On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.93.2

v2.c19.93.2

Further the four faces of Cunningham's Temple have several tiers of niches for images, but Yuan-chuang does not say that the tiers of niches were on all sides of the brahmin's temple. Then Cunningham finds that the entrance to the east side of "Mahābodhi Temple" was certainly an addition to the original building, and he thinks this agrees with Yuan-chuang as translated by Cunningham from Julien— "Afterwards on the eastern side there was added a pavilion." The Chinese text, however, has nothing corresponding to "afterwards" and Julien's "on a construit, à la suite" was perhaps used in the sense of "there was built in continuation", which would give Yuan-chuang's meaning. Moreover there does not seem to be any authority whatever for Cunningham’s title for his book, and for his statement that certain ruins were called “Mahābodhi Temple”. This name is not found in any one of the texts Chinese, Burmese, or Indian, that he cites in support of his allegation. The Burmese inscription which he quotes is concerned with the “Páyatha-bhat (Pāyāsa-bhatta) the temple at the spot where Siddhārtha ate the “rice-milk” or milk-gruel. This, we are told, was near the “Maha Baudhi Paribauga Zedi (Mahābodhiparibhogacetiya) the consecrated shrine of the Mahābodhi [tree].¹ It could not be the Tsaokuṭa Temple of Yuan-chuang which was on a different site. Yuan-chuang does not give any name to this temple, and it is not mentioned in the Life.