On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c9.s1: Nagar

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c9.s1

Language: English

Nagar

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The pilgrim, according to the narrative in the Records, proceeded from Lampa south-east above 100 *li*, crossing a high mountain and a large river, and reached the *Na-kie(ka)-lo-ho* country.

The Life here represents Yuan-chuang as going south from Lampa and crossing a small range on which a tope to commemorate the spot at which the Buddha having travelled on foot from the south rested on arriving in these regions. Then the Life makes the pilgrim continue his journey from this range still southward for above twenty *li*, descending the hills and crossing a river into the *Na-ka-lo-ho* country.

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This country, which we may suppose to have been called by a name like Nagar, is one of considerable interest; and as the account given of it in the Records and the Life is peculiar, and rather puzzling, it may be useful to examine the account at some length.

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In the Records Yuan-chuang describes Nagar as being above 600 *li* (about 120 miles) from east to west and 250 or 260 *li* (about 50 miles) from north to south. The country was surrounded on all sides by high mountains steep and difficult of passage. Its capital was above 20 *li* in circuit, but there was no king and the State was a province of Kapis. Grain and fruits were produced in abundance, the climate was mild, the people were of good character, courageous, slighting wealth and esteeming learning, reverencing Buddha and having little faith in other religious systems. But although there were many Buddhist establishments the Brethren were very few. There were five Deva-Temples and above 100 professed non-Buddhists.

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About two *li* to the east (in the Life, south-east) of the capital stood a great stone tope above 300 feet high which had marvellous sculptures. Close to this tope on the west side was a vihāra and adjoining the vihāra on the south was a small tope. The former of these two topes was said to have been built by king Asoka at the place where Sakya P'usa, having spread in the mud his deer-skin mantle and his hair for Dīpankara Buddha, received from the latter the prediction of Buddhahood. At the periodic annihilations and restorations of the world the traces of this incident are not effaced, and on fast days showers of flowers descend on the spot, which is regarded with great reverence. The small tope was at the spot where the mantle and hair were spread on the mud, [the other tope] having been erected by king Asoka in a retired place off the highway.

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Yuan-chuang next takes us into "the city" and tells us of the foundations which still remained of the grand tope which, he was informed, had once contained a tooth-relic of the Buddha. Close to these was a remarkable small tope of unknown origin, and popularly supposed to have come down out of space. The narrative in our text next takes us to a tope above ten *li* south-west of "the city". This tope marked the spot at which the Buddha alighted from his aerial voyage from Mid-India to this country. Near the tope of the Descent on the east side was another tope to commemorate the spot at which, on the occasion of the meeting, the P'usa bought five lotus flowers for an offering to Dīpankara Buddha.

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Continuing in a south-western direction from "the city", and at a distance of above twenty *li* from it, the pilgrim takes us to a small range of rocky hills containing a stone monastery with lofty halls and tiers of chambers all silent and unoccupied. Within the grounds of this establishment was a tope 200 feet high built by king Asoka.

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Going on again south-west from this monastery we come to a ravine with a torrent the banks of which were steep rocks. In the east bank was the cave inhabited by the Gopāla dragon, very dark and with a narrow entrance, and with water trickling from the rock to the path. In this cave the Buddha had left his shadow or rather a luminous image of himself in the rock, once a clear and perfect resemblance, but at the period of our pilgrim's visit to the district the wonderful likeness was only dimly visible and only at certain times and to certain persons. Outside the Shadow Cave were two square stones on one of which was a light-emitting impress of the Buddha's foot. On either side of the Shadow Cave were other caves which had been used by the Buddha's great disciples as places for ecstatic meditation (samādhi). In the immediate neighbourhood of the Shadow Cave also the pilgrim found various topes and other objects associated with the Buddha's personal visit to this district.

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Following the narrative in the Records we have now to return to "the city". Starting again from it and going in a south-east direction for above thirty *li* we come to a city called *Hi-lo* (or *He-lo*). This city, which was four or five *li* in circuit had a strong elevated situation with charming gardens and ponds. Within it was a two-storeyed building in which were carefully preserved the Ushṇīsha-bone of the Buddha, his skull, one of his eyes, his mendicant's staff, and one of his clerical robes. To the north of this Relic-house was a wonder-working tope which could be shaken by a touch of the finger.

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There are one or two discrepancies between the account here given and that in the Life. Thus in the Records the Buddha comes to Nagar country through the air and alights at a spot ten *li* south-west from "the city", but in the Life he arrives on foot at a place north of Nagar. Then as to Hilo, the Life differs from the Records in placing this city at about 12 *li* distance south-east from the Flowers Tope.

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The Nagar of our text, it is agreed, is represented by the region in modern times called Nungnehar, that is, Nine Rivers. In Baber's time Nungnihar, "in many histories written Nekerhar", was a tuman of Lamghan (Lampa).¹ The Nagar country thus included the present district of Jelalabad, the valley of the Cabul River from Darunta on the west to Mirza Kheyl on the east and, according to Mr Simpson, it "might reach from about Jugduluck to the Khyber".² Our text makes Yuan-chuang visit two cities of this country, the capital and Hilo the former capital. As to the latter all investigators seem to be agreed that the Hilo of Yuan-chuang and the other pilgrims is represented by the modern Hidda (or Heida or Hada), a place situated about five miles south of Jelalabad.

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¹ Baber p. 141.

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² J. R. A. S. Vol. xiii. Art. VII.

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As to the site of the city called Nagar supposed to have been the capital of the country "in the Buddhist period" there is some diversity of opinion. The Na-kie (ka)-lo-ho of Yuan-chuang is evidently the Na-kic(ka) of Fa-hsien who uses the name for city and country. It is also the Na-kie city and the Na-ka-lo-ho of the Sung-yun narrative in the "Ka-lan-chi", and also the Na-kie of a Vinaya treatise translated in A.D. 378.³

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³ Fo-kuo-chi, ch. 13; Ka-lan-chi, ch. 5; Pi-ni-ye-ching (the "Chie-yin-yuan-ching". Bun. No. 1130).

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Julien makes Na-ka-lo-ho stand for Nagarahāra, and in a note he tells us that in the Sung annals we find Nang-go-lo-ho-lo which answers exactly to the Indian orthography furnished by the inscription discovered by Captain Kittoe. Julien is of course followed, and his identification accepted, by subsequent writers; and on his and Lassen's authority the P. W. gives Nagarahāra as the name of a kingdom. But this word cannot be made out of Yuan-chuang's four characters which apparently give the full name. Then as to Nang-go-lo-ho-lo the writer in the "Sung Shi" quotes a Buddhist monk who evidently wrote without knowledge. The passage referred to by Julien puts Udyāna, which was immediately to the north of Gandhāra, twelve days' journey to the east of that country. Then it places Gandhāra at a distance of twenty days' journey eastward from Nang-go-lo-ho-lo and it makes the latter to be ten days' journey to the east of Lampa.¹ But Yuan-chuang's Nagar was only five or six days' journey north-west from Gandhāra and about twenty miles south or south-east from Lampa. Thus Nang-go-lo-ho-lo does not agree with Nagar either in distances or directions and its situation is imaginary and impossible. Then the Nagarahāra of Kittoe's Sanskrit inscription of about the 8th or 9th century is evidently not the Nagar of Yuan-chuang and the other Chinese pilgrims. The inscription represents Viradeva, son of Indra Gupta a Brahman of Bengal, as becoming a Buddhist and going to the "holy convent called Kanishka" (śrīmat Kanishkam upagamya mahā-vihāram) in Nagarahāra.² Now there is no mention by any of the pilgrims of a great Kanishka monastery in Nagar, city or country. But there was a celebrated one in Gandhāra near Purushapur and the Nagarahāra of the Kittoe inscription is evidently the Gandhāra country.

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¹ Sung-Shi, l. c.

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² J. A. S. Ben. Vol. xvii, p. 494.

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Cunningham places the capital of Yuan-chuang's Nagar "at Begrām, about two miles to the west of Jalalabad".³ Saint Martin supposes it to have been a little to the west of this Begrām. Mr Simpson, who writes after careful inspection and study of the locality, places the site of the Nagar capital west of Begrām on a rocky elevation at the junction of the Surkhāb and Cabul rivers. No one of these identifications meets all the requirements of the descriptions, but each is supported to a certain extent by the statements in the Records.

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³ A. G. I. p. 44.

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If we take the narrative in the Records and read it in connection with that in the Life we find that there were three cities in this district visited by the pilgrim. These are the capital, the city of the Dipankara Buddha, and Hilo the city of the Ushnisha relic. Now as the Records make mention of only the first and third of these by name it may perhaps be taken for granted that Yuan-chuang mixed up in his mind the first and second when writing out his notes. So the term "the city" seems to stand sometimes for the capital but more frequently for the city of Dipankara. The confusion apparently affected the compilers of the Life also.

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Combining the two narratives we find that Yuan-chuang on entering the country apparently went directly towards the capital. This he describes, as has been stated, as "above 20 li [in circuit]". The word Chou for "in circuit" is found only in the D text, but some such term is needed and the use of Chou agrees with Yuan-chuang's usual way of describing towns and districts. The reader will observe, however, that we are not told anything about the natural and artificial characteristics of the capital, about its situation or surroundings. This silence is very extraordinary if we regard the city to have been on the site proposed and described by Mr Simpson.

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Now the description of the place which this explorer gives seems to be that of a fortress rather than a city. And Nagar was perhaps at this time a strong fortress, and it was called the capital because it was the official residence of the Governor appointed by the king of Kapis. Yuan-chuang apparently did not enter this city as he begins his description of the sacred objects of the country with those outside of "the capital". The last character in Yuan-chuang's Na-ka-lo-ho may stand for kot which means a fortress, and names like Nagkot, Nagarkot are met with in several regions of "North India"¹. The Nagar of our text may be the Nagarkot which Alberuni mentions as containing the annals of the Shah dynasty of Kabul.

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¹ See e. g. Nagarkot in Alberuni, Vol. ii, p. 11.

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Moreover the Adinapūr of Baber was apparently on the site of Yuan-chuang's Nagar (or Nagar-kot) and it was a fort. Baber describes the fort as "situated on an eminence, which, towards the river, is forty or fifty gez (100 feet or upwards), in perpendicular height", a description which agrees with that given by Mr Simpson of the Nagar rock. This fort Baber tells us was the official residence of the darogha or commandant of the district.

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Let us now substitute "Nagar fortress" for "the Capital" and "the city" in the first part of the pilgrim's narrative. We find then that the great Asoka tope was about two li or nearly half a mile to the east (or south-east) of the fortress. Turning to Masson and Simpson we find that they give a tope called "Nagara Goondée" which is apparently about three furlongs to the east or south-east of the Nagar rock.¹

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¹ Masson's Ar. Ant. p. 100 et al.

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From the Flower Tope near the Asoka Tope the pilgrim, according to the Life, set out south-east for Hilo, the city of the Ushṇīsha relic. On the way apparently, but this is not quite clear, he learns of the Gopāla Dragon cave with the miraculous likeness of the Buddha. Wishing to visit this, Yuan-chuang had to go out of his way to the Têng-kuang (燈光) city in order to obtain a guide. The term Têng-kuang is used to translate the word Dipankara, name of a very early Buddha, but we need not suppose that it represents the name of the city. Now the Têng-kuang city was apparently that called Na-kie(ka) by previous pilgrims, and it was apparently a little to the west of the site of the modern Jelalabad. One name for it was Padmapur or Lotus city. This is given by some Chinese as *Hua-shi-ch'êng*, or Flower City; and it is said to be another name for the capital of the Nagar country. A more common name for Dipankara's City in Buddhist books is Dīpavatī from *dīpa*, a torch or *light*. We may for the present, however, use Padmapur to represent the name of the city, as we have no means of knowing what the name actually was, that is, supposing it not to have been simply Nagar.

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This Padmapur then, let us assume, was the Na-ka city which had the ruins of the Tooth-tope, a tope which had been seen by Fa-hsien in perfect condition. It was this city also from which Hilo was distant about 30 *li* to the south-east. Then from it Yuan-chuang went south-west to the Shadow-Cave, and from this south-east to Hilo.

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Now going from Padmapur south-west at a distance of above 20 *li* was a small rocky hill which had a great Buddhist monastery with an Asoka tope above 200 feet high. This monastery and tope may be represented by the ruins at Gunda Chismeh of Mr Simpson’s map, “the smooth rounded mound of a tope and the rectangular mound of a vihara”. Some distance from this on the east bank of a torrent was the Dragon’s cave with the luminous picture of the Buddha on the rock. Fa-hsien places the cave about half a Yojana south from the Nakie city. His words are “Half a Yojana south of Nakie city is a cave as *you follow the course of the hills towards the south-west*”. The words in italics are for the Chinese 博山西南 which our translators understood to mean a great mountain towards the south-west. The phrase *poh-shan* is certainly used in the sense of a “great mountain” and this is its proper meaning. Here, however, as in some other cases the construction seems to require that the words be taken in the sense of going along a hill (or series of hills). This word *poh* is probably, as has been stated already, the *poh* of *hui-poh* (迴薄) of Chuan I of these Records, and also the *poh* (博) of various passages in the Fo-kuo-chi and other works.

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There does not seem to be any satisfactory explanation of the names Nagar and Hilo. If the former be for Nagara its memory may be kept up in the modern designation Begrām which like Nagara means a “city”. Or the syllable Nag or Nak may possibly be for the Indian word *nāga* which denotes the sun, a snake, a mountain, an elephant. Masson says that the old name for the country was Ajūna and Saint Martin and Cunningham think this word may be a corruption of another old name for it, viz. Udyānapur or "the city of the Garden". But no one seems to give any authority for this last old name and it is apparently unknown to Chinese authors and translators. It may be added that this district is referred to in some Chinese books as in the Yue-shi (Getæ) country of North India. It is also called Ye-p'o-kan-t'ê (業波乾陀), that is perhaps, Yavakāṇḍa, and it is said to be to the west of Udyāna.

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As to Hilo, Cunningham would have us regard this word as a transposition of the Sanskrit word Haḍḍa, meaning a "bone". But there were several Hilos in North India, and the relic supposed to have given the name is not called in Sanskrit by any term containing a word for "bone". It was the Uṣṇīṣa of the Buddha that Hilo contained along with other relics of the Buddha. Some Chinese translators, it is true, call the relic "the bone of the top of Buddha's head," but others give a different rendering, or keep the original word. The full name and some of the translations will be given a few pages farther on. We may perhaps regard the name in our text as for Hilā which was probably a local pronunciation for Śilā. This word means a rock or rocky eminence, and the name suits the description of the place.