On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c15.92

v1.c15.92

Near this place, the pilgrim goes on, was a tope to mark the spot at which 500 Sakya maidens were dismembered by this same king's orders. When Virūḍhaka had taken his revenge on the Sakyas he selected 500 of their maidens for his harem. But these young ladies were haughty, and refused to go, "abusing the king as the son of a slave" (li-ch'i-wang-chia-jen-chih-tzŭ 詈其王家人之子). When the king learned what they had done, he was wroth, and ordered that the maidens should be killed by mutilation. So their hands and feet were cut off, and their bodies were thrown into a pit. While the maidens were in the agonies of dying they called on the Buddha, and he heard them. Telling his disciples to bring garments (that is, for the naked maidens) he went to the place of execution. Here he preached to the dying girls on the mysteries of his religion, on the binding action of the five desires, the three ways of transmigration, the separation from the loved, and the long course of births and deaths. The maidens were purified and enlightened by the Buddha's teaching, and they all died at the same time and were reborn in Heaven. Indra in the guise of a Brahmin had their bodies collected and cremated, and men afterwards erected the tope at the place.