On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c14.s3: Prayāga
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c14.s3
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Prayāga
v1.c14.s3.1
From Ayamukha the pilgrim went south-east, he tells us, and after a journey of more than 700 *li*, crossing to the south of the Ganges and the north of the Jumna he came to the *Po-lo-ya-ka* (Prayāga) country.
v1.c14.s3.2
There is evidently something wrong in the accounts which our pilgrim has given of his journeys in these districts. He applies the name "Ganges", apparently to more than one river, and it seems probable that his Ayudha and Ayamukha were on an affluent or affluents of the Ganges proper. From Kanauj he may have made an excursion to these two cities. From Ayamukha he apparently returned to the Ganges somewhere near Navadevakula, which was 20 miles to the south-east of Kanauj. From the neighbourhood of this place to Prayāga, going south-east, is about 140 miles or 700 *li*. Cunningham seems to take no notice of the statements in the Records and Life that Ayamukha was to the east of Ayudha. Moreover he wrongly represents Yuan-chuang as going by boat all the way down the Ganges south-east from the latter city to Ayamukha. So we cannot wonder that he finds it impossible to make distances agree.¹
v1.c14.s3.3
¹ A. G. I. p. 388.
v1.c14.s3.4
The pilgrim goes on to state that the Prayāga country was above 5000 *li* in circuit, and the capital above 20 *li* in circuit. This city, which apparently had the same name, he places at the junction of two rivers (viz. the Ganges and the Jumna). He praises the country, the climate, and the people. He tells us there were only two Buddhist establishments and very few Brethren all Hīnayānists. There were some hundreds of Deva-Temples and the majority of the inhabitants were non-Buddhists.
v1.c14.s3.5
In a champaka grove to the south-west of the capital was an old Asoka tope to mark the spot at which the Buddha once overcame his religious opponents (that is, in controversy). Beside it were a Buddha-hair-and-nail relic tope and an Exercise ground. Near the relic tope was an old monastery in which Deva P'usa composed the "Kuang-pai-lun" for the refutation of the Hīnayānists and the conquest of the Tirthikas.
v1.c14.s3.6
Prayāga, the capital of this country, corresponds, as has been shown by others, to the modern Allahabad. The word Prayāga means sacrifice, or a holy ground set apart for sacrifices.
v1.c14.s3.7
The Deva Puṣa of this passage has been already met with at the Sources of the Ganges. His treatise here mentioned, the "Kuang-pai-lun", which we have in Yuan-chuang's translation, is a very short one in verse arranged under eight headings. It denounces the belief in individual permanence and argues against brahmins and others.¹
v1.c14.s3.8
¹ Bun. No. 1189.
v1.c14.s3.9
In the capital, the pilgrim goes on to relate, was a celebrated Deva-Temple in front of which was a great wide-spreading umbrageous tree. In this tree once lodged a cannibal demon, hence the presence of numerous bones near the tree. Visitors to the temple, under the influence of bad teaching and supernatural beings, had continuously from old times all lightly committed suicide here. Lately, however, a very wise and learned brahmin of good family had tried to convert the people from their evil belief and stop the practice of suicide. He accordingly went up to the temple and in the presence of friends proceeded to kill himself in the usual way by mounting the tree to throw himself down from it. When up the tree, addressing the spectators he said — "I am dying (lit. have death); formerly I spoke of the matter as an illusion, now I have proof that it is real; the devas with their aerial music are coming to meet me, and I am about to give up my vile body from this meritorious spot." As the Brahmin was about to throw himself down from the tree to be killed his friends tried to dissuade him from the act, but their counsels were in vain. They then spread their garments below the tree; and when the Brahmin fell he was unhurt, but was in a swoon. When he recovered he said to the by-standers---"What is seen as the devas in the air summoning one is the leading of evil spirits, not the acquisition of heavenly joy".
v1.c14.s3.10
The story here told leaves somewhat to be supplied in order to make it as intelligible to us as it was to Yuan-chuang's Chinese readers. For some reason not explained in the story it had long been an article of popular belief that suicide at this Deva-Temple led to birth in Heaven. Then those who "threw away their lives" here were evidently left unburied and were supposed to be devoured by the man-eating demon who lived in the great tree. This tree was undoubtedly a banyan, and Cunningham thinks that "there can be little doubt that the famous tree here described by the pilgrim is the well-known *Akshay-Bat*, or "undecaying Banian tree", which is still an object of worship at Allahabad".
v1.c14.s3.11
Not long before the time of Yuan-chuang's visit, he tells us, a brahmin "of good family" had tried to convert the people from their folly in committing suicide here. The Chinese rendered by "of good family" is *tsu-hsing-tzŭ* (族姓子) lit. "Son of a clan". This expression is one of very common use in Buddhist books and means simply "a gentleman". Yet Julien here translates it by "dont le nom de famille était Fils (Pouttra)".¹
v1.c14.s3.12
¹ The phrase *tsu-hsing-tzŭ* is the equivalent of the Indian term *kulaputra*, "son of a family", that is, clansman, and the clansmen were regarded as well-born. In the Buddhist books *tsu-hsing-tzŭ* is applied to eminent laymen, and also to bhikshus, who moreover use it in speaking of themselves.
v1.c14.s3.13
This brahmin gentleman, when up in the banyan tree, hears music and sees beings; and he thinks (or pretends to think) that these are the harbingers of a happy death giving an entrance into Heaven. But when he recovers from his swoon he recognizes, and declares, that he only saw in the air devas summoning him, that these were evil deities coming to meet him, and that there was no heavenly joy. The language here used belongs partly to a popular Chinese belief or fancy. The Chinese generally believe that dying persons often receive intimation or indication of what is to be their lot after they depart this life, and the information is supposed to be often conveyed by the appearance of a certain kind of emissary from the other world. These messengers from the world beyond are said to *chie-yin* (接引) or to *yin* the dying individual, that is to welcome or introduce him. It is these terms which are here translated by "coming to meet" and "leading". The Brahmin mistook the character of the welcome to be given. We are probably to understand that he taught his friends, and the people generally, that the music and angels of the suicides were in all cases harbingers of posthumous misery, not of bliss in Heaven.
v1.c14.s3.14
On the east side of the capital and at the confluence of the rivers, the pilgrim proceeds, was a sunny down about ten *li* wide covered with a white sand. This down was called in the popular language "The Grand Arena of Largesse". It was the place to which from ancient times princes, and other liberal benefactors, had come to make their offerings and gifts. Yuan-chuang then proceeds to describe how king Śīlāditya acted on the occasion to which reference has already been made. The king, as we have seen, went in state from Kanauj to this place for his customary quinquennial great distribution of gifts, and alms, and offerings. He had come prepared, and he gave away all the public money, and all his own valuables. Beginning with offerings to the Buddhist images on the first day, Yuan-chuang here tells us, the king went on to bestow gifts on the resident Buddhist Brethren, next on the assembled congregation, next on those who were conspicuous for great abilities and extensive learning, next on retired scholars and recluses of other religions, and lastly on the kinless poor. This lavish distribution in a few (according to the Life in 75) days exhausted all the public and private wealth of the country, but in ten days after the Treasury was emptied it was again filled.
v1.c14.s3.15
At the junction of the rivers and to the east of the Arena of Largesse, Yuan-chuang continues, every day numbers of people arrived to die in the sacred water, hoping to be thereby reborn in Heaven. Even the monkeys and other wild creatures came to this place, some bathed and then went back, others fasted here until they died. In connection with this statement Yuan-chuang tells a story of a monkey which lived under a tree close to the river, and starved himself to death at the time of Śīlāditya's visit. He adds that this occurrence led to the following curious and trying austerity-performance on the part of the local devotees given to austerities. High poles were erected in the Ganges at this place, each with a projecting peg near the top; at sunrise a devotee mounted a pole; holding on to the top with one hand and one foot, and supported by the peg, he stretched out his other arm and leg at full length. In this posture he followed keenly with his eyes the sun's progress to the right; when the sun set the devotee came down from his perch to resume it next morning. This painful austerity was practised with the view of obtaining release from mortal life, and it was carried on for several tens of years without relaxation.
v1.c14.s3.16
This story of our pilgrim seems to be rather silly and not very intelligible. One cannot see the connection between the monkey’s suicide and the devotees’ practice on the poles. But if we regard the date given for the monkey’s death, viz. the time of Śīlāditya’s visit, as an accidental mistake (which the context seems to show it must be) then we probably have here a fragment of some old story told to account for absurd austerities still practised at the time of Yuan-chuang’s visit. According to the Fang-chih the monkey of the pilgrim’s story was a husband, and his wife was attacked and killed by a dog. The husband found the dead body of his wife, and with pious care carried it to the Ganges, and consigned it to that sacred river; then he gave himself up to grief, would not take any food, and after a few days died. It is probable that the original story also told how the bereaved monkey every morning went to the top of one of the poles at the bank of the river, and sat there gazing intently at the sky; that he came down at evening, and spent the night in his lonely home, and that when he died he rejoined his wife in Heaven. When the history of this pious uxorious monkey became generally known, seekers after Heaven were moved to adopt the means which they had seen the monkey use. So they set up poles in the river, and sat perched on these after the manner of monkeys, as the pilgrim describes, craning their necks to watch the sun through all his course from east to west. This is what they thought the pious intelligent monkey had been doing.
Cites (1)
- Śataśāstra — Āryadeva, Classical Chinese