the first day a statue of Gótan a Buddha was in- CHAPTER V. stalled in a pagoda. The same day the most precious things were distributed, the choicest food was served up in the dining houses, and flowers were scattered to the sound of harmonious music. On the second day a statue of the Sun god (Vishnu) was enthroned, and on the third day a statue of Iswara (Siva) was set up. On each of these two days the distribution was equal to one-half of the distribution which was made on the day that Buddha was installed. On the fourth day the offerings began. Twenty days were occupied in distributing gifts to the Srámans and Bráhmans, ten days in gifts to heretics, ten days in gifts to naked mendicants, and thirty days in gifts to the destitute, the fatherless, and the kinless. Altogether the festival lasted seventy-five days.

92

Such was the scene that was witnessed by the famous Chinese Sráman; such was the extraordinary almsgiving by which the ancient sovereigns of India cultivated the field of happiness and sought to obtain heaven. Instead of hecatombs of victims being sacrificed to the gods, vast largesses were given to the pious and the poor; yet the mendicancy fostered by the alms was perhaps scarcely less to be deprecated than the animal sacrifices.

The remarks of M. Saint Hilaire upon the religious toleration of the old Hindú Rajas will find an echo in the hearts of all true philanthropists. But the religions of ancient India were not so free from the persecuting spirit as he appears to imagine. The Buddhist chronicle of the Mahawanso exhibits an animus against the Brahmans, which is altogether foreign to the religion of Priyadarsi; and it is evident from the Puránas, which have been preserved in Peninsular India, that there was a cruel and deadly persecution of the Buddhists and Jains in ancient times. See especially the Madura Stalla Purána, chaps. 62, 63, of which an abstract translation is published in Taylor's Oriental Historical Manuscripts. Madras, 1835.

Political and giving.

religious character of the

CHAPTER V. The whole festival, however, is invested with a political as well as a religious significance. The sovereign was evidently under the domination of monks and priests. priests. He may have occasionally weakened their power by engaging them in religious controversies; but he deemed it politic to tolerate all and conciliate all. On these occasions he was supposed to distribute all the surplus accumulations of the imperial treasury. By so doing he recommended his rule to all the religious bodies, he silenced a clamorous democracy, and he removed all temptation to rebellion on the part of those robber adventurers, who, as in the case of Sandrokottos, sometimes overturned a dynasty and obtained possession of an empire. At the same time a strong religious feeling undoubtedly operated upon the mind of the sovereign. He gave away the whole of his riches. Nothing remained to him but his horses, elephants, and munitions of war, which were indispensable for the protection of his empire, and for the suppression of disaffection. He then divested himself of his robes, collar, earrings, bracelets, the garland of jewels in his diadem, the pearls which ornamented his neck, and the carbuncle which glittered upon his breast. He arrayed himself in old and tattered garments, and putting his hands together in a religious ecstasy, he cried out:

"All my anxiety for the safety of my riches has now passed away: I have expended them in the field of happiness, and have thus preserved them for ever: I trust that in all future existences I may continue to amass riches, and bestow them in alms, until I have acquired every divine faculty that a creature can desire."

Hiouen-Thsang from Nalanda

Bengal.

When Hiouen-Thsang left Nálanda he prepared CHAPTER V. to explore eastern Hindustan, and then to embark Route of for the island of Ceylon, as Fah-Hian had done to the Bay of more than two centuries before. In the first instance, he proceeded through forests and mountains to the kingdom of Hiranya-parvata, which is supposed to be the same as Monghír. Next he passed through Champá, the modern Bhagulpore, where Buddhism was declining and Brahmanism flourishing; and Pundra-vardhana, probably Burdwan, where there were twenty Buddhist monasteries and a hundred Brahmanical temples. Next he proceeded to Kúma-rúpa, the modern Assam. Here Brahmanism alone flourished. The temples were numbered by hundreds and the worshippers by thousands. The king was a Bráhman, who bore the title of Kumára. He was not a Buddhist, but he was a feudatory of Síláditya, and in that capacity had attended his suzerain at the disputation at Kanouj, and the festival of alms-giving at Prayága. He was a great admirer of HiouenThsang, and received him with every mark of respect. From Assam the Chinese pilgrim proceeded apparently to the Sunderbunds, and thence to Támralipti, or Tamluk, where Fah-Hian had embarked for Ceylon. At Tamluk he found ten monasteries and fifty temples, and was astonished at the vast trade carried on at this place by land and sea.

the Dekhan and

Conjeveram.

At Tamluk Hiouen-Thsang was induced to Route through avoid the dangers of a voyage to Ceylon, and to Penjurato proceed through the Dekhan and the Peninsula towards the southern coast, where he could easily reach the island by crossing the narrow strait of

CHAPTER V. Manaar. From this stage his description becomes more and more meagre, and it will suffice to mention the kingdoms which are best known to modern geography. Orissa contained a hundred monasteries and fifty temples; the inhabitants were tall, dark, and rude. Kalinga on the coast had ten monasteries and two hundred temples. Andhra had twenty monasteries and thirty temples; its capital was at Warangol. Chola, a name which still lives in the term Coromandel, was a desert of marsh and jungle; the monasteries were nearly all in ruins, but there were many temples, and numerous heretics, who went naked. Further south he passed through forests and desert plains, until he reached Dravida, and its capital of Kánchipura, the modern Conjeveram, not far from the modern city of Madras. This kingdom contained a hundred monasteries with ten thousand monks, and eighty temples with numerous naked heretics. At Conjeveram he heard that Ceylon was disturbed by internal wars. Accordingly he abandoned his idea of visiting the island.

Route along the western

coast to the Indus.

Hiouen-Thsang had proceeded to Conjeveram along the eastern or Coromandel coast. In his return route he crossed the Peninsula to the western coast, known as the Malabar side; and then turned towards the north through Travancore and Malabar. Here he found the people illiterate, and devoted to nothing but gain. Most of the monasteries were in ruins; but there were hundreds of flourishing temples, and the usual swarms of naked heretics. He proceeded northward through a thick jungle into the kingdom of Konkana, where he found a hundred monasteries, and hundreds of temples. He then passed through

another belt of desert and jungle, which was infested CHAPTER V. with robbers and wild beasts, and entered Maharashtra, which has already been described as occupied by a Rajpoot population. Here the heretical sects were very numerous. He crossed the Nerbudda river into Baróche, and found the people engaged in a large maritime trade, but illiterate and deceitful. Entering Málwa, he found the country as wealthy as Magadha; Brahmanism and Buddhism were both flourishing. Next he visited the great kingdom of Vallabhi, which was seated in Guzerat, but prevailed over a great part of the western Dekhan. It was under the dominion of Dhruva-patu, the son-in-law of Síláditya. This king was a zealous Buddhist, and celebrated the festival of expiation and alms-giving every year. Hiouen-Thsang entered Guzerat. He visited Ujain and Chittore, and found that Buddhism in both places was being superseded by Brahmanism. He then turned away westward, and passed through the gloomy desert of Marwar towards Scinde, where the king was a Súdra. Here Buddhism was in the ascendant. Proceeding, however, to Multán, he found that Buddhism had been superseded by the worship of the sun. It will be unnecessary to pursue his route further. He passed through unknown kingdoms, where Buddhism and Brahmanism seem to have been nearly balanced, and at last made his way over the Hindú Kúsh into his own country.93

93 For pious legends of Síláditya, and public disputations between Buddhists and Jains, see the Mahátma, or chronicle of the Satruniya mountain. Vallabhi was overthrown, apparently by Scythians, A. D. 770.-Forbes's Ras Malu, vol. i. chap. i. Tod's Rajasthan, vol. i. page 218.