On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c17.s1.46

v2.c17.s1.46

The *ni-ku-lü* of this passage, as of other passages in the Records, stands for the Sanskrit word Nyagrodha (in Pali, Nigrodha), the Banyan tree. This transcription, which seems to represent a colloquial form of the Indian word, was probably adopted by the pilgrim from early Chinese translations of the Indian books. In his own translations from the Sanskrit Yuan-chuang uses a transcription nearer to the form nyagrodha. All this passage is unsatisfactory; and it seems to have been composed in a careless hurried manner. As the passage itself shews, and as we learn from other sources, it was not in the Banyan Wood, south of the city, that Suddhodana met the Buddha. The king went out in state along the road to Śrāvasti (or, according to some accounts, towards Rājagriha), and at the river *Lu-ha-ka* (Rohitaka?) forty *li* from Kapilavastu, waited for the Buddha's crossing into his territory.¹ Fa-hsien mentions the place at which father and son met, but he does not say anything about a tope or wood, and indeed he does not seem to have known of a Banyan Wood. There was one large banyan tree, we know, and there may have been several such in the neighbourhood. There was also near Kapilavastu the Nyagrodhārāma (in Pali the Nigrodhārāma) or Banyan Monastery here mentioned. This establishment was formed by the Buddhists of the district after their conversion. Yet our pilgrim makes the Buddha go to it on his first visit, as Buddha, to his native place.