On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c17.s2.29

v2.c17.s2.29

The "Rāma Country" of the Chinese pilgrims, the Rāma Village (Rāmagrāma) of various writers, seems to have been little known until it attained celebrity for its tope containing bodily relics of Gautama Buddha. And it is interesting to observe that in the accounts of the division of the relics which assign a portion to Rāmagrāma there are some differences of detail, and that all accounts do not agree in assigning a share to this place. In the Pali sūtra of the "Great Decease" the "Koliyas of Rāmagāma" go to Kusinārā and obtain an eighth share of the relics; so also in a Vinaya treatise the Kou-lu-lo of Lo-mo (Rāma) obtain a share.⁵ In the Pali version from which Bigandet's information was obtained it was the "king of Rama" who took action in the matter.⁶ In the appendix to the Mahāmāya-ching it is the Kou-li (Koli) people of Lo-mo-ka (Rāmaka, or for Rāmagrāma) who obtain the relics, and so in the "Yu-hsing-ching" of the Ch'ang-a-han-ching, and also in the Pan-ni-huan-ching where the name of the country is given as k'o-lo (可樂) that is "Enjoyable", evidently for Rāma. But in no other of the Nirvāṇa treatises in Chinese translations, so far as I know, is there any mention of Rāmagrāma in connection with the distribution of the Buddha's relics. And the Tibetan text translated by Rockhill is also apparently without the name of either the country Rāma, or the people Koliya, in this matter. But Rockhill thinks that the Sgra-sgrogs of his text may be Rāmagrāma, and the Kshatriya "Krodtya of Sgra-sgrogs" obtained a share, and this was "honoured by a king of nāgas".¹