On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.3

v2.c20.3

This curious story of the Buddha in one of his previous existences having been a "scent-elephant" or Gandhahastin is the Mātiposaka Jātaka (No. 455 of the Pali Jātaka). There is a different version of it given in the late work the "Bhadrakalpa Avadāna", and still another version in a Chinese translation of a Sanskrit treatise.¹ In the latter work the king of Videha, who is at enmity with the king of Kāsi, owns a scent-elephant which makes him unconquerable by his enemy. The king of Kāsi manages to get possession of the elephant, but the latter refuses to take food because his blind parents are starving on account of his absence. He is allowed to go and nurse them, and finally he effects a reconciliation between the two kings. The Gandhahastin was apparently an unknown and imaginary creature which was supposed to have the strength of ten ordinary elephants. It is mentioned in the Rāmāyaṇa, and the word occurs as a proper name, two Buddhas and a Bodhisattva being so called. The words rendered in the above passage by "going about as the seasons changed" are yü-shi-t'ui-i (與時推移). Julien, separating these from their connection translates them by— "Dans la suite des temps", a rendering which does great violence to the text.