On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c17.s3.51

v2.c17.s3.51

The words here rendered “the Vajrapāṇi deity Guhyapadi (?) - Malla” are in the original *chih-chin-kang-shên-mi-chi-li-shi* (執金剛神 密迹力士), which Julien translates— “Alors des génies, armés d’une massue de diamant”. Here, to pass over smaller matters, we find that the last four characters of the original are omitted from the translation. The whole of the passage, which is evidently derived from an old Chinese translation of a sūtra, refers to the conduct of the yaksha Vajrapāṇi-Guhyapadi (?)-Malla at the moment of the Buddha’s death. Our author’s *chih-chin-kang* (in other works *Chin-kang*, or *chin-kang-shu* (手) “adamant hand”) is for Vajrapāṇi: *Mi-chi*, or “secret traces”, the personal name of the Yaksha, is supposed to be for “Guhyapadi”, but there is also the rendering *pi-mi-chu*, or “Lord of the secret”, which seems to require a form like Guhyapati: then *li-shi* or “athlete” is for Malla. This Yaksha had for many years been a devoted personal attendant on the Buddha whom he accompanied on the great aerial journey to the far north.¹ He always bore in one hand an adamantine club or hammer, and hence his epithet Vajrapāṇi. With this club he was always ready to smash a rock, or a man’s head, in the service of the Master. When the Nirgrantha of Vaiśālī would not answer Buddha’s question Vajrapāṇi threatened to break his head in seven pieces.² So also in the Dīgha-Nikāya, when Ambaṭṭha sullenly refuses to speak out, “Vajirapāṇi yakkho” threatens to smash his head in seven pieces with his blazing-hot hammer.³ This yaksha is represented as joining the Buddhist Church, “seeing truth” and becoming a bodhisattva. As a p’usa he preaches on prajñā pāramitā to a great congregation, but he is still a chief of yakshas with a palace in the wild land of the demons.¹ Yuan-chuang and Fa-hsien seem to know of only one Vajrapāṇi at the death of the Buddha, and other authors also mention only one.² But there may have been in the opinion of all narrators a company of yakshas present with *Mi-chih* at their head. Indeed the Lien-hua-mien-ching makes this Vajrapāṇi the chief of millions of yakshas all present at the Buddha's decease.³ Yuan-chuang, we have seen, calls him a *shên* or *god*, but it is not right to identify him, as some have done, with Indra (Sakko). The throwing down of his club by Vajrapāṇi, his falling in a swoon, and his exclamations of sad despair, are all related in various Chinese treatises.