On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.46

v2.c19.46

On this story we have to observe that it seems to show that the Cock Monastery (Kukkuṭārāma) was within the walls of Pāṭaliputra. This was evidently the "old monastery" which had the tope of the Gong-striking, this and the Āmalaka tope being apparently within the enclosing walls of the Monastery. The part of Yuan-chuang's story which, in the abstract here given, is within inverted commas, has not been well rendered in Julien's translation. Thus the words chün-yü-t'ung-chih-miu-yu-k'ou-chi (群愚同止謬有扣擊) "dolts flocked to the meeting, there was wild beating",¹ are in his version— "Quand la multitude des hommes stupides se sera réunie avec nous, nous voulons combattre leurs erreurs et les terrasser", making the words to be uttered by les hérétiques. It is not easy to see how the last four Chinese characters could be forced to yield the meaning here given to them. Then at the end of the story Julien magnifies the P'usa's victory in the statement that "En moins d'une heure, il terrassa tous les hérétiques". The Chinese here rendered by une heure is chie-ch'ên (淡辰), a classical term which means a period of twelve days. That the great religious discussion lasted nearly twelve days is not improbable, and it is clearly impossible that Deva should have replied to his opponents' statements within one hour. It may be noticed that in the "Fangchih" it is Nāgārjuna who goes to Pāṭaliputra to confront the Tīrthikas.