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(6) This was the retreat already twice mentioned as kept by the pilgrims in the summer, the different phraseology, “quiet rest,” without any mention of the season, indicating their approach to India, E. H., p. 168. Two, if not three, years had elapsed since they left Ch’ang-gan. Are we now with them in 402? (7) This is the Corean reading {.}, much preferable to the {.} of the Chinese editions. (8) Watters approves of Klaproth’s determination of K’eeh-ch’a to be Iskardu or Skardo. There are difficulties in connexion with the view, but it has the advantage, to my mind very great, of bringing the pilgrims across the Indus. The passage might be accomplished with ease at this point of the river’s course, and therefore is not particularly mentioned. (9) Who had preceded them from Khoten. CHAPTER V. GREAT QUINQUENNIAL ASSEMBLY OF MONKS. RELICS OF BUDDHA. PRODUCTIONS OF THE COUNTRY. It happened that the king of the country was then holding the pancha parishad, that is, in Chinese, the great quinquennial assembly.(1) When this is to be held, the king requests the presence of the Sramans from all quarters (of his kingdom). They come (as if) in clouds; and when they are all assembled, their place of session is grandly decorated. Silken streamers and canopies are hung out in, and water-lilies in gold and silver are made and fixed up behind the places where (the chief of them) are to sit. When clean mats have been spread, and they are all seated, the king and his ministers present their offerings according to rule and law. (The assembly takes place), in the first, second, or third month, for the most part in the spring. After the king has held the assembly, he further exhorts the ministers to make other and special offerings. The doing of this extends over one, two, three, five, or even seven days; and when all is finished, he takes his own riding-horse, saddles, bridles, and waits on him himself,(2) while he makes the noblest and most important minister of the kingdom mount him. Then, taking fine white woollen cloth, all sorts of precious things, and articles which the Sramans require, he distributes them among them, uttering vows at the same time along with all his ministers; and when this distribution has taken place, he again redeems (whatever he wishes) from the monks.(3) The country, being among the hills and cold, does not produce the other cereals, and only the wheat gets ripe. After the monks have received their annual (portion of this), the mornings suddenly show the hoar-frost, and on this account the king always begs the monks to make the wheat ripen(4) before they receive their portion. There is in the country a spitoon which belonged to Buddha, made of stone, and in colour like his alms-bowl. There is also a tooth of Buddha, for which the people have reared a tope, connected with which there are more than a thousand monks and their disciples,(5) all students of the hinayana. To the east of these hills the dress of the common people is of coarse materials, as in our country of Ts’in, but here also(6) there were among them the differences of fine woollen cloth and of serge or haircloth. The rules observed by the Sramans are remarkable, and too numerous to be mentioned in detail. The country is in the midst of the Onion range. As you go forward from these mountains, the plants, trees, and fruits are all different from those of the land of Han, excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate,(7) and sugar-cane. NOTES (1) See Eitel, p. 89. He describes the assembly as “an ecclesiastical conference, first instituted by king Asoka for general confession of sins and inculcation of morality.” (2) The text of this sentence is perplexing; and all translators, including myself, have been puzzled by it. (3) See what we are told of king Asoka’s grant of all the Jambudvipa to the monks in chapter xxvii. There are several other instances of similar gifts in the Mahavansa. (4) Watters calls attention to this as showing that the monks of K’eeh-ch’a had the credit of possessing weather-controlling powers. (5) The text here has {.} {.}, not {.} alone. I often found in monasteries boys and lads who looked up to certain of the monks as their preceptors. (6) Compare what is said in chapter ii of the dress of the people of Shen-shen. (7) Giles thinks the fruit here was the guava, because the ordinary name for “pomegranate” is preceded by gan {.}; but the pomegranate was called at first Gan Shih-lau, as having been introduced into China from Gan-seih by Chang-k’een, who is referred to in chapter vii. CHAPTER VI. ON TOWARDS NORTH INDIA. DARADA. IMAGE OF MAITREYA BODHISATTVA. From this (the travellers) went westwards towards North India, and after being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting across and through the range of the Onion mountains. The snow rests on them both winter and summer. There are also among them venomous dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of snow and storms of sand and gravel. Not one in ten thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his life. The people of the country call the range by the name of “The Snow mountains.” When (the travellers) had got through them, they were in North India, and immediately on entering its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called T’o-leih,(1) where also there were many monks, all students of the hinayana. In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan,(2) who by his supernatural power(3) took a clever artificer up to the Tushita heaven, to see the height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva,(4) and then return and make an image of him in wood. First and last, this was done three times, and then the image was completed, eighty cubits in height, and eight cubits at the base from knee to knee of the crossed legs. On fast-days it emits an effulgent light. The kings of the (surrounding) countries vie with one another in presenting offerings to it. Here it is,—to be seen now as of old.(5) NOTES (1) Eitel and others identify this with Darada, the country of the ancient Dardae, the region near Dardus; lat. 30° 11′ N., lon. 73° 54′ E. See E. H. p. 30. I am myself in more than doubt on the point. Cunningham (“Ancient Geography of India,” p. 82) says “Darel is a valley on the right or western bank of the Indus, now occupied by Dardus or Dards, from whom it received its name.” But as I read our narrative, Fâ-Hien is here on the eastern bank of the Indus, and only crosses to the western bank as described in the next chapter. (2) Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat, are all designations of the perfected Arya, the disciple who has passed the different stages of the Noble Path, or eightfold excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is not to be reborn again. Arhatship implies possession of certain supernatural powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but implies the fact of the saint having already attained nirvâna. Popularly, the Chinese designate by this name the wider circle of Buddha’s disciples, as well as the smaller ones of 500 and 18. No temple in Canton is better worth a visit than that of the 500 Lo-han. (3) Riddhi-sakshatkriya, “the power of supernatural footsteps,“=”a body flexible at pleasure,” or unlimited power over the body. E. H., p. 104. (4) Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn before finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita 4000 years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to 400 years on earth. E. H., p. 152. (5) Maitreya (Spence Hardy, Maitri), often styled Ajita, “the Invincible,” was a Bodhisattva, the principal one, indeed, of Sâkyamuni’s retinue, but is not counted among the ordinary (historical) disciples, nor is anything told of his antecedents. It was in the Tushita heaven that Sâkyamuni met him and appointed him as his successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of 5000 years. Maitreya is therefore the expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing at present in Tushita, and, according to the account of him in Eitel (H., p. 70), “already controlling the propagation of the Buddhistic faith.” The name means “gentleness” or “kindness;” and this will be the character of his dispensation. (6) The combination of {.} {.} in the text of this concluding sentence, and so frequently occurring throughout the narrative, has occasioned no little dispute among previous translators. In the imperial thesaurus of phraseology (P’ei-wan Yun-foo), under {.}, an example of it is given from Chwang-tsze, and a note subjoined that {.} {.} is equivalent to {.} {.}, “anciently and now.” CHAPTER VII. CROSSING OF THE INDUS. WHEN BUDDHISM FIRST CROSSED THE RIVER FOR THE EAST The travellers went on to the south-west for fifteen days (at the foot of the mountains, and) following the course of their range. The way was difficult and rugged, (running along) a bank exceedingly precipitous, which rose up there, a hill-like wall of rock, 10,000 cubits from the base. When one approaches the edge of it, his eyes become unsteady; and if he wished to go forward in the same direction, there was no place on which he could place his foot; and beneath where the waters of the river called the Indus.(1) In former times men had chiselled paths along the rocks, and distributed ladders on the face of them, to the number altogether of 700, at the bottom of which there was a suspension bridge of ropes, by which the river was crossed, its banks being there eighty paces apart.(2) The (place and arrangements) are to be found in the Records of the Nine Interpreters,(3) but neither Chang K’een(4) nor Kan Ying(5) had reached the spot. The monks(6) asked Fâ-Hien if it could be known when the Law of Buddha first went to the east.