On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c15.74

v1.c15.74

The loyal bad woman of this story, called by the pilgrim "Chan-che the Brahmin woman", is the *Chincha-mānavikā* of the Pali Scriptures². This Pali name may also be the original for the *Chan-che-mo-na* of Fa-hsien and others, another form of transcription of the name being *Chan-che-mo-na-k'i* with *nü*, "woman", added.³ But we find the original name translated by *Pao-chih* (暴志) or "Fierce-minded", that is, Caṇḍamānā, which was apparently the early form of the name.¹ In a Chinese translation of a Buddhist work the woman is designated simply the "Many-tongued Woman".² According to one authority she was a disciple of the Tirthika teacher Keśakambala, and it was at the instigation of this teacher that she pretended to be with child to the Buddha in the manner here described. Another version of the story, and perhaps the earliest one, makes Chan-che (or Caṇḍā) a Buddhist nun led astray by evil influences. When her trick with the basin is discovered she is sentenced to be buried alive, but the Buddha intercedes for her, and she is only banished. Then the Buddha gives a very satisfactory explanation of the woman's conduct. She had come in contact with him long ago in his existence as a dealer in pearls, and he had then incurred her resentment. They had also met in another stage of their previous lives when the P'usa was a monkey, and Chanche was the relentless wife of the Turtle (or the Crocodile) and wanted to eat the monkey's liver. So her desire to inflict injury on the Buddha was a survival from a very old enmity.³ The Pali accounts and Fa-hsien agree with Yuan-chuang in representing Chan-che as going down alive into Hell, but, as has been stated, Fa-hsien differs from Yuan-chuang in not making mention of the pit by which she was said to have passed down.⁴