Travancore, on the west". The remarks of Fergusson on this part of our pilgrim's text are of little value, partly because he was misled by Julien's vagaries. 2

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 "Laikāvatāra-sūtra" purports to have been delivered by the Buddha “Laṁkāpura-samudra-Malaya-śikhare” which the Indian translator into Chinese renders "in the city of Lanka 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 Brihat 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 Lanka mountain and city, 4 but Lanka is commonly used as the name of a city. We are not required, however, to believe that the Malaya mountain associated with the Lankavatāra-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

1 A. G. I. p. 549.

2 op. c. p. 266.

3 No. 176. See also Nos. 175, 177.

4 e. g. chuan XI of the Records.

assembly in which Rāvana, king of Rakshasas, 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 Dravida 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 Kanchi.1

Our pilgrim next mentions the Potalaka mountain to the east of the Malayagiri, and this also must have been known to him from his study of the sacred books. In that very delightful sutra known in Chinese by its short title "Hua-yen-ching" he had read of this chosen abode of Kuan-tzu-tsai P'usa. In this sutra also Potalaka is on the sea-side in the south, it has woods, and streams, and tanks, and is in fact a sort of earthly paradise. Buddhabhadra (A. D. 420) calls Kuanyin's mountain Kuang-ming () or "Brilliance", which is usually given as the rendering for Malaya, but a later translator, Šīkshānanda, transcribes the name Potalaka. 2 This mountain is called in translation "White flower mountain", "Island mountain", "Hill of the shrub with small flower"; it is also called Potala, and a city of unknown antiquity at the mountain bears its name. Potalaka mountain appears as a favourite resort of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva for a long time, and Tāranātha makes mention of several visits paid to the Bodhisattva by pious Buddhists. Šantivarman by divine help reached the summit of the mountain, and found the palace of the Bodhisattva deserted; another pilgrim saw only the stone image of the Bodhisattva, and another heard the music made for the Bodhisattva by Nagas and Asuras. Here again the Potalaka of the scriptures, the

1 Sung-kao-sêng-chuan, ch. 1.

2 Ta-fang-kuang-Fo-Hua-yen-ching, ch. 50 (No. 87); Ta-fang-kuangFo-Hua-yen-ching, ch. 68 (No. 88).

3 Tār. S. 141 ff., S. 157, 223. See also Beal in J. R. A. S. Vol. XV, p. 333 ff.

inaccessible mountains of cliffs and ravines guarded by gods and demons and sacred to Avalokitesvara, is not to be identified with any one of the mountains by the sea-side in South India.

The seaport which our pilgrim mentions as being to north-east of Potalaka is said in the Fan-chih to be "the old Sêng-ka-lo". If this statement be correct it is interesting information, and helps to explain some difficulties. The port was evidently to the pilgrim's mind near the south point of India, and this agrees with a statement in the T'ang-Shu to the effect that the Malaya (Mê-lai country was in the extreme south of India. In connection with the name given to the port it may be noticed that in the Brihat Samhita and other works Lankā is treated as a city or island quite distinct from Simhala. 1 But the direction from this port to Ceylon is not quite correct, and the distance, 3000 li (about 600 miles) is far too great.

1 See Fleet, op. c., p. 183.

CHAPTER XVII.

(CHUAN XI.)

CEYLON.

According to the Records the pilgrim proceeded from Malakuţa to Sêng-ka-lo or Ceylon, but the Life represents him as merely hearing of that country. If we had only the Records we should be at liberty to believe that he proceeded to Ceylon, and returned thence to Dravida. But it is perhaps better to regard him as writing about Malakuța and Ceylon from information given to him in Dravida, and from books. There seems to be much in Chuan X and XI that is not genuine, and it may be observed that in certain old texts like C these two chuan are given without mention of Pien-chi as compiler. They are also, together with Chuan XII, marked by the character yi, meaning doubtful. It does not seem, therefore, to be necessary to dwell much on the curious legends and descriptions given in this part of the Records.

Of the legends about Ceylon related by the pilgrim the first tells how a princess of South India was carried off by a lion into the woods. To this lion the princess became mother of a son and a daughter, and in the course of time the son secretly carried off his mother and sister to the native place of the mother. Thereupon the lion, utterly distressed and enraged by the loss of his family, committed dreadful havoc in the land, and the son for the reward offered by the king killed his own father. When the king learned the circumstances, he banished the patricide, sending him away in a boat which brought him to Ceylon. Here the young man settled, and marrying a trader's daughter, he introduced order and government, and his descen

dants gave him the name Lion-catcher, which they applied also to the country. This was the story in the popular accounts.

The second legend is from the Buddhist scriptures. This tells of the 500 merchants being taken captive by the Rakshasīs of Ceylon, and of their chief and some of the others being carried away from destruction by the "Heaven-Horse".

We may remark about these two legends that they are well known from other treatises. In the Rājāvalī we have a version of the Lion-marriage which agrees pretty well with the story here told by our pilgrim. 1 It is given also in the Dipavamsa, which makes the ravished princess to be a daughter of the Vanga King, 2 and it is referred to in other books. The second legend is related with artistic skill in the "Fo-pên-hsing-chi-ching". It is told also in the "Jātaka", and in the "Liu-tu-chi-ching". In all these, as in the pilgrim's story, the wonderful horse called Cloud-horse, or Horse-king, is the Bodhisattva, that is, the Buddha in a former existence. But in the Tibetan version of the legend the rescuing horse is an incarnation of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and in the Divyavadāna he is Maitreya. 5

Our pilgrim now goes on to describe the Buddhist Brethren in Ceylon, the result of Mahendra's mission-work, as Mahāyānist Sthaviras. Above 200 years after Mahendra's time, he continues, too much attention to peculiarities made two sects, the Hīnayanist school of those who belonged to the Mahavihāra, and the school of those who belonged to the Abhayagiri and embraced both "vehicles". The Brethren, he adds, were very precise in the observance of their rules, perfectly clear in meditation and wisdom, and very grave in their model deportment.

On this passage we observe that the expression "Mahāyanist Sthaviras" is applied to the Brethren of Ceylon

1 Upham 'Sacred Books of Ceylon', Vol. II, p. 27 and p. 164; J. Ceylon B. R. A. S. Vol. VII, p. 66 ff.

2 Dīp. IX.

3 Hsing-chi-ching, ch. 49 (No. 680); Jāt. Vol. II, p. 127; Liu-tuchi-ching, ch. 6 (No. 143).

4 J. R. A. S. Vol. XX, p. 504.

Divyāv. p. 524.