On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c9.s3.3

v1.c9.s3.3

In the "Ka-lan-chi" the narrative at the part about the Nagar country has this statement—"On to *Ku-lo-lo-lu*, saw the cave of Buddha's shadow, advancing 15 paces into the hill, the entrance facing west". Burnouf, who treats this short passage as corrupt, makes "Gopāla Cave" out of the four Chinese characters represented in the above transcription. This he effects by treating the first *lo* as a mistake for *p'o* and the last character *lu* as a mistake for *chü*, a deer for a cave as he represents it. But if we take the Chinese characters as we find them they give us Kulāla-lok, that is, the Pottery people. Now this reminds us of an interesting passage in the Chinese version of the Life of King Asoka.¹ There Yasa tells the king how the Buddha, just before his death, converted the Dragon-king Apalāla, the Potter, and the Chandāla Dragon-king. Burnouf translating from the Sanskrit text of this passage has "the potter's wife the Chandāli Gopāli" while the editors of the Divyāvadāna treat Kumbhakāri (Potter's wife) as a proper name.²