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East from Buddha's birthplace, and at a distance of five yojanas, there is a kingdom called Rama.(1) The king of this country, having obtained one portion of the relics of Buddha's body,(2) returned with it and built over it a tope, named the Rama tope. By the side of it there was a pool, and in the pool a dragon, which constantly kept watch over (the tope), and presented offerings to it day and night. When king Asoka came forth into the world, he wished to destroy the eight topes (over the relics), and to build (instead of them) 84,000 topes.(3) After he had thrown down the seven (others), he wished next to destroy this tope. But then the dragon showed itself, took the king into its palace;(4) and when he had seen all the things provided for offerings, it said to him, "If you are able with your offerings to exceed these, you can destroy the tope, and take it all away. I will not contend with you." The king, however, knew that such appliances for offerings were not to be had anywhere in the world, and thereupon returned (without carrying out his purpose).
(Afterwards), the ground all about became overgrown with vegetation, and there was nobody to sprinkle and sweep (about the tope); but a herd of elephants came regularly, which brought water with their trunks to water the ground, and various kinds of flowers and incense, which they presented at the tope. (Once) there came from one of the kingdoms a devotee(5) to worship at the tope. When he encountered the elephants he was greatly alarmed, and screened himself among the trees; but when he saw them go through with the offerings in the most proper manner, the thought filled him with great sadness—that there should be no monastery here, (the inmates of which) might serve the tope, but the elephants have to do the watering and sweeping. Forthwith he gave up the great prohibitions (by which he was bound),(6) and resumed the status of a Sramanera.(7) With his own hands he cleared away the grass and trees, put the place in good order, and made it pure and clean. By the power of his exhortations, he prevailed on the king of the country to form a residence for monks; and when that was done, he became head of the monastery. At the present day there are monks residing in it. This event is of recent occurrence; but in all the succession from that time till now, there has always been a Sramanera head of the establishment.
NOTES (1) Rama or Ramagrama, between Kapilavastu and Kusanagara. (2) See the account of the eightfold division of the relics of Buddha's body in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, Buddhist Suttas, pp. 133-136. (3) The bones of the human body are supposed to consist of 84,000 atoms, and hence the legend of Asoka's wish to build 84,000 topes, one over each atom of Sakyamuni's skeleton. (4) Fa-Hsien, it appears to me, intended his readers to understand that the naga-guardian had a palace of his own, inside or underneath the pool or tank. (5) It stands out on the narrative as a whole that we have not here "some pilgrims," but one devotee. (6) What the "great prohibitions" which the devotee now gave up were we cannot tell. Being what he was, a monk of more than ordinary ascetical habits, he may have undertaken peculiar and difficult vows. (7) The Sramanera, or in Chinese Shamei. See chap. xvi, note 19.
East from here four yojanas, there is the place where the heir-apparent sent back Chandaka, with his white horse;(1) and there also a tope was erected.
Four yojanas to the east from this, (the travellers) came to the Charcoal tope,(2) where there is also a monastery.
Going on twelve yojanas, still to the east, they came to the city of Kusanagara,(3) on the north of which, between two trees,(4) on the bank of the Nairanjana(5) river, is the place where the World-honoured one, with his head to the north, attained to pari-nirvana (and died). There also are the places where Subhadra,(6) the last (of his converts), attained to Wisdom (and became an Arhat); where in his coffin of gold they made offerings to the World-honoured one for seven days,(7) where the Vajrapani laid aside his golden club,(8) and where the eight kings(9) divided the relics (of the burnt body):—at all these places were built topes and monasteries, all of which are now existing.
In the city the inhabitants are few and far between, comprising only the families belonging to the (different) societies of monks.
Going from this to the south-east for twelve yojanas, they came to the place where the Lichchhavis(10) wished to follow Buddha to (the place of) his pari-nirvana, and where, when he would not listen to them and they kept cleaving to him, unwilling to go away, he made to appear a large and deep ditch which they could not cross over, and gave them his alms-bowl, as a pledge of his regard, (thus) sending them back to their families. There a stone pillar was erected with an account of this event engraved upon it.
NOTES
(1) This was on the night when Sakyamuni finally left his palace
and family to fulfil the course to which he felt that he was called.
Chandaka, in Pali Channa, was the prince's charioteer, and in sympathy
with him. So also was the white horse Kanthaka (Kanthakanam Asvaraja),
which neighed his delight till the devas heard him. See M. B., pp.
158-161, and Davids' Manual, pp. 32, 33. According to "Buddhist Birth
Stories," p. 87, the noble horse never returned to the city, but died
of grief at being left by his master, to be reborn immediately in the
Trayastrimsas heaven as the deva Kanthaka!
(2) Beal and Giles call this the "Ashes" tope. I also would have
preferred to call it so; but the Chinese character is {.}, not {.}.
Remusat has "la tour des charbons." It was over the place of Buddha's
cremation.
(3) In Pali Kusinara. It got its name from the Kusa grass (the poa
cynosuroides); and its ruins are still extant, near Kusiah, 180 N.W.
from Patna; "about," says Davids, "120 miles N.N.E. of Benares, and 80
miles due east of Kapilavastu."
(4) The Sala tree, the Shorea robusta, which yields the famous teak
wood.
(5) Confounded, according to Eitel, even by Hsuan-chwang, with the
Hiranyavati, which flows past the city on the south.
(6) A Brahman of Benares, said to have been 120 years old, who came to
learn from Buddha the very night he died. Ananda would have repulsed
him; but Buddha ordered him to be introduced; and then putting aside
the ingenious but unimportant question which he propounded, preached
to him the Law. The Brahman was converted and attained at once to
Arhatship. Eitel says that he attained to nirvana a few moments before
Sakyamuni; but see the full account of him and his conversion in
"Buddhist Suttas," p. 103-110.
(7) Thus treating the dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti
king. Hardy's M. B., p. 347, says:—"For the place of cremation, the
princes (of Kusinara) offered their own coronation-hall, which was
decorated with the utmost magnificence, and the body was deposited in
a golden sarcophagus." See the account of a cremation which Fa-Hsien
witnessed in Ceylon, chap. xxxix.
(8) The name Vajrapani is explained as "he who holds in his hand the
diamond club (or pestle=sceptre)," which is one of the many names of
Indra or Sakra. He therefore, that great protector of Buddhism, would
seem to be intended here; but the difficulty with me is that neither
in Hardy nor Rockhill, nor any other writer, have I met with any
manifestation of himself made by Indra on this occasion. The princes
of Kusanagara were called mallas, "strong or mighty heroes;" so also
were those of Pava and Vaisali; and a question arises whether
the language may not refer to some story which Fa-Hsien had
heard,—something which they did on this great occasion. Vajrapani is
also explained as meaning "the diamond mighty hero;" but the epithet
of "diamond" is not so applicable to them as to Indra. The clause may
hereafter obtain more elucidation.
(9) Of Kusanagara, Pava, Vaisali, and other kingdoms. Kings, princes,
brahmans,—each wanted the whole relic; but they agreed to an
eightfold division at the suggestion of the brahman Drona.
(10) These "strong heroes" were the chiefs of Vaisali, a kingdom and
city, with an oligarchical constitution. They embraced Buddhism early,
and were noted for their peculiar attachment to Buddha. The second
synod was held at Vaisali, as related in the next chapter. The ruins
of the city still exist at Bassahar, north of Patna, the same, I
suppose, as Besarh, twenty miles north of Hajipur. See Beal's Revised
Version, p. lii.
