), and entertained him as a guest in the palace for about a year, when some unpleasantness arose which caused Süan-hui to leave and continue his wanderings.¹

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¹ Hsi-yü-ch'iu, ch. 1; Chavannes Mém. p. 46.

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Coming back to the text of the Records we find a Chinese editorial note added to the word Kashmir telling us that Ki(-Ka)-p'in (罽賓) was an old and incorrect name for the country. But in many Chinese treatises Ka-pin is a geographical term of vague and varying extension, and not the designation of a particular country. It is applied in different works to Kapis, Nagar, Gandhāra, Udyāna, and Kashmir. The region first called Kapin was once occupied by the Sakas (塞), a great nomad people who spread themselves over vast regions to the north-west from what is now the district of Kashgar.¹ Afterwards applied less vaguely Kapin was the name of a country south of the Ts'ung-Ling and subject to the Great Yue-ti (Getæ), and it is said to have been a synonym for the Tsao (曹) of the Sui period.¹ But by several Chinese writers, and translators of Buddhist books into Chinese, both before and after our pilgrim's time, the word Kapin is used to designate the country which he and others call Kashmir. Thus for the "charming Kāśmir-city" of the Divyāvadāna the Chinese translation has simply Kapin. Then we read of the rishi Revata, who lived on a mountain in Kapin, being converted by the Buddha, and building a tope (or chaitya) for the Buddha's hair- and nail-relics. This Revata is "Raivataka, a bhikshu of Śaila Vihāra at Kaśmir", and the "Śaila vihara" was the Cliff (石崖)-Monastery not far from the old capital of Kashmir.³ But by Chinese writers generally Kapin seems to have been always loosely applied; and even down to the T'ang period the word was used by them to designate a region which did not correspond to that afterwards known to them as Kashmir. Thus in the Hsi-yü-chih, a Buddhistical treatise of the Sui period, Kapin is evidently the Kapis of other works, the country of Buddha's skull-bone and of the Chinese Monastery. Even the T'ang-Shu treats Kashmir and Kapin as names of two countries, and gives descriptive particulars about each. In other works of the T'ang period we find Kapin apparently used to denote the Nagar and Kapis of earlier writings.

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¹ Han-Shu, ch. 96, P. I.

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The word Kashmir is transcribed in Chinese in several ways giving slight differences as Kaśmir and Kashmir, and it is explained as meaning "Who goes in?". It is said to have arisen at the time when Madhyāntika induced the dragon to turn the lake into dry land in the manner to be presently described. When the people saw the arhat sitting where water had been a moment before, they were afraid to venture to him, and kept exclaiming to each other—Who goes in?¹ This etymology, which reminds one of Dean Swift, is curious but not satisfactory. Burnouf suggested that Kaśmir might be for Kāśyapa-mir, and one variety of the Chinese transcriptions is Ka-ye (that is Ka-sa often used for Kāśyapa)-mi-lo (迦葉彌羅) or Kāśyapa-mir, but these characters may simply be for Kaśmir.

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² Divyāv. p. 399; Tsa-a-han-ching, ch. 23; Ta-chih-tu-lun, ch. 9; Abhi-ta-vib. ch. 125; Bud. Lit. Nep. p. 76.

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¹ Yi-ch'ie-ching-yin-yi, Supplement ch. 1.

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The pilgrim gives a short general description of Kashmir in his usual manner. It was, he states, above 7000 *li* (1400 miles) in circuit, surrounded by high steep mountains over which were narrow difficult Passes, and the country had always been impregnable. The capital, which had a large river on its west side, was 12 or 13 *li* from north to south and four or five *li* from east to west. The district was a good agricultural one and produced abundant fruits and flowers; it yielded also horses of the dragon stock, saffron, lenses, and medicinal plants. The climate was very cold in season with much snow and little wind. The people wore serge and cotton (pai-tieh); they were volatile and timid, being protected by a dragon they crowed over their neighbours; they were good-looking but deceitful; they were fond of learning and had a faith which embraced orthodoxy and heterodoxy (that is, Buddhism and other religions). The Buddhist Monasteries were above 100 in number, and there were above 5000 Buddhist Brethren; and there were four Asoka topes each containing above a pint (shêng) of the bodily relics of the Buddha.

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The circuit which our pilgrim here assigns to the country of Kashmir is about 3000 *li* above that given to it by Ma Tuan-lin and other authorities, and it is evidently much too great. The rocky Pass (lit. "stone gate"), by which the pilgrim entered the country, was evidently the western Pass which terminates near the town of Barāmūla (Varāhamūla). This is Alberuni's "ravine whence the river Jailam comes; at the other end of this ravine is the watch station Dvāz, on both sides of the river Jailam. Thence, leaving the ravine, you enter the plain, and reach in two more days Addisthān, the capital of Kashmir, passing on the road the village of Ushkāra, which lies on both sides of the valley, in the same manner as Baramūlā”.¹ In the text of the Life the Prince is represented as meeting the pilgrim at the outer end of the Pass, but as he had horses and carriages with him, we must understand him as waiting for the pilgrim at the Dvār at the inner end of the Pass. In the T'ang-Shu the name of the capital of Kashmir is given as Po-lo-wu-lo-pu-lo (撥邏勿邏補羅) that is Baramūla- (or Varāhamūla)-pura. Other authorities give Pi-lo-t'a (媲邏吒) that is Bhirath, or Shan-chien (善見) meaning “of good solidity”, as names for the capital in previous periods.² Our pilgrim represents the capital as having a large river on its west side, and the T'ang-Shu tells us that this was the Mi-na-si-to (彌那悉多) or, perhaps, Menāsitā.

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¹ Alberuni Vol. i, p. 207. So Baron Hügel leaving this “Indian Paradise” “passed through a rock which together with the river forms a strong barrier”. Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab p. 172 (tr. Jervis).

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² Abhi-ta-vib., ch. 125.

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Among the products of Kashmir specified by the pilgrim in this passage is an article the name of which here as in other passages is given by me as “saffron”. The original for this is Yuh-chin-hsiang (鬱金香) which Julien and others always render by Curcuma or turmeric. But this undoubtedly is not the meaning of the term here and in other passages of the Records and Life. The word hsiang means “incense” or “perfume”, and Yuh-chin, pronounced like Guh-kum, evidently represents a foreign word. In Sanskrit one name for saffron is Kuṅkuma, and Yuh-chin in its old pronunciation is to be regarded as a transcription of this word, or of a provincial variation of it like the Tibetan Gurkum. That Yuh-chin-hsiang is “saffron” is seen also by comparing the Tibetan and Chinese translations of a Sanskrit passage which tells of Madhyāntika's proceedings in Kashmir. The valuable plant which this arhat carries off from the Gandhamādana Mountain, and introduces into Kashmir, is called saffron in the Tibetan rendering, and Yuh-chin in the Chinese version.¹ The saffron plant, Crocus sativus, has been greatly cultivated in this country from a very early period. Its flowers were long ago used to adorn the necks of oxen at the autumn festival in the country, and they were boiled in aromatic spirits to make a perfume.² This, or some preparation of the flowers, was largely used in northern countries in the service of worship offered before images in Buddhist temples. The flowers of the saffron plant are still largely used in decoctions, both as a condiment and as a pigment, by many of the inhabitants of Kashmir.³ But the fei(緋)-yuh-chin or purple saffron was forbidden as a dye-material to the Buddhist Brethren. It seems very likely that the term Yuh-chin-hsiang is sometimes used in a loose manner and applied to turmeric, just as the name "Saffron", we learn, is often given to turmeric and safflower.⁴

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¹ Sar. Vin. Tsa-shih, ch. 40; Tār, S. 12; A-yü-wang-chuan, ch. 4. See Dr Bretschneider in Ch. Notes and Queries, Vol. iii, p. 55 and iv, p. 97.

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² Abhi-ta-vib, ch. 12; Fa-yuan-chu-lin, ch. 36.

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³ On the saffron of Kashmir see Lawrence's "Valley of Kashmir" p. 342.

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⁴ Glossary of Ang-Ind. Terms s. v. Saffron.

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The word for "lenses" in Yuan-chuang's description in the passage under consideration is huo-chu (火珠), lit. "fire pearls", and this is rendered by Julien "lentilles de verre". The pilgrim was here apparently translating the Sanskrit word dahanopala which means fire-stone, burning gem, and is a name for crystal lenses. These "fire pearls" are described as being like crystal eggs, and one of the tortures of the Hungry Ghosts is that for them the drops of rain turn into "fire pearls".

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The reader will observe that our pilgrim, in his enumeration of some of the chief products of Kashmir, has not a word about its grapes and wine. Yet the country was celebrated for its grapes, and it was long the only place in all the parts about India in which wine was made from the juice of the grape.

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With reference to the state of Buddhism it is remarkable that our pilgrim gives the number of Buddhist establishments in this country as only 100, while Wu-k‘ung, who lived in it for some time above a century later, gives the number at his time as 300.¹

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¹ Shih-li-ching; J. A. 1895, p. 341 ff.

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Kashmir is one of the most important and most famous lands in the history of the spread and development of Buddhism. In the literature of this religion we find frequent reference to the capital, and the country generally, in terms of praise and admiration. The pious, learned, and eloquent Brethren of the region seem to have had a great reputation even at the time of king Asoka, who is represented as calling on the disciples of Buddha dwelling in the “charming city of Kaśmir” to come to his Council.² When the Buddha and the Yaksha Vajrapāṇi—not Ananda as Yuan-chuang relates—were returning through the air from the conquest and conversion of the Dragon of Udyāna, as they were over the green vales of Kashmir Buddha drew Vajrapāṇi’s attention to them.³ Into these, the Buddha predicted, after my pari-nirvāṇa an arhat named Madhyāntika will introduce my religion, and the country will become distinguished as a home of the Brethren devoted to absorbed meditation (Samādhi) and prolonged contemplation (Vipassanā). In another book the Buddha is represented as having prophesied that Kashmir would become rich and prosperous as Uttaravat, that Buddhism would flourish in it, the number of the disciples being beyond counting, and that it would become like the Tushita Paradise.⁴ The country, he said, would be like Indra’s Pleasure-garden, or the Anavatapta Lake district, and it would be a real “great Buddhist Congregation.”

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² Tsa-a-han-ching, ch. 23; Divyāv. p. 399.

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³ Sar. Vin. Yao-shih, ch. 9.

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⁴ Lien-hua-mien-ching, ch. 2 (Bun. No. 465).

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The pilgrim proceeds with his narrative and relates the story of Madhyāntika's coming. According to the native records, he states, Kashmir was originally a dragon-lake. When the Buddha, having subdued the wicked dragon of Udyāna, had arrived above Kashmir on his way through the air to Central India he said to Ananda—"After my decease Madhyāntika, an arhat, will in this place establish a country, settle people, and propagate Buddhism". In the 50th year after Buddha's decease, the pilgrim continues, Ananda's disciple the arhat Madhyāntika, perfect in spiritual attainments, having heard of Buddha's prediction was delighted. He accordingly came hither and took his seat in a wood at a great mountain. Here he made miraculous exhibitions and the dragon seeing these asked the arhat what he wanted. "I want you to grant me room for my knees in the lake", was the reply, i. e. I want to have as much dry land in the lake as will enable me to sit cross-legged. The dragon thereupon proceeded to grant the arhat's request by withdrawing water from the lake, but Madhyāntika by the exercise of his supernatural powers enlarged his body until the dragon had drawn off all the water of the lake. Then the dragon was accommodated in a lake to the north-west of the old one, and his relations and dependents went to live in a small one. The dragon now begged Madhyāntika to remain permanently and receive due service, but the arhat replied that this was impossible as the time was near for his pari-nirvāṇa. At the dragon's request, however, Madhyāntika consented that his 500 arhats should remain in Kashmir as long as Buddhism lasted in the country, the land to become again a lake when Buddhism ceased to exist. Madhyāntika now by his miraculous powers built 500 monasteries, and afterwards he bought foreign slaves to serve the Brethren. Some time after his decease these inferiors became rulers of the country; but neighbouring states despising them as a low-born breed would not have intercourse with them, and called them Kritā or "the Bought".

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This account of Madhyāntika does not quite agree with any of the older accounts in Buddhist books. These, however, present some interesting and important points of difference among themselves. Yuan-chuang's narrative follows the version which is to be found with slight variations of detail in the "A-yü-wang-chuan" version of the Asokavadāna, the Sarvata Vinaya, and in the Tibetan texts translated by Schiefner and Rockhill.¹ In these Madhyāntika is a disciple of Ānanda, converted and ordained in the last moments of Ānanda's life; he is a master of 500 disciples, and comes with these from the Himavat to the place where Ānanda is about to pass away; on a magic isle in the Ganges Ānanda ordains the master and his disciples and all immediately attain arhatship; they want to pass away before Ānanda, but he gives the master Buddha's commission for him to go and teach Buddhism in Kashmir, and the commission is accepted. The name given to the master, and also apparently to his disciples, is explained as meaning Mid-water (中水), as if Madhyan-taka (for udaka), because they were ordained and perfected on an island in the Ganges; it is also explained by Mid-day (中日) as if Madhyan-dina, because the ordination took place at mid-day. But according to the "Shan-chien-lü-vibhāsha", Buddhaghosha, the "Dīpavamsa", and the "Mahāvaṃsa", Maddhyāntika, called Majjhantiko the thera, lived in the time of Moggala-putta Tissa, and was sent by that head of the church from Pāṭaliputra to Kashmir and Gandhāra.¹ Then there is a Kashmir Abhidharma treatise in which we have a dragon called "Fearless" in the country. This dragon plagues the 500 arhats in their monasteries; the arhats have no magic powerful enough to drive the dragon away; a foreign Brother comes who has no skill in magic and no supernatural powers whatever; by the power of a pure strict life (śīla) he, using only a polite request, rids the country of the dragon.² In the Pali versions of Madhyāntika's story the name of the dragon is Aravāla, the A-lo-p'o-lu of the Chinese translation; in the Sarvata Vinaya it is Hu-lung, the Hulunta of Rockhill. This dragon was a wicked spiteful creature sending floods to ruin crops, according to the Pali accounts, and he is perhaps the original of the Udyāna dragon.

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¹ A-yü-wang-chuan, ch. 4; Sar. Vin. Tsa-shih, ch. 40; Tār. l. c.; Rockhill Life p. 166 ff.

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¹ Shan-chien-lü-vib, ch. 2; Vinaya, Vol. iii, p. 315; Dip. VIII. 1. 4; Mah. ch. XII.

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² Abhi-ta-vib, ch. 44.

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Our pilgrim next gives a brief account of the settlement of 500 arhats from India in Kashmir, an event which he assigns to the hundredth year after Buddha's decease in the reign of Asoka king of Magadha. This great and powerful sovereign was a firm believer in Buddhism, we are told, and charitable to all creatures. There were [at his capital] 500 arhats and 500 ordinary Buddhist monks, all of whom were treated by the king with equal reverence and attention. Among the ordinary Brethren was one Mahādeva, a man of great learning and wisdom, a subtle investigator of name and reality who put his extraordinary thoughts into a treatise which taught heresy. All this man's acquaintances followed his heretical reasonings. The king following his personal inclinations and taking the part of those whom he liked, unable to distinguish the arhat from the common monk, summoned all to the Ganges with the intention of causing them all to be drowned. But the arhats, finding their lives in danger, used their supernatural powers, and flew through the air to Kashmir, where they settled on the hills and in the vales. When the king learned this he became distressed, went to Kashmir to apologize to the arhats, and to beg them to return. They, however, stedfastly refused to go back, so the king built 500 monasteries for them, and gave up all Kashmir for the benefit of the Buddhist church.

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This is Yuan-chuang's short and condensed abstract, which cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of Mahādeva's career as this is related in the "Abhidharma-mahā-vibhāsha-lun"¹ and other treatises. According to the Abhidharma work, Mahādeva was the son of a brahmin merchant of Mathurā. While still a very young man he took advantage of his father's prolonged absence from home on business and formed an incestuous connexion with his mother. When his father returned Mahādeva murdered him, and soon afterwards he fled with his mother. Finding that a Buddhist arhat had an inconvenient knowledge of his guilty life he promptly killed the arhat. Then finding that his mother was not true to him he murdered her also. By thus taking the lives of his parents and an arhat he had committed three unpardonable offences; in the technical language of Buddhism he had “made three immediate karmas” (造三無間業), three ānantarya karmas. Stung by conscience, and haunted by fear, he now skulked from place to place until he reached Pāṭaliputra. Here he resolved to enter religion, and he easily persuaded a monk of the Kukuṭārāma vihara to have him ordained. He now devoted all his energies and abilities to his new profession and, having zeal and capacity, he soon rose to be the head of the establishment, and the leader of a large party in the church at Pāṭaliputra. His intellectual abilities were much above those of the ordinary brethren, but his orthodoxy was doubtful, and his moral character was not above suspicion. Mahādeva claimed to have attained arhatship, and he explained away circumstances which seemed to be destructive of his claim. In answer to queries from younger brethren he enunciated five dogmas, or tenets, which led to much discussion, and at length to open dissension. These tenets were, (1) An arhat may commit a sin under unconscious temptation, (2) One may be an arhat and not know it, (3) An arhat may have doubts on matters of doctrine, (4) One cannot attain arhatship without the aid of a teacher, (5) The “noble ways” may begin by a shout, that is, one meditating seriously on religion may make such an exclamation as “How sad!” and by so doing attain progress towards perfection. These five propositions Mahādeva declared to be Buddha’s teaching, but the senior Brethren declared them to be Mahādeva’s invention and opposed to the orthodox teaching. There were at the time four “sets” or “parties” of Buddhists at Pāṭaliputra, and these had bitter controversies about the five propositions. When dispute ran high the king, on Mahādeva’s suggestion, called an assembly of all the monks to have an open discussion and vote on the subject, the king being a friend and patron of Mahādeva. When the assembly was summoned it was attended by a number of senior Brethren, who were arhats, and by an immense number of ordinary ordained members of the church. The superior Brethren argued and voted against the five propositions, but they were far outnumbered by the inferior members who were all friends of Mahādeva. When the discussion and voting were over the wrangling still continued, and the king ordered all the brethren to be embarked in rotten boats and sent adrift on the Ganges; by this means he thought it would be shewn who were arhats and who were not. But at the critical moment 500 arhats rose in the air, and floated away to Kashmir. Here they dispersed, and settled in lonely places among the vales and mountains. When the king heard what had occurred he repented, and sent messengers to coax the arhats to return to his capital, but they all refused to leave. Hereupon he caused 500 monasteries to be built for them, and gave the country to the Buddhist church. These 500 arhats introduced and propagated the Sthavira school in Kashmir, and the majority of inferior brethren at Pāṭaliputra began the Mahāsaṅghika school.

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¹ Ch. 99.

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It will be noticed that in this account we have neither the name of the king nor the date of the schism. But in the "I-pu-tsung-lun" and the "Shi-pa-pu-lun" the king is Asoka, and the time above 100 years after Buddha's decease. Additional information on the subject will be found in Wassiljew's "Buddhismus" and in Schiefner's "Tāranātha".¹ In the "Shan-chien-lü-vibhāsha" and in the passages of the Pali works referred to in connection with Madhyāntika we find mention of a Mahādeva at Pāṭaliputra.² But this man lived apparently a good and pious life, and he was sent by Tissa as a missionary to the Andhra country. He preached (or composed) the "Deva-dūta-sūtra" that is the Deva-messenger sūtra, in Chinese *T'ien-shi-ching* (天使經), and he seems to have been successful in propagating Buddhism. This may be the Mahādeva of the northern treatises, the popular and influential abbott of Pāṭaliputra. But the latter dies, and is cremated with peculiar circumstances at the capital, and there is no mention of his mission to Andhra. On the other hand it seems possible that the Brethren, sent away in different directions as apostles, were men who had taken prominent parts in the controversies which had arisen among the Buddhists of Pāṭaliputra. All accounts seem to agree in representing their Mahādeva as a man of unusual abilities and learning; and the story of his great crimes as a layman, and his unscrupulous ambition as an abbott, related in the Abhidharma treatises are probably the malicious inventions of enemies.

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¹ Was. Bud. S. 62; Tār. S. 51 and 293; Rhys Davids in J. R. A. S. 1892, p. 9.

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² Shan-chien-lü-vib. ch. 2; Vinaya Vol. iii, p. 316.

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Our pilgrim next proceeds to relate the circumstances connected with the great Council summoned by Kanishka. This king of Gandhāra, Yuan-chuang tells us, in the four hundredth year after the decease of Buddha, was a great and powerful sovereign whose sway extended to many peoples. In his leisure hours he studied the Buddhist scriptures, having a monk every day in the palace to give him instruction. But as the Brethren taught him different and contradictory interpretations, owing to conflicting tenets of sectarians, the king fell into a state of helpless uncertainty. Then the Venerable Pārśva explained to His Majesty that in the long lapse of time since Buddha left the world disciples of schools and masters with various theories had arisen, all holding personal views and all in conflict. On hearing this the king was greatly moved, and expressed to Pārśva his desire to restore Buddhism to eminence, and to have the Tripiṭaka explained according to the tenets of the various schools. Pārśva gave his cordial approval of the suggestion, and the king thereupon issued summonses to the holy and wise Brethren in all his realm. These came in crowds from all quarters to Gandhāra, where they were entertained for seven days. They were far too numerous, however, to make a good working Council, so the king had recourse to a process of selection. First all had to go away who had not entered the saintly career—had not attained one to the four degrees of perfection. Then of those who remained all who were arhats were selected and the rest dismissed; of the arhats again those who had the "three-fold intelligence" and the "six-fold penetration" were retained; and these were further thinned out by dismissing all of them who were not thoroughly versed in the Tripiṭaka and well learned in the "Five Sciences". By this process the number of arhats for the Council was reduced to 499.

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Yuan-chuang goes on to tell that the king proposed Gandhāra as the place of meeting for the Council, but that this place was objected to on account of its heat and dampness. Then Rājagaha was proposed, but Pārśva and others objected that there were too many adherents of other sects there, and at last it was decided to hold the Council in Kashmir. So the king and the arhats came to his country, and here the king built a monastery for the Brethren.

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When the texts of the Tripitaka were collected for the making of expository Commentaries on them, the Venerable Vasumitra was outside the door in monk's costume. The other Brethren would not admit him because he was still in the bonds of the world, not an arhat. In reply to his claim to deliberate, the others told him to go away and come to join them when he had attained arhatship. Vasumitra said he did not value this attainment—he was aiming at Buddhahood and he would not have any petty condition ("go in a small path"); still he could become an arhat before a silk ball which he threw in the air fell to the ground. When he threw the ball the Devas said to him so as to be heard by all—Will you who are to become Buddha and take the place of Maitreya, honoured in the three worlds and the stay of all creatures—will you here realize this petty fruit? The Devas kept the ball, and the arhats made apologies to Vasumitra and invited him to become their President, accepting his decisions on all disputed points.

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This Council, Yuan-chuang continues, composed 100 000 stanzas of Upadeśa śastras explanatory of the canonical sūtras, 100 000 stanzas of Vinaya-vibhāshā-śāstras explanatory of the Vinaya, and 100 000 stanzas of Abhidharma-vibhāshā śastras explanatory of the Abhidharma. For this exposition of the Tripitaka all learning from remote antiquity was thoroughly examined; the general sense and the terse language [of the Buddhist scriptures] were again made clear and distinct, and the learning was widely diffused for the safe-guiding of disciples. King Kanishka had the treatises, when finished, written out on copper plates, and enclosed these in stone boxes, which he deposited in a tope made for the purpose. He then ordered the Yakshas to keep and guard the texts, and not allow any to be taken out of the country by heretics; those who wished to study them could do so in the country. When leaving to return to his own country Kanishka renewed Asoka's gift of all Kashmir to the Buddhist church.

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This account of king Kanishka's Council and its work is very interesting, but it requires to be supplemented by some notes and explanations. There are also some statements of the author which, in the abstract here given, are different from the versions given in Julien's full translation. Thus Yuan-chuang represents the king as summoning the arhats to make *vibhāshā-lun*, that is, discussions on, or expositions of, the Canonical works. Julien, however, makes the author state that the king "voulut composer (un traité intitulé) Vibhāshā çāstra". Here the words which I have put in brackets are an addition by the translator and do injury to the text. Again, when all was ready for the Council to proceed to work, the Venerable Vasumitra, Yuan-chuang tells us, *hu-wai-na-yi* (戶外衲衣) which Julien translates "se tenait en dehors de la porte et raccommodait son vêtement". But the words mean simply "was outside in monk's costume". The term *na* (sometimes written 衲)-*yi* is of very frequent use in this sense of "bhikshu's clothing". Thus the monk's complete dress is called "the five *na-yi* of the cemeteries", and we read of a Brother *na-yi-yen-tso*, "sitting meditating in monk's dress; it was one of the rules of Devadatta's fraternity that the members should for life "don *na-yi*". The expression in our text is used to indicate that Vasumitra was an ordinary bhikshu, not an arhat.¹

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¹ Vasumitra-so-chi-lun, *ch.* 2 (No. 1289); Kao-sêng-chuan, *ch.* 3; Shih-sung-lü, *ch.* 36.

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The story which follows about the attempt to exclude Vasumitra from the deliberations of the Council, because he was only an ordinary bhikshu, is a feeble imitation of the story about Ananda at the First Council. In our text Yuan-chuang, going according to Mahāyānist traditions, identifies the Vasumitra of Kanishka's time with Buddha's disciple of the same name. The latter, as the Buddha is represented telling his audience, had in a far past existence been a monkey; as such he acquired a knowledge of and faith in Buddhism, and he received the prediction that in a future birth he would become Buddha; in the time of Gautama Buddha he had been born as a human creature and in due course of time had become a disciple and risen to great eminence. But something remained over from his simious life which led him to play and gambol occasionally, and so give cause of offence. Buddha, however, explained the circumstances, and stated that Vasumitra was so take the place of Maitreya, and finally succeed the latter as Buddha with the name Shih-tzŭ-yue (or merely Shih-tzŭ)-Ju-lai, that is, Lion-moon (or Lion) Tathāgata.¹ Thus the Vasumitra of Yuang-chuang's story having the rank of a Bodhisattva (being a "P'usa-bhikshu as he is called) was above the degree of arhat according to Mahāyānist teaching, and hence his refusal in the story to acquire the "petty fruit". It was probably a survival of simious propensities which made him play with the ball of silk in the very solemn circumstances here related. The story here told about Vasumitra is very like one given in an old Mahāyāna śāstra about this p'usa. But in the latter treatise it is a stone which he throws in the air; the stone is caught and held by devas who tell Vasumitra that he is to seek bodhi, that they are to obtain emancipation through him, and that after twenty kalpas he will become Buddha.²

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¹ Fo-shuo-shih-tzŭ-yue-Fo-pên-shêng-ching (No. 414): Tsun-Vasumitra-P'usa-so-chi-lun, Preface (No. 1289).

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² Wei-jih-tsa-nan-ching (No. 1328).

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Vasumitra, here as in other places translated Shih-yu (世友), is a name common to several illustrious Buddhists in the early periods of the church. The personal disciple of the Buddha already mentioned who is destined to become Buddha may perhaps be the sthavira with this name who is placed by one authority next in succession to Upagupta.³ Then we have the Śāstra-Master Vasumitra, mentioned in the Records, who composed the "Abhidharma prakaraṇa-pāda-śāstra" already noticed, and the "Abhidharma-dhātukāyapāda-śāstra".⁴ It was probably also this author who composed the "Wu-shih-lun" to which Dharmatrāta supplied a short expository commentary. This is apparently not the Bodhisattva Vasumitra to whom is ascribed the authorship of the "Arya Vasumitra-Bodhisattva-saṅgīti-śāstra".¹ The "Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā-śāstra" is also said to have been the work of the 500 arhats of Kanishka's Council with Vasumitra at their head. But there is nothing either in this treatise or the Saṅgīti-śāstra to show that these works were written at the time of Kanishka, nor is there anything in either to show that it was wholly or in part the work of Vasumitra. It is only in one text out of four that the Saṅgīti-śāstra appears with Arya Vasumitra on the title-page as author. These two treatises contain references to Vasumitra and quotations from him, and the "Vibhāṣā" work mentions him as one of the "Four Great Lun-shi of the Sarvāstivādin School". He was noted among the learned and ingenious Doctors of this School for his theory about the threefold division of time and states of existence. He held that the Past, Present, and Future are all realities and that they differ as to their wei (位) "locations", or "Conditions" as Mr Rockhill renders the corresponding Tibetan term. Then there is also the Vasumitra who composed the important treatises "Chih-pu-yi-lun" and "Yi-pu-tsung-lun".² Moreover there is the Vasumitra who furnished a commentary to Vasubandhu's celebrated "Abhidharma-kośa-śāstra", but of him little or nothing seems to be known.³ The Vasumitra who is given as the seventh Patriarch in the succession from Kāśyapa, and who is supposed to have lived in the 6th century B. C., need not be further mentioned.⁴

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³ Dharmatara-shan-ching, ch. 1 (No. 1341).

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⁴ Abhi-chie-shên-tsu-lun (No. 1282).

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¹ See Tsun-Vasumitra-P'usa-so-chi-lun. Cf. Tār. S. 67 ff.

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² Chih-pu-yi-lun (No. 1285); Yi-pu-tsung-lun (No. 1286).

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³ Bur. Int. p. 566 ff.

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⁴ Chih-yue-lu, ch. 3.

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The unfriendly feeling exhibited by the 499 arhats of Kanishka's Council in our pilgrim's narrative towards Vasumitra reminds us, as has been stated, of Ānanda and the First Council. But the old Mahāyāna Śāstra to which reference has been made tells us of an envious opposition to Vasumitra on the part of certain junior Brethren, and the hostility is not represented as connected with the Council. In both accounts, however, the genius and learning of Vasumitra are indispensable, and he overcomes the enmity, and gains the admiration of the Brethren.

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The pilgrim tells us that when Vasumitra was admitted the Council being duly constituted proceeded to its work which was, not to revise or rearrange the canonical treatises, but to furnish these with commentaries and discussions. Taking the sūtras first the arhats composed 100 000 stanzas of upadeśa or explanatory comments on these. Julien makes the author say they composed "le traité Oupadêça çāstra", and here again the addition of "le traité" spoils the meaning. Although there are upadeśas to several individual sūtras, or to a class of sūtras, there does not seem to have ever been a general upadeśa-śāstra for all the sūtra-piṭaka.

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This word upadeśa seems to have puzzled some of the early translators from Sanskrit into Chinese, and some of them apparently did not understand its meaning and derivation. One curious explanation of it is that it is "oral instruction to leave lust and cultivate goodness".¹ As the designation of a class of canonical treatises it is translated by Lun-i (論議) or Discussion. The term was technically used to denote a treatise made by a bhikshu, and explanatory of the teachings of a canonical sūtra, and the work itself might become a recognized sūtra. It was then called a Sūtra-upadeśa to distinguish it from the primitive Upadeśa-sūtras, and it was also called a Mahopadeśa, or Great Upadeśa. An essential requisite of such a work was that its teachings should be perfectly in accordance with those of the accepted canon. An upadeśa presented for approval, and rejected on account of its heterodoxy is called a Karopadeśa.¹ The Council composed also 100 000 stanzas explaining the Vinaya — "Vinaya-vibhāshā-lun". There is an extant treatise entitled "Sarvata (or Sarvāstivādin)-vinaya-vibhāshā" which may have been regarded as the work of the Council. Unfortunately there is only a Chinese version of this work which is in nine chuan, of unknown date, and imperfect. The original, however, was evidently composed at a time long after the Buddha, in a country outside of India, and for the use of foreigners. There is nothing in the work, however, to shew that it was the work of Kanishka's Council.²

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¹ Sui-hsiang-lun, ch. 1 (No. 1280).

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¹ Ta-pan-nie-p'an-ching (No. 114); Yi-ch'ie-ching-yin-yi, ch. 17; Sar. Vin. Mātrika, ch. 6.

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² Sar. Vin. Vibhāshā (Nos. 1135 and 1136).

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According to our pilgrim this Council further made 100 000 stanzas of exposition or discussion of the Abhidharma — Abhidharma-vibhāshā-lun. There are several vibhāshā treatises in this section of the canon, and it would seem that there are others which have disappeared. In the existing collections of Buddhist books in China we find a treatise known by its short name "Vibhāshā-lun", its full title being "Vibhāshā-shuo. Abhidharmā-shṭakhanda".³ This book is sometimes wrongly ascribed to Kātyāyanīputra who apparently composed the original text to which this work serves as a commentary. The author of the "Vibhāshā-lun" is given as Shi-t'ê-p'an-ni, the native pronunciation being perhaps something Siddhavanni. This man apparently lived in Kashmir and, according to his own statement, about 1000 years after Buddha's death. Another vibhāshā treatise is the short one entitled "Wu-shi (五事)-vibhāshā-lun", composed by the great Dharmatāra.⁴ This is an exposition of Vasumitra's "Wu-shi-lun", a treatise which does not appear among the canonical books. Then we have the long and important work called "Abhidharma (or Abhidharmata)-vibhāshā-lun" already mentioned. This treatise, which was evidently written in Kashmir, was composed, according to the translators into Chinese, by 500 arhats. It is an exposition and discussion of Katyāyaniputra's "Abhidharma-jñāna-prasthāna-śāstra", the short Chinese translation for which is "Fa-chih-lun" (發智論). But the "Abhidharma-ta-vibhāshā-lun" was evidently not composed by the Kanishka Council for, not to mention other matters, it relates a miracle which it says occurred formerly in the reign of that king.

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³ Vibhāshā-lun, end of treatise (No. 1279).

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⁴ Wu-shih-vibhāshā-lun (No. 1283).

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The word vibhāshā is often rendered in Chinese by Kuang-shuo (廣說), comprehensive statement, or Kuang-chie (廣解), comprehensive explanation. But more appropriate renderings are chung-chung-shuo (種種說) and fên-fên-shuo (分分說), meaning statement by classes or sections.¹ It denotes properly a commentary or discussion on a canonical text, especially on an Abhidharma treatise.² The term, however, seems to have become restricted, by some at least, to the Abhidharma commentaries written by certain masters in Buddhism, chiefly of Kashmir, who attached themselves to the Sarvāstivādin School. These Masters are very often called Vibhāshā-shi (師), but they are also sometimes called by other names such as Kashmir-shi. A vibhāshā must apparently be a commentary on an abhidharma treatise elucidating the text by the opinions of various authorities, and it is not necessary that the author should be bound by the views of the Sarvāstivādins or any other school or sect. There are also, as has been seen, Vinaya-vibhāshās, and these are Commentaries or discussions on Vinaya rules as promulgated by certain disciples or enforced by certain schools.

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¹ Yi-ch'ie-ching-yin-yi, ch. 17.

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² Tsa-abhi-hsin-lun, Int. et al. (No. 1287).

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Yuan-chuang's remarks about the learning brought to the making of the explanatory commentaries on the Tripitaka do not appear in the translations. The extent of the commentators' investigations is doubtless overstated, but there is evidence of great study and research in the “Vibhāshā-lun” and “Abhidharma-mahā vibhāshā-lun”. In these books we find an extraordinary acquaintance with Buddhist learning of various kinds, and also with Brahminical learning including the original Indian alphabets, the Vedas and their angas.

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It is to the statements made by our pilgrim about Kanishka’s Council that we are indebted for nearly all our information about the Council. In later Tibetan books we find mention of it and some particulars about it which do not agree with Yuan-chuang’s account.¹ In the Life of Vasubandhu also we read of an assembly meeting in Kapin (Kashmir) 500 years after Buddha’s decease.² It contained 500 arhats and 500 Bodhisattvas with Katyāyanī-putra as President, the Vice-President being Aśvaghosha. These sages compiled the “Sarvata-Ahhidharma” and composed for it a commentary—vibhāshā. When the latter was finished it was written out on stone by Aśvaghosha, and placed under guard, and the king, whose name is not given, forbade the carrying away of any part of the treatise out of the country. This account also does not agree with Yuan-chuang’s narrative which must be treated with suspicion as probably containing some grave mistakes. The discovery of the copper plates which he mentions, with the treatises inscribed on them, would help much to make known the Buddhism taught in the schools of Kashmir in or about the first century of our era.

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¹ Tār. S. 58 ff., 298.

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² Vasubandhu-chuan (No. 1463); Was. Bud. S. 238 ff.

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Our pilgrim continues his narrative and tells us of the invasion of Kashmir, and the assassination of its Kritiya usurping sovereign, by the king of the Tokhara country Himatala, in the 600th year after the Buddha’s decease. We are told that after Kanishka’s death a native dynasty had arisen in Kashmir, and its sovereign had become a persecutor of Buddhism. Hereupon the king of Himatala, who was a Sakya by descent and a zealous Buddhist, determined to drive the cruel Kritiya king from his throne and restore Buddhism. By a stratagem, cunningly devised and skillfully carried out, he succeeded in killing the king of Kashmir. He then banished the chief ministers of the Court, and reinstated Buddhism as the religion of the country, and then returned to his own kingdom. But, the pilgrim adds, in the course of time the Kritiyas, who still hated the Buddhists and bore them grudges, regained the sovereignty and at Yuan-chuang's time the country had no faith in Buddhism and gave itself up to other sects.

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The Himatala of this passage is a country of which we have some account in the XIIth chuan (Book) of these Records, and it will meet us again.

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The pilgrim now proceeds to mention some of the noteworthy sacred objects connected with Buddhism in this district, and he begins with a Monastery containing above 300 Brethren, and at it a tope built for a Tooth-relic of the Buddha. These buildings, he tells us, were situated on the south side of a mountain to the north of the old capital, and above ten li south-east from the new capital. The tooth, brought from India, was preserved in the tope, and Yuan-chuang describes its size and colour. We have also the legend of the acquisition of this relic by a persecuted monk of the country who had gone to India on a pilgrimage.

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The Tooth-relic here mentioned was not allowed to remain in Kashmir and was carried away a few years after Yuan-chuang's visit by the great king Śīladitya.¹

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¹ There was a sacred tooth in Kashmir in Baron Hügel's time. The Brahmins of Bāramulla, in whose keeping it was, declared that the tooth was that of an ancient jin, but Hügel says it was an elephant's tooth "and of no great age to judge from its appearance."

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Our pilgrim goes on to describe that about fourteen li (about three miles) to the south of the Monastery at the Tooth-tope was a small Monastery which contained a standing image of the P'usa Kuan-tzŭ-tsai (Kuan-yin P'usa). To importunate, earnest worshippers this P'usa occasionally caused his golden body to emerge from the image.

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On a mountain above thirty li south-east from this were the ruins of a fine large old monastery. At the time of the pilgrim's visit, he tells us, only a two-storey building in one corner of it was inhabited, and this contained thirty Brethren who were all students of the Mahāyāna system. It was in this monastery that the Śāstra-master Sanghabhadra composed the “Shun-chêng-li-lun (順正理論).” To the right and left of the monastery were topes to great arhats, and the relics of these were all still in existence. Hither monkeys and other wild animals brought flowers as offerings of worship, and they did this regularly as if acting under instructions. Many other strange things occurred on this mountain. Thus a wall of rock would be split across and footprints of horses would be left on the top of the mountain. But the latter were deceptive, being tracings made by the arhats and their novices when out on parties of pleasure; such traces left by them as they rode to and fro were too numerous to mention. Above ten *li* east of the Buddha-tooth monastery in the steep side of the northern mountain stood a small monastery. Here the great Śāstra-Master So-kan-ti-lo (索建地羅) or Skandhila, composed the “Chung-shih-fên-p'i-p'o-sha-lun” (眾事分毘婆沙論).

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The Śāstra-master Sanghabhadra will come before us again in chapter X. The treatise here mentioned by the name “Chung-shih-fên-p'i-p'o-sha-lun” does not seem to be known to the Buddhist canon, at least it is not in the existing catalogues or collections. It was apparently a vibhāshā or disquisition on Vasumitra's treatise already mentioned the “Chung-shih-fên-abhidharma-lun” called also the “Abhidharma-p'in-lei-tsu-lun”, the Sanskrit original for which is given as “Abhidharma-prakaraṇa-pāda-śāstra” (Bun. No. 1292). Julien suggests “Vibhāshā-prakaraṇa-pāda as possibly the original title of Skandhila's treatise. This Śāstra-master, also styled “Arhat”, of whom very little seems to be known, was also the author of the short but interesting treatise entitled “Shuo-i-ch'ie-yu-ju-abhidharma-lun”. But the characters for *Shuo-i-ch'ie-yu* meaning “Sarvāstivādin” are generally omitted and the work is known by its short name “Ju-abhidharma-lun” which is in Sanskrit, according to B. Nanjio, “Abhidharmāvatāra-śāstra”. This retranslation of the title, however, may possibly not be the correct one. The book is an introduction or entrance (*Ju* 入) to the study of the Abhidharma, and its original title may have been something like “Abhidharmapraveśana-śāstra”. It is to our pilgrim that we are indebted for the Chinese translation of this little treatise.¹

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¹ This treatise is Bun. No. 1291. In the name of the author the first syllable is Sa (薩) instead of the So of our text.

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Within the grounds of this little monastery, the pilgrim tells us, was a stone tope over the bodily relics of an ancient arhat. This arhat, who has been referred to already, had been a very large man with the appetite of an elephant: so the people of the time jeered at him as a glutton without a conscience. When the time for his passing away was near he said one day to the people—"I am soon to take the remainderless [to die]; I wish to explain to you the excellent state to which I have personally attained". But the people only jeered the more, and collected together to see what would befall. The arhat then addressed them thus—"I will now tell you the causal connection of my past and present states. In my last existence before this one I had through previous karma the body of an elephant in the stable of a raja of East-India. While I was there a Buddhist monk from Kashmir came to travel in India in search of sacred books. The raja gave me to the monk to carry his books home, and when I reached this country I died suddenly. As a result of my merit from carrying the sacred books I was next born as a human being, and then enjoying the residue of my good fortune I became a Buddhist monk in early life." The arhat goes on to tell the people how he assiduously sought and at length obtained spiritual perfection. The only survival from his former bodily existence was his elephantine appetite, and by the exercise of self-restraint he had reduced his daily food by two-thirds. Finally in the presence of the scoffing and unbelieving spectators he rose in the air and there, in the smoke and blazes of a burning ecstasy, he went into final extinction, and a tope was erected over the relics which fell to the earth.

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The story here related bears considerable resemblance to a story told in the Mahā-vibhāshā-śāstra. There a she-elephant named Mo-t'u (or -ch'a) carries relics of the Buddha from a foreign country to Kashmir where she dies; she is then re-born as a male child and becoming a bhikshu attains arhatship. But the arhat retains the elephant's appetite and requires a *hu* (bushel) of food every day. When he is about to pass away he proposes to explain to certain nuns his "superior condition" but they only jeer at him. Then he tells them his history, and so explains his great appetite, which he says he had moderated, reducing his daily food from a bushel and a half to a bushel per diem.¹ The reader will remember that Uttarasena brought his share of the Buddha’s relics home on an elephant, and that the elephant died on reaching a place not many miles from the capital of Udyāna.

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