On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.132

v2.c19.132

In this passage, as before in *chuan* VII., Yuan-chuang applies the term *mu-nü* (牧女) or "cowherd-girls" to the maidens who gave the P'usa rich boiled milk and rice when he gave up extreme fasting and returned to his daily meal. There is one Chinese sūtra in which we find the person who gave the milk-gruel described as a „cowherd woman”, *mu-niu-nü-jen* (牧牛女人) named Nandabalā.² This woman lived outside a village on the Nairañjana river, and the gruel was a miraculous creation found on the leaves of a lotus. But other texts Pali and Sanskrit, with the Tibetan and Chinese translations, describe the gruel as presented by a young lady, or by two sisters, whose father was the chief or the rishi of his village. In some versions of the legend the one lady is Sujātā, the *Shan-shêng* or "Well-born"—"Eugénie" of the Chinese translations. Her father is Nandika,³ or he is Senāpati (or Sena or Senāni),⁴ or he is simply "the head of the village" (grāmika).⁵ Other versions describe the offering as being made by the two sisters Nandā and Balā (or Nandabalā), their father also being called Nandika or Senāpati.¹ In some texts we find two gifts of milk, one by Sujātā the daughter of Nandika at an early period of Siddhartha’s course of asceticism, and one by Nandā and Balā, daughters of Senāni, when his mortifications are over. In all versions the place of the milk-gruel offering is the neighbourhood of Uruvilvā near the Nairañjana river.²