On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s3: Śvetapura Monastery
On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s3
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Śvetapura Monastery
v2.c18.s3.1
Continuing his narrative the pilgrim relates that from the Tope of the Council of Seven Hundred he proceeded south, and after a journey of 80 or 90 *li*, came to the Monastery of Shih-fei-to-pu-lo (Śvetapur). This monastery is described by the pilgrim as having sunny terraces and bright-coloured halls of two storeys. The Brethren in it were strict in their lives and they were Mahāyānists.
v2.c18.s3.2
Julien suggests Śvetapura ("White city") as the Sanskrit original for the *Shih-fei-to-pu-lo* of this passage, and the restoration is probably correct. According to the Life the pilgrim went from the southern part of Vaiśālī to the *Fei-to-pu-lo* (the syllable *Shih* being omitted perhaps by a copyist's mistake) city 100 *li* from the Ganges. According to the rendering here given the pilgrim describes the Śvetapur Monastery as having "bright-coloured halls of two storeys". The original for the words within inverted commas is *chung-ko-hui-fei* (重閣翬飛) which Julien translates—"des pavillons à double étage qui s'élançaient dans les airs". But the words *hui-fei* of the text do not mean "s'élançaient dans les airs"; they mean "glowing or resplendent with colours like a pheasant (*hui*) in flight (*fei*)", the phrase being taken from the description of a newly-built palace in the "Shi Ching". The word *hui* means *many-coloured*, and is a descriptive epithet applied to the cock pheasant. In this monastery, the Life tells us, the pilgrim obtained a copy of the "P'u-sa-tsang-ching". This was probably the "P'u-sa-tsang-hui" or "Bodhisattva-piṭaka", which forms the 12th division of the "Ta-pao-chi-ching", an interminable Mahāyāna treatise. 1
v2.c18.s3.3
At the side of this monastery was a place with traces of their sitting and walking for exercise left by the Four Past Buddhas. Beside this was an Asoka tope on the spot where were traces left by the Buddha when on his way to Magadha he stopped here to look back at Vaiśālī. From the Śvetapur Monastery a journey of above 30 *li* south-east brought the pilgrim, he tells us, to a place on the Ganges famed as the scene of Ānanda's parinirvāṇa. Here were two topes, one on the north and one on the south side of the river, to mark the spots at which Ānanda, on going into extinction, gave one half of his bodily relics to Magadha and the other half to Vesālī. Yuan-chuang describes Ananda as the Julai's cousin, one who heard much and retained all he heard, as of wide research and great application, and the successor of Mahākāśyapa as head of the Buddhist Church. He then relates the incidents connected with the parinirvāṇa of Ānanda.
v2.c18.s3.4
¹ See Nanjio's Cat. No. 23 (12) and No. 1005.
Linked texts (2)
- Bodhisatvapiṭaka — Sanskrit
- Mahāratnakūṭa — Sanskrit