On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c15.17

v1.c15.17

In Julien’s translation of the last paragraph in the above account of the ancient sites of Śrāvastī city we have one of his mischievous glosses, which has been, as usual, followed and adopted by others. He translates— “Ce fut en cet endroit qu’[un des sectaires appelés] Yang-kiu-li-mo-lo (Aṅgouli-malyas), abjura ses erreurs”. There is nothing in the text to warrant the words which I have put within square brackets. If Julien had known the story he would not have written thus, nor of “les Aṅgoulimā-lyas”, and “des scélérats du royaume de Çrāvastī” in the continuation. The pilgrim’s narrative tells of only one man who had obtained the ill-sounding nick-name Angulimāla or Finger-garland. As the pilgrim knew the story this man was only a cruel murderer of Śrāvastī who cut off a finger from each person he killed, and strung the fingers into a garland. He also wanted to kill his own mother and the Buddha to secure him rebirth in Heaven.