On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c21.s16.7

v2.c21.s16.7

Yuan-chuang, we have seen, mentions the ruins of an old monastery near the capital, which he says had been erected by Mahendra a brother of Asoka. If he had derived his information about this monastery from the Ceylon Brethren he would have called Mahendra (Mahinda) a son, not a brother, of Asoka. The account of this monastery, and its Asoka tope of which only the dome remained visible, is apparently that of a visitor at the time of the description. Then we have the Malaya mountain in the south of the country, and this must have been known to the pilgrim from the Buddhist scriptures. Thus the famous "Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra" purports to have been delivered by the Buddha "Laṅkāpura-samudra-Malaya-śikhare" which the Indian translator into Chinese renders "in the city of Laṅkā on the summit of the Malaya mountain on the border of the sea".³ A mountain of this name is given as in the southern division in the Bṛihat Samhitā, and is well known from its occurrence in Indian literature. It was famous for its sandal trees, and Malayaja is a name for sandal-wood. Its name and that of the city seem to have been transferred to Ceylon, where we find a Malaya mountain and district, and a Laṅkā mountain and city,⁴ but Laṅkā is commonly used as the name of a city. We are not required, however, to believe that the Malaya mountain associated with the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, the gospel of Madhyamika Mahāyānism, was an actual geographical unit. It was in reality a poetical creation to which the semblance of earthly reality was given by the use of well known names, a district of Utopia with a topical definition. It had no existence except as the scene of the great assembly in which Rāvaṇa, king of Rākshasas, and Mahāmati the Bodhisattva, elicit from Buddha the strange theories of universal negation. But we find Malaya also given as the name of a country which is apparently the Draviḍa of our pilgrim and other authorities. Thus the great Buddhist Vajrabodhi who came to China in A. D. 719 is described as a native of the Malaya country adjoining Mount Potalaka, the palace of Kuan-yin, his father being preceptor of the king of Kāñchi.¹