On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c17.s3.28

v2.c17.s3.28

This version of the story of Subhadra follows to a large extent the "Yu-hsing-ching", sometimes using the very words of that interesting sūtra. But the narrative of the conversion, ordination, and death of this last disciple is told also in several other treatises. We find, moreover, mention of a work called the "Sūtra of the Brahmachārin Subhadra", but the account given in it differs in some important points from that given in the other books.¹ According to the "Tsêng-yi-a-han-ching" and the "Yu-hsin-ching" Subhadra was a Brahmachārin, and according to the "Ta-pan-nie-pan-ching", the "Tsa-a-han-ching", Mr. Rockhill's Tibetan text, and the Sarvata Vinaya, he was a parivrājika.² Nearly all authorities describe him as a feeble old man of 120 years residing in Kuśinagara, We are also told that he was a man of great learning and wisdom, possessing superhuman powers, and held in high esteem by the inhabitants of Kusinagara who regarded him as an arhat. He had been puzzled, however, by difficulties in religious matters caused by the disputes and conflicting doctrines of the six (in one treatise eight) great religious teachers of his time, and by the inconsistencies in the lives of these men. Then at a later period of his life the Sakya Gautama had arisen as a new leader with new doctrines about karma and nirvāṇa and had instituted a new Brotherhood. So now hearing that Gautama had come to the suburbs of Kusinagara in a dying state, the old saint went to see him and learn from him the truth about his own system and the systems of the six Teachers. Finding Ananda keeping guard he asked to be admitted to the Master; but Ananda refused him admission and repeated the refusal to the old man's renewed petition. The reason which Ananda gave was that the Master was in great pain and dying, and so was not to be disturbed. But the Buddha hearing the conversation, ordered that the enquirer be allowed to see him and Subhadra was admitted. After due salutation performed the old saint being encouraged by Buddha stated his difficulties. The six Teachers, he said naming them, all disagreed and he wanted to know which of them was right; were they, as they professed to be, omniscient? Were they higher in attainments than or otherwise superior to Gautama himself? were they right in their tenets as to what constituted a Śramaṇa?¹ Replying to Subhadra the Buddha, according to one account, says that before he left home to become a religious mendicant all the world was beguiled by the Six Teachers and that he had not seen the reality of a Śramaṇa among them.² Then the Buddha goes on to say— "At the age of 29 years, Subhadra, I became a mendicant to learn the way of life (tao); at the age of 36 years under the Bodhi tree I thought out thoroughly the Eight-fold holy path, gained perfect spiritual insight, and acquired omniscience. I then went to Benares and taught the Four Truths to Ājñāta Kaundinya and the four others. When these men got on the track of the way of life the name Śramaṇa was pronounced for the first time". In the Pali Mahā-Parinibbāna-sutta the Buddha says to Subhadra, according to Dr. Rhys Davids's translation—