On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.110

v2.c20.110

Our pilgrim mentions six monasteries as having been built here by as many kings, and as forming the Nālandā establishment in his time, but the last of these, the one erected by the king of South India, is not in the “Fang-chih”. The story of the two Chinese pilgrims appearing at Balāditya’s inauguration of his monastery is not clear, and the sudden disappearance of these Brethren is not explained. This king, the pilgrim tells us, became a member of the Buddhist fraternity, but we are apparently to understand that he only joined his own monastery as a lay-brother. Then being the last lay novice he was below all the other members of the establishment, and his pride was wounded. So the monks made a rule that in their monastery "unordained members were to rank according to their age" (未受戒者以午齒爲次). Julien apparently understood these words to mean that the lay members were to rank among themselves according to age, but this would not help the king's position as "ranking after the Brethren" (位居僧末). Further, the text for "in the original monastery of king Śakrāditya there is now an image of Buddha" is "Ti-jih-wang-pên-ka-lan-chê-chin-chi-Fo-hsiang (帝日王本伽藍者今置佛像). Julien having 日 for 曰 translates — "Le roi dit: Dans le couvent fondé par le premier roi (le couvent de Nālanda), je vais placer aujourd'hui la statue du Bouddha". This is a most unhappy rendering, and the bad text cannot be held responsible for all its faults. In the next sentence of Julien's translation the future tense should be substituted for the present, and the inverted commas should be removed from the paragraph. The words are Yuan-chuang's statements, and are not put in the mouth of a king. It is probable that the Śakrāditya monastery was in ruins when Yuan-chuang visited the place, and that the forty Brethren were sent from another vihāra to eat their breakfast at it, to keep up the memory of the establishment and its founder. At I-ching's time there were only the foundations of this monastery visible.