On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.55

v2.c20.55

This description of the Gṛdhrakūṭa, or Vulture Peak, is apparently all derived from Buddhist books and local information. This mountain, the Gijjhakūṭa of the Pali scriptures and early writers, has been identified by Cunningham with the present Sailagiri, and the identification is possibly correct.¹ But it is very remarkable that while its natural caves, great and small, are important features of the Gṛdhrakūṭa mountain, Cunningham "could not hear of the existence of any cave" in the Sailagiri mountain. In addition to the caves in the Vulture Peak mentioned by our pilgrim, and by Fa-hsien, we read of others such as the cave which was the residence of the Yaksha Gambhira, transcribed in Chinese Kin-p'i-lo (金毗羅) and sometimes translated Shên-yuan (深遠) or "Very far" that is "Profound".² It was in this cave or "Yaksha's Palace" that the Buddha was sitting when Devadatta hurled the rock at him, and it may be our pilgrim's cave in which the Buddha sat in samādhi. When we are told here by Yuan-chuang that the Buddha delivered the "Fa-hua-ching", that is the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, and by Fa-hsien³ that Buddha delivered the "Shou-lêng-yen", that is the Sūraṅgamasamādhisūtra, on this mountain, we must remember that these pilgrims are writing as Mahāyānists, and that they are following the opening statements of these two sūtras, To the pilgrims the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra and the Sūrāngama-samādhi-sūtra, composed long after the Buddha's decease, were his genuine utterances delivered in the circumstances set forth in their opening paragraphs. There are also several other Mahāyāna sūtras which profess to have been delivered by the Buddha to large congregations of believers on the Gṛidhrakūṭa. The magnificent brick hall of which our pilgrim tells us here as being on this mountain, must have been a recent structure erected after the time of Fa-hsien, and perhaps on the ruins of the hall which that pilgrim mentions. That Yuan-chuang's brick hall was not an old building may also be inferred with probability from the statement that it contained a life-size image of the Buddha preaching, that is evidently, in the later heterodox standing position. This mountain, the Vulture Peak, was from the earliest times of Buddhism a favourite place of resort for serious meditative bhikshus, and the Buddha seems to have retired to it occasionally with his immediate disciples. A vihāra grew up on the mountain, probably near the site of the hall mentioned by Fa-hsien, and a Vinaya treatise tells of the Buddha giving the Brethren there permission to make permanent water-courses for the supply of water to the establishment.¹ The Gṛidhrakūṭa is in some books given as one of the five mountains which surrounded Rājagṛiha, but it is also represented as a part of the north mountain, and near the east side of the city. King Bimbisāra, we are informed, from his prison window in the city, could see the Buddha and his disciples on the mountain, but this statement need not be taken literally. We also find mention of the Buddha being at the Sūkarakhata on the Gṛidhrakūṭa mountain with the disciple Śāriputra.