On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.68

v2.c20.68

The reader will observe that in the passage now under notice the pilgrim narrates with evident approval the accounts of suicide committed, at the places he mentions, by two bhikshus, and that he represents the Buddha as assisting the second bhikshu in carrying out his deliberate intention of taking his own life. Fa-hsien tells of a bhikshu wearied and disgusted with mortal life committing suicide, and the "black rock" of his story is evidently the red-stained rock of our text, and his bhikshu is the pilgrim’s bhikshu who takes his own life at the rock. But Fa-hsien represents the bhikshu as knowing that suicide was prohibited to a follower of Buddha, and as getting over this difficulty by saying to himself that in taking his own life he is only killing the three venomous enemies of spiritual perfection. I-ching has some very interesting observations on the tendency of some Buddhist Brethren to encourage suicide, and even to put their teachings into practice.¹ But both he and Fa-hsien seem to go too far when they allow their readers to suppose that there is in the Vinaya any express prohibition against a bhikshu taking his own life.