TOPES OF PREVIOUS BUDDHAS.

7

The city of Kanakamuni is called Chuang-yen ()' "adorned", a translation of Subhavati, and Ching-ching (#) or "Purity", 2 and Ch'a-mo-yue-ti) or Kshamavat, 3 and Ku-na (1) or Kona. The tope over the relics of Krakachunda Buddha is represented as having been built by a king contemporary with that Buddha and named Asoka 5 or, in one book, Subha.6 We find the tope of Kanakamuni located in the Benares district, but his city Kona was apparently not far west from Kapilavastu. On the pillar recently discovered in the Nepalese Terai, near Nigliva, is an inscription in which king Asoka records that he had twice enlarged the tcpe of Kanakamuni and offered it worship. This information is very interesting, but it does not tell us which of the great events in that Buddha's career the tope commemorated. Yet some Indian archaeologists do not hesitate to call it the Nirvana Tope of Kanakamuni Buddha. Fa-hsien, who places the two old cities on the west side of the capital, does not mention the presence of Asoka pillars; and Yuan-chuang, who places the two old cities to the eastward of the capital, records the existence of the pillars. He represents the inscriptions on the pillars as giving particulars of the decease of the two Buddhas, but the inscription on the Nigliva pillar does not give such particulars.

The pilgrim continuing his description relates that above 40 li to the north-east of Kapilavastu was a tope at the place where the young "heir-apparent" (that is the P'usa while a young prince) sat in the shade of a tree watching ploughers at work. While so sitting he became absorbed in samādhi, and obtained emancipation from cravings. The King, his father, observing that while his son was lost in ecstatic meditation the sun's rays turn

1 Fo-shuo-Fo-ming-ching, ch. 8 (No. 404).

2 Chang-a-han-ching, ch. 1.

3 Ch'i-Fo-fu-mu-hsing-tzu-ching (No. 626).

4 Sar. Vin. Yao-shih, ch. 7.

5 Divyav. p. 418.

6 A-yü-wang-ching, ch. 4 (No. 1343). Sobha in Pali. (D. 2. 7.) 7 Chêng-fa-nien-ch'ü-ching, ch. 47 (No. 679).

ed back and the tree gave him continued shade, became convinced of the miraculous sanctity of his son, and felt for him an increased reverence.

The story of this passage is told or referred to in many Buddhist books with little variation as to the main incidents. In the Aśokāvadāna Upagupta points out to the king the jambu tree under which the P'usa had sat to watch the labourers, and tells the king how the P'usa here went into the first dhyana having attained true views. He also tells Asoka how Suddhodana, on beholding the miracle of the continued shade, prostrated himself before his son in adoration. It was, we read in another treatise, pity for the toiling creatures which made the boy think deeply of earthly miseries and the way of escape. Sitting under the umbrageous jambu tree, which all the day screened him from the glare of the sun, he attained by samadhi to absolute purity of thought.2

To the north-east of the capital were several hundred thousand topes where the Sakyas were put to death. When king Virūdhaka conquered the Sakyas, and took them prisoners to the number of 99,900,000, he caused them all to be massacred: the corpses were strewn about in heaps and the blood made a pond: on the prompting of devas the skeletons were collected and buried. To the south-west of these topes were four small topes where four Sakyas repulsed the army. When Prasenajit succeeded to the throne he sought a marriage alliance with the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, but these despising him as not of their class, deceived him by giving him as bride, with great ceremony, the daughter of a slave-woman. Prasenajit made this girl his queen, and she bore him a son, the prince Virūḍhaka. In due course this prince went to the home of his mother to be educated in various accomplishments, and on his arrival at Kapilavastu he lodged with his retinue in the new chapel to the south of the city. The Sakyas hearing of this became enraged at the young prince, and abused him because he- "the low son of a slave girl" as they called him, had presumed to occupy the chapel which they had built for the use of the Buddha. When Virūḍhaka became king he promptly led an army to Kapilavastu,

1 Divyāv. p. 391: A-yü-wang-chuan, ch. 2 (No. 1459): A-yü-wangching, ch. 2: Bur. Int. p. 382 ff.: Tsa-a-han-ching, ch. 23.

? Fang-kuang-ta-chuang-yen-ching, ch. 4 (No. 159).

VIRUDHAKA'S REVENGE.

9

determined to have revenge for the insult. While his army was encamped at some distance from the city four Sakya husbandmen attacked it and drove it back. Having done this the men came to the city; but their clansmen cut them off from the clan, and drove them into exile, because that they, the lineal descendants of universal sovereigns and Dharmarājas, by having dared to commit wanton atrocities, complacently killing others, had disgraced the clan. These four men, so banished, went to the Snow Mountains and founded dynasties still existing, one in Udyana, one in Bamian, one in Himatala, and one in Shangmi (Sambi?).

The summary account here given by Yuan-chuang differs considerably from the history of Virūḍhaka as related in the Buddhist books. Thus some authorities represent king Prasenajit as demanding from the Sakyas of Kapilavastu one of their daughters to be his queen in order that he might have an attraction for the Buddha in his palace.1 The Sakyas, 500 in number, consider the demand in council. They fear to refuse, yet they cannot depart from their law which forbids the marriage of their females with aliens. Their President (or Elder) Mahānāma gets them out of the difficulty by sending his daughter by a female slave (or, according to one version of the story, the slave herself) to be the king's bride. But there is also a different account which represents Prasenajit as falling in love with a kind and thoughtful young maiden who turns out to be a slave of the Sakya Mahānāma.2 The King demands the girl from her master, who had seized her for arrears of rent due to him by her late father as his agent. The master gladly complies with the King's request, and the slave-girl becomes queen. In due course she bears a son, the prince who receives the name Virūḍhaka (or Viḍūḍabha or Vaidūrya). When this son grows to be a boy he is sent to Kapilavastu to learn archery and other accomplishments, becoming a young prince in the household or under the supervision of Mahānāma, supposed to be his maternal

1 Tsêng-yi-a-han-ching, ch. 26: Dh. p. 216.

2 Sar. Vin. Tsa-shih, ch. 7, 8 (No. 1121): Rockhill, Life, p. 74: Journal Buddhist Text Society Vol. V. P. 1.

grand-father. But the night of his arrival at the city is spent in the New Hall or Chapel, and the young Sakyas, in the circumstances described by the pilgrim, treat the prince with rudeness and violence, or, according to others, after he has left, they speak of him very contemptuously and treat his presence in the Hall as a defilement of the building. In the course of time Viruḍhaka succeeds his father as King of Kosala, having played foully for the Kingdom. One of his first acts after his accession was to collect an army for the invasion of Kapilavastu, and the punishment of its inhabitants for their wanton insults to him in the days of his boyhood. On his way, and when only a short distance from Sravasti, he had the memorable interview with the Buddha seated under a dead tree as already related. When the Buddha left the Sakyas to the terrible fate which they made for themselves the king renewed the invasion. While his forces were encamped in the neighbouryood of Kapilavastu, the Sakyas in the city, following the Buddha's advice, resolved to shut themselves up within the walls aud make a passive resistance. But one man Shê-ma (that is, perhaps Sama, Mr. Rockhill's Samaka) living at a distance from Kapilavastu, took up arms against the invaders, defeated them, and slew many thousands of them. According to the account followed by Yuan-chuang there were four country-men who fought and repulsed the invading enemy. As the fighting had taken place without the sanction of the Sakyas, and against their decision to make only a passive resistance, the brave patriot (or patriots) not only did not receive any recognition from the besieged clansmen, but actually had to undergo the punishment of expatriation. The crime of Sama (or of the four heroes) was that he, a Kshatriya and a member of the Buddhist community, had taken human life, and caused it to be taken, in violation of the principles to which they were all vowed. When Virūḍhaka found

1 Tsêng -yi-a-han-ching 1. c.: Ch'u-yao-ching, ch. 3 (No. 1321): Rockhill, Life, p. 117.

THE BUDDHA'S RETURN HOME.

11

that the Sakyas would not fight he attacked their city the gates of which were opened to him through bad advice. He then destroyed the buildings of Kapilavastu, and massacred all its inhabitants except a few who managed to escape.1

Three or four li south of Kapilavastu, the pilgrim's description proceeds, in a wood of Ni-ku-lü (1) trees was an Asoka tope at the place where Sakya gu-lai, having attained Buddhahood and returned to his native land, met his father and preached to him. The king had sent a messenger to remind his son of his promise to return home on attaining Buddhahood, and inviting him to make the visit at once. Buddha's reply was that after the lapse of seven days he would return home. Hearing this the king ordered the streets to be cleaned; and he went in state to a distance of forty li from the city to await Buddha's arrival. The Buddha came through the air, escorted by devas and followed by his bhikshus, to the place where the king was waiting; from this the procession went to the Ni-ku-lü monastery. Not far from this was a tope on the spot where the Buddha, sitting under a large tree with his face to the east, accepted a gold-embroidered monk's robe from his aunt and foster-mother. Next to this was a tope to mark the spot at which the Buddha admitted into the Brootherhood eight princes and 500 Sakyas. The ni-ku-lü of this passage, as of other passages in the Records, stands for the Sanskrit word Nyagrodha (in Pali, Nigrodha), the Banyan tree. This transcription, which seems to represent a colloquial form of the Indian word, was probably adopted by the pilgrim from early Chinese translations of the Indian books. In his own. translations from the Sanskrit Yuan-chuang uses a transcription nearer to the form nyagrodha. All this passage is unsatisfactory; and it seems to have been composed in a careless hurried manner. As the passage itself shews, and as we learn from other sources, it was not in the Banyan Wood, south of the city, that Suddhodana met the Buddha. The king went out in state along the road to Śrāvasti (or, according to some accounts, towards Rājagriha), and at the river Lu-ha-ka (Rohitaka?) forty li

1 Liu-li-wang-ching (No. 671): Mahabodhivamsa p. 98: Wu-fên-lü, ch. 21: Spence Hardy M. B. p. 293.