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On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c13.s6: Kapitha or Sānkaśya

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c13.s6

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English

Kapitha or Sānkaśya

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From *P'i-lo-shan-na*, the narrative proceeds, a journey of above 200 *li* south-east brought the pilgrim to the *Kah-pi-t'a* (Kapitha) country. This was more than 2000 *li*, and its capital above twenty *li* in circuit: the climate and products of the district were like those of *P'i-lo-shan-na*. There were four Buddhist monasteries (that is perhaps, at the capital) and above 1000 Brethren all of the Sammatiya School. The Deva-Temples were ten in number and the non-Buddhists, who lived pell-mell, were Saivites.

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Above twenty *li* east (according to the A, B, and C texts, but in the D text, west) from the capital was a large monastery of fine proportions and perfect workmanship: its representations of Buddhist worthies were in the highest style of ornament. The monastery contained some hundreds of Brethren, all of the Sammatiya School, and beside it lived their lay dependents some myriads in number. Within the enclosing wall of the monastery were Triple stairs of precious substances in a row south to north, and sloping down to east, where the Julai descended from the Tayastimsa Heaven. The Ju-lai had ascended from Jetavana to Heaven and there lodged in the "Good-Law-Hall" where he had preached to his mother: at the end of three months he was about to descend. Then Indra by his divine power set up triple stairs of precious substances, the middle one of gold, the left one of crystal, and the right one of silver. The Buddha descended on the middle stair, Brahma holding a white whisk came down with him on the right stair and Indra holding up a jeweled sunshade descended on the left stair, while devas in the air scattered flowers and praised the Buddha. These stairs survived until some centuries before the pilgrim's time when they sank out of sight: then certain kings on the site of the original stairs set up the present ones of brick and stone adorned with precious substances and after the pattern of the original stairs. The present stairs were above 70 feet high with a Buddhist temple on the top in which was a stone image of the Buddha, and images of Brahma and Indra were at the top of the right and left stairs respectively and these images like the originals appeared to be descending.

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By the side of these was an Asoka stone-pillar of a lustrous violet colour and very hard with a crouching lion on the top facing the stairs: quaintly carved figures were on each side of the pillar, and according to one's bad or good deserts figures appeared to him in the pillar. Not far from the Stairs was a tope where the Four Past Buddhas had sat and walked up and down: beside it was a tope where the Ju-lai had taken a bath: beside this was a Buddhist temple where the Julai had gone into samādhi. Beside the temple was a large stone platform 50 paces long and seven feet high where the Julai had walked up and down, all his footsteps having the tracery of a lotus-flower: and on both sides of it were small topos erected by Indra and Brahma. In front was the place where the bhikshuni Lotus flower-colour (Utpalavarnā) wishing to be first to see the Buddha on his descent from Heaven transformed herself into a universal sovereign. At the same time Subhūti sitting meditating on the vanity of things beheld the spiritual body of Buddha. The Julai told Utpalavarnā that she had not been the first to see him for Subhūti contemplating the vanity of things had preceded her in seeing his spiritual body. The Buddha's exercise platform was enclosed by a wall and had a large tope to the south-east of which was a tank the dragon of which protected the sacred traces from wanton injury.

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The Life gives the direction in which the pilgrim travelled from I'i-lo-shan-na to Kah-pi-t'a as east instead of the south-east of our text, but this may be a slip, the distance between the places being the same in the two books.

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Our pilgrim's *Kah-pi-t'a* has naturally been restored as Kapitha, and we may retain the restoration for the present, although the word seems to be otherwise unknown. The transcription may, however, be for *Kalpita*, a word which has, with other meanings, that of "set in order". It was perhaps this name which the translator of a sūtra had before him when he gave *An-hsiang-hui* (安詳會), "Orderly arranged Meeting" as the name of the place of the Buddha's descent.¹ A note to our text here tells us that the old name of Kapitha was *Sêng-ka-she* (僧迦舍). This is a transcription of the name which is given as Sankāśya or Sāngkāśya (in Pali, Sankassa). It is the Sankasa of some, the Sakaspura of Spence Hardy, and the modern Sankisa.² The name Sankāśya or a variety of it seems to have been generally employed by the Buddhist writers of India, and the translators into Chinese and Tibetan usually contented themselves with transcriptions of the original. Another name for the place of the Buddha's Descent is that used in the Itinerary of Wu-k'ung. There it is designated *Ni-fo-wa-to* (泥縛婆多), a puzzling word which the translators have taken to stand for the Sanskrit Devāvatāra.³ This is doubtless correct, and the district obtained the name Devāvatāra or Devatāvataraṇam, in Chinese *T'ien-hsia-ch'ü* (天下處)⁴, "Place of Devas' Descent", because Brahma, Indra, and hosts of inferior devas here appeared descending to earth with the Buddha. But as this name was not Buddhistic in appearance, the Deva or Devatā was probably dropt in popular use, and the name Avataraṇam employed to denote the Buddha’s Descent. Mr Rockhill’s Tibetan text in his Life of Buddha relates that Buddha descended to “the foot of the Udumbara tree of the Avadjaravana (sic) of the town of Sāṃkaśya”.¹ Here the Tibetan probably wrote Avajaravana by a slip for Avatāravana or Avataraṇam.

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¹ Fo-shuo-yi-tsu-ching, *ch.* 2 (No. 674). But the *Kah-pi-t'a* of our text may be the Kapisthala of the Brihat sañhita which the author of that work places in Madhyadeśa-see Ind. Ant. Vol. XXII p. 180 and Alberuni I. p. 300.

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² For Sakaspura and the Cingalese version of the visit to Heaven and descent therefrom see M. B. p. 308. For Sankisa see A. G. I. p. 368.

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³ Shih-li-ching: J. A. T. VI. p. 358.

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⁴ Divyāv. p. 150: Tsa-a-han-ching, *ch.* 19.

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¹ Rockhill Life p. 81.

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From a curious little sūtra² we learn that there had once been at the place afterwards called Saṅkāśya an old chaitya (or tope), built in honour of Kaśyapa Buddha by his father, and called Sêng-ka-shih (Saṅkāśya). Before the time of Gautama Buddha, however, this chaitya had sunk down until it was all underground. When the Buddha descended from Heaven at this place, he caused the Chaitya to emerge above ground as a memorial of his return to earth. Afterwards it was found that the chaitya as it stood interfered with the traffic of the city, and so the king ordered it to be demolished. But during the night the chaitya left its site to the north of the city, and passed over the city to a spot in a wood about twenty *li* south of it. The chaitya of this sūtra is elsewhere a temple; and is described as the model for the one which five kings on Buddha’s suggestion erected near its site.³ This temple, called the Gods’ or Kings’ Temple, was erected as a memorial of the Buddha’s Descent, and was probably the temple of our pilgrim’s description. In the old sūtra, it will be observed, the chaitya of Kaśyapa Buddha is called Saṅkāśya, and this name is transferred to the city. As such the name is interpreted in another work as meaning *kuang-ming* (光明) or “brightness”, “clearness”,⁴ and this may indicate a reference to the legend of the chaitya of Kaśyapa Buddha.

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² Fo-shuo-ku-shu-ching (佛說枯樹經).

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³ Tsêng-yi-a-han-ching, *ch.* 28.

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⁴ A-yü-wang-ching, *ch.* 3.

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The story of Gautama Buddha leaving Jetavana for the Trayastriṃśa Heaven, spending there the three months of Retreat expounding his religion to his mother and the devas, and of his glorious descent to earth again, is referred to in many Chinese Buddhist books, and with only few serious variations of detail. In some works the place of descent is near a sand, or a large tank, outside of Saṅkāśya city¹, and here the "tank" of the translation may represent avatāra in the original, this word having also the meaning of tank or pond. In some treatises the scene of the Descent is at Kanyākubja, which is placed in the Saṅkāśya country by one authority, and in the Andhra country by another². The Tope of the Descent was the fifth of the Eight Great Topes connected with the Buddha's career, and it was at Kanyākubja. Wu-K'ung went to Devāvatāra to see this tope, but neither Fa-hsien³ nor our pilgrim makes any mention of a great tope in their descriptions of the sights of the place, although Yuan-chuang, as we have seen, incidentally mentions a "great tope" afterwards.

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¹ A-yü-wang-chuan, ch. 2; Tsêng-yi-a-han-ching, l. c.

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² Ta-shêng-pên-shêng-hsin-ti-kuan-ching, ch. 1 (No. 955); Pa-ta-ling-t'a-ming-hao-ching (No. 898).

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³ See Fo-kuo-chi, ch. 17.

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The legend of the bhikṣuṇī Utpalavarṇā making herself a magic Cakravarti, or Universal Sovereign, by which to be the first to greet Buddha on his descent; and her rebuke by the latter, who told her that Subhūti, seeing the spiritual body of Buddha, had been before her, is in several Buddhist works. But it is not in the account of the Descent given in the Tsa-a-han-ching, and in another treatise we have the bhikṣuṇī, but Subhūti is not mentioned by name. The words "transformed herself" in the statement that the nun "transformed herself into a Cakravarti" are for the terms hua-tso (化作) and hua-wei (化爲) of the text. But the former, which is apparently taken from the Fo-kuo-chi or some other work, means create or produce the appearance of by magic. Utpalavarṇā was an arhat, and so had supernormal powers. She thus, according to various accounts, produced the appearance of a chakravarti with its seven treasures, 1000 sons, and fourfold army, and transferring herself into her own magic Chakravarti, obtained the foremost place in front of the actual kings and all the crowd assembled to welcome Buddha.¹ Subhūti at this time was sitting, according to Yuan-chuang, in a cave (that is, on the Gridhrakūṭa mountain near Rājagaha), but another version makes him to be in his own house. Knowing that the Buddha was coming down from Heaven he reflected on the vanity of phenomena, and realizing in himself the nature of phenomena, he beheld, by the vision of spiritual wisdom, the spiritual body of Buddha, that is, the transcendental philosophy of Prajñāpāramitā.

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¹ Ta-chih-tu-lun, *ch.* 10, Ta-shêng-tsao-hsiang-kung-tê-ching, *ch.* 1 (No. 288).

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The Utpalavarṇā (in Pali, Uppalavaṇṇā) of this passage was one of the greatest and most noted of the bhikshuṇīs ordained by the Buddha. Her life as a laywoman had been extremely unhappy and, according to some legends, very immoral. She had two experiences which were especially distressing and produced on her a profound effect leading her, according to one account, to renounce the world. While living with her first husband she found him living in adultery with her mother, and her second husband brought home, as his concubine, her daughter by her first husband. Each of these experiences pierced her with sharp agony; and she left her home for ever.² When she became converted, and was admitted into the Buddhist church as a bhikshuṇī, she devoted herself to religion with enthusiasm, and attained arhatship. But even as a nun she was put to shame and had trouble. And her death was sad, for she was brutally attacked by Devadatta and died from the injuries inflicted by him.¹ Her name "Blue lotus colour" may have been given to her, as some suppose, because she had eyes like the blue lotus; but it is also said to have been indicative of her great personal beauty, or of the sweet perfume which her body exhaled.

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² Mi-sa-sai-lü, *ch.* 4 (No. 1122); Tib. Tales p. 206. A very different account of this lady's admission into his church by the Buddha is given in the Fa-chü-pi-yü-ching, *ch.* 1 (No. 1353) where she is called simply *Lien-hua* or Utpala. For the previous existences of Uppalavaṇṇā see Dr Bode's "Woman Leaders of the Buddhist Reformation" in J. R. A. S. for 1893 p. 532. For her misfortunes see also Therī-Gāthā p. 144 and p. 198 (P. T. S.).

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¹ Sar. Vin. P'o-sêng-shih, ch. 10 (No. 1123).

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Subhūti is interpreted as meaning "Excellent Manifestation" which is Yuan-chuang's translation, or "Excellent good auspices", and is rendered in several other ways. It was the name of the Disciple who is sometimes mentioned along with Mahākāśyapa, Aniruddha and other great disciples of the Buddha.² But he is best known as the exponent and defender of the doctrines of Prajñāpāramitā. He was a son of a learned brahmin of Śrāvastī, and was educated in the orthodox learning. Afterwards he became a hermit, and then was converted to Buddhism and ordained.³

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² Divyāv. p. 361; Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, chs. 1 and 4.

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³ Bud. Lit. Nep. p. 296; Ching-lü-yi-hsiang, ch. 13 (No. 1473).

Cites (8)