On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s1: Chan-Chu Country

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s1

Language: English

Chan-Chu Country

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From the neighbourhood of Vārāṇasi Yuan-chuang proceeded, he tells us, eastward following the course of the Ganges for above 300 *li* to the *Chan-chu* (戰主) country. This country, according to the pilgrim, was above 2000 *li* in circuit, and its capital, which was on the Ganges, was about ten *li* in circuit. The country had a dense and flourishing population, a good climate and a fertile soil; the people were honest and high-spirited and they had a mixed religious creed. There were above ten Buddhist establishments with nearly a thousand Brethren all attached to the system of the "Little Vehicle". There were twenty Deva-Temples, and the followers of the different non-Buddhist systems dwelt pell-mell.

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Here the narrative as usual describes the pilgrim as going on "from this"; and we must take this expression as meaning "from the Deer-Park" which, as we have seen, was above ten *li* north-east of the Bārna river at Vārāṇasi. The term *Chan-chu* means "fighting lord" or "lord of battle", and it is evidently a translation of a Sanskrit name or epithet with a similar meaning. Cunningham has identified our *Chan-chu* country with the modern Ghāripur, the "city of the Conqueror".² But *chan* is used to translate *Yuddha* and *chu* stands for several words such as *pati*, *svāmin*, and *īśvara*, and the *Chan-chu* of our text may be the rendering of a word like Yuddhapati, which may be an epithet of Siva.

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² A. G. I. p. 438.

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In the mention of the non-Buddhists Julien makes the pilgrim describe these as living in their temples. This is due to the faulty reading of his text which adds the particle chih (之) after the four words Yi-tao-tsa-chii, "the heretics live pell-mell". To these four words, which form a very common phrase in the Records, the old texts added the particle Yi (矣) to serve as a full stop. This unfortunately appears in the B text as chih, and spoils the meaning. Our pilgrim never represents the professed adherents of the non-Buddhist systems as living in the "Deva-Temples".

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In a Buddhist establishment, Yuan-chuang tells us, at the north-west of the capital was an Asoka tope, with bodily relics of the Buddha, to commemorate a spot at which the Buddha had expounded his religion for seven days to a congregation of devas and men. Near it was a place with trees of the Three Past Buddhas' sitting and exercise ground. Next to this was an image of Maitreya P'usa, small, but of great miraculous powers.

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Above 200 li east from the capital was the A-pi-t'ê-ka-la-na (restored by Julien as Aviddhakarṇa) Sanghārāma ("the monastery of the Brethren with unpierced ears"). This monastery had been built for the use of Buddhist pilgrims from Tokhāra, and the pilgrim tells the story which accounted for the name. Above 100 li south-east from this monastery, and on the south side of the Ganges, was the town of Mo-ha-sho-lo (that is, Mahāsāla or Mahāsāra); in it all the inhabitants were brahmins, and there were no Buddhists. Then to the north of the Ganges was a Nārāyaṇa Temple, with halls and terraces beautifully adorned, and with sculptured stone images in the highest style of art. Thirty li east from this was an Asoka tope half sunk in the ground, and in front of it was a stone pillar surmounted by a lion. An inscription on the pillar told how the Buddha here subdued and converted certain cannibal demons of the wilderness. Not far from this place were several Buddhist monasteries which were all in a bad condition, but still contained a number of Brethren, all Mahāyānists.

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Going on south-east above 100 li you come to the ruins of a tope of which some scores of feet remained above-ground. When after the Buddha's decease his relics were being divided among the eight kings, the brahmin who measured the relics smeared the inside of the jar with honey, and then distributed to the kings. The brahmin returning to his home took the jar with him; over the relics which had adhered to the sides he built a tope; and because the jar also was deposited in the tope, the latter got its name from the circumstance. Afterwards king Asoka took away the relics and jar, and replaced the old tope by a large one; on fast days there may be a bright light from the tope.

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The Aviddha-karṇa (or Unpierced-ear) Monastery of this passage is placed by the Fang-chih to the north-east of the capital, and not to the east as in our text. Our pilgrim’s town Mahāśāla (or Mahāsāra) has been supposed to correspond to the present Masār about six miles west of Shahabad in Bengal.

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For “demons of the wilderness” in this passage the Chinese is Kuang-ye-kuei (曠 or 曠野鬼) which we should perhaps render “Kuang-ye Demons”. This term kuang-ye denotes the wild unoccupied land beyond the boundaries of a city or town. But it is also used in Buddhist books to translate the Indian word Āḷavi or Aṭavi as the name of a town or village. In the Buddha’s lifetime this town was plagued by a cannibal demon, also called Aṭavi, who killed and ate a human being every day. Buddha tried to convert Aṭavi by gentle means, but failing in this he proceeded to bring the demon to submission by fear. Having succeeded in this Buddha then imparted to the demon the saving truths of Buddhism, and the demon was converted and became a good Buddhist.¹ This is perhaps the story of which the pilgrim had heard, but his story represents several cannibal demons as being at the place, although his words at the beginning of the paragraph seem to refer only to the “reduction of a demon to submission (伏鬼)”. This town of Aṭavi had a monastery in the time of the Buddha, and this is perhaps the Kuang-ye monastery of Fa-hsien, which was about twelve yojanas to the east of Benares.²

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¹ Ta-pan-nie-p’an-ching ch. 15 (No. 114).

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² Fo-kuo-chi ch. 34; the monastery is mentioned e. g. in Sêng-ki-lü ch. 19, 31, 33. See also Sutta Nipāta 1. 10.

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In the last paragraph of this passage the word jar is for the Chinese p’ing (甁). As p’ing is the recognised rendering for the Indian word *kumbha* our pilgrim's statement here would lead us to suppose that the tope of which he is telling was called "Kumbha-stūpa". This suits the account of the division of the relics at the end of the Mahāparinibbānasutta, and in other Pali texts we find Droṇa's tope called *kumbha-thūpa* or *kumbha-cetiya*.¹ Julien in his translation of the present passage proposes Droṇa-stūpa as the name of the tope, but Yuan-chuang always, I think, renders *droṇa* by *hu* (斛). Moreover all the eight topes over the Buddha's bodily relics were called *droṇa-stūpas* because each contained a *droṇa* of relics. Thus in the Divyāvadāna the tope over king Ajātaśattru's share of the Buddha's relics is called a *droṇa* (not Droṇa)-stūpa. There were eight of these *droṇa-stūpas*; seven in India and one in Rāmagāma, and Asoka wanted to take the relics away from all of them.² The wily brahmin who distributed the relics of the Buddha's cremated body among the angry claimants is in some accounts a Kuśinagara man, and apparently sets up his tope at that city.⁴ The Tibetan translation makes him a native of the town which bears his own name, and he builds his tope at that town.⁴ In a Vinaya treatise he is a native of a town called *T'ou-na-lo* (頭那羅), and it is to this place that he carries the jar, with the purloined relics, and here he builds his tope.⁵ It is possible that the *T'ou-na-lo* of this treatise is a copyist's error for *T'ou-lo-na*, that is, Droṇa.

Cites (7)

Suttanipāta — Pāli
Buddhavaṃsa — Pāli
Divyāvadāna — Sanskrit
Mahāparinibbānasutta — Pāli
Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra — Sanskrit
Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya — Classical Chinese
Sarvāstivāda-vinaya — Classical Chinese