On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.8

v2.c19.8

In the part of this story which tells of the students making the pāṭali tree the bride the translators had the reading *wei-nü-hsü-shu-ye* (謂 女 婿 樹 也), "they called it the son-in-law tree". This is nonsense, and cannot be forced into agreement with the context. In the abstract of the passage given above the reading of the D text has been followed, viz. *wei-nü-shêng*(聲)-*shu*, "saying it was a feminine tree”, that is, they took the tree for the bride because its name had a feminine termination. The place where the mock ceremony was performed was close to a pāṭali, Bignonia suaveolens or Trumpet-flower tree, and the bride was called Miss Pāṭali, her father in the play giving a branch of the tree, as his daughter, to the student to be his wife. Afterwards, as the story shows, the Dryads of the tree, like the melancholy mortal, took the whole affair in earnest, and made the marriage a reality. The old man and the old mother and her daughter are the god and goddesses of the tree, and the daughter becomes the student’s wife. When he proposes to go away the old god by superhuman agency builds for the residence of his newly born grandson a substantial establishment. This was the nucleus of the city which from the story of its origin obtained and kept the name Pāṭaliputra. In Buddhist books the building of the city with this name is sometimes ascribed to king Ajātasattu in the Buddha’s time. It was built as a defence against the Vajjians, and it had a Gotama Gate and a Gotama Landing-place from the name of the Buddha.¹ This city is described as being 240 li from the Rajagaha mountains in a north-by-east direction.