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XXIX. The Tradition about the Corporeal Relics of Buddha

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

J. F. Fleet
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Extract

In my previous note on page 655 ff. above, I have given the narrative of the Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta about the cremation of the corpse of Buddha and the original distribution and enshrining of his corporeal relics. We come now to the tradition about the subsequent fate of the eight deposits of those relics, which were placed in Stūpas or memorial mounds at the localities shewn in the list given on page 671. And we take this matter in the order, as closely as we can determine it, of the dates of the writings from which we gather the tradition ; which, however, is of course not necessarily the order in which the tradition was developed.

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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 1906 , pp. 881 - 913
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1906

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page 881 note 1 There are two points in that narrative, in respect of which I would add some further remarks.

(1) In connexion with the quenching of the funeral fire (page 663 and note 3), it is perhaps not necessary to assume any supernatural agency.

It seems to me that, if the matter may be judged by the analogies of Western India, the case was as follows. The Mallas of Kusinārā began to extinguish the fire with perfumed water. At that moment, a hot-weather storm came on. The rain was the water which fell down from the sky to extinguish the pyre. The funeral pile having been placed in a hollow, the water which collected there was the water which for the same purpose “ arose from the storehouse of waters (beneath the earth).” And the text has simply put all this in a poetical fashion.

(2) As I have said at the end of the note on page 658, the actual cause of the death of Buddha was, coupled with extreme old age, an attack of dysentery induced by a meal of sūkara-maddava. And I have suggested that the dish consisted of “the succulent parts, titbits, of a young wild boar.”

Since making that remark, I have, in looking into another matter, come across a suggestion by Mr. Hoey (JASB, 1900. 80, note) that the dish consisted, not of boar's flesh, but of sūkara-kanda, ‘hog's root,’ the root of a bulbous plant which is a phalāhāra or article of vegetarian diet. And I find that Mr. Watters arrived (On Yuan Chwang, 2. 28) at the opinion:—“I agree with Neumann that the “ pious blacksmith was not likely to cook pickled pork for the Buddha, and think

“that fungus or mushroom should be taken to be the meaning of sūkara-“maddava.”

These conjectures are ingenious,— Mr. Hoey's in particular,— and are not inapposite in view of the extent to which, we all know, the flesh of the pig is tabooed in eastern lands. But they are not really necessary; and they do not meet the requirements of the case, even apart from the points that the word in the text is not sūkara-kanda, and that I cannot find any word for ‘ fungus ’ or ‘ mushroom’ containing a component which in any way resembles either sūkara or maddava.

That the dish was not an ordinary one, of which anyone might safely partake, is plainly indicated by the Sutta, text, 231/127; trans., 71. The dish was prepared for an entertainment, given at Pāvā by the blacksmith's son Chunda, at which the food consisted of:— khādaniyaṁ bhōjaniyaṁ pahūtaṁ cha sūkara-maddavaṁ; “sweet food both hard and soft, and an abundance of sūkara-maddava.” This food was offered to Buddha and the Bhikkhus who were with him. But, by the direction of Buddha, the sūkara-maddava was actually served to only him, and his followers were regaled with the other food; and Chunda was bidden to bury in a hole whatever remained of the sūkara-maddava: because, said Buddha:—“ I see no one, in the world of men and Dēvas, or in the world of Māra, or in that of Brahma,— no one amongst Samaṇas, Brāhmaṇs, gods, or men, — by whom, when eaten, that food could be properly digested, save only by a Thatāgata.” And, as we learn from the following context, even Buddha himself did not eat that food with impunity on that occasion.

All this points distinctly to some very rich animal food, liable to quickly decompose with unpleasant results. In the present time, while only low-caste people eat the flesh of the village-pig, all classes of people in India who eat meat at all will freely eat the wild boar. And it seems not at all certain that, in ancient times, the higher classes did not eat even the domesticated pig, which may in those days have been somewhat more carefully looked after, at least occasionally, than is now the case. For instance, in Jātaka No. 30, one of the characters is a sūkara, a porker, named Muṇika, belonging to a kuṭumbika, a landed proprietor, “ the squire” (translation); and Muṇika was fed up on rice-gruel to make all sorts of dainty dishes at the wedding-feast of the squire's daughter. The same feature figures again in Jātaka No. 286. It may, therefore, not even be necessary to assume that the pig was a wild pig.

It may be added that a list of prohibited meats given in the Vinayapiṭaka, Mahāvagga, 6. 23, 8, does not include the flesh of the pig. The list is confined to the flesh of man, the elephant, the horse, the dog, the serpent, the lion, the tiger, the panther, the bear, and the wolf or the hyena.

page 882 note 1 It has also been said (loc. cit.) that the passage in it about the opening of the Stūpas is “very corrupt and obscure.” The editors, however, did not find it necessary to make any such observation, or even to elucidate the meaning by notes. The text only requires to be read with a little thought and some general knowledge, and without a desire to place it in an unfavourable light.

page 883 note 1 Compare ibid., pp. 379, 402 ; and pp. 348, 350, 385, for the same date for Upagupta, the spiritual adviser of Aśōka.

page 883 note 2 The term used in the text here is śarīra-dhātu. It occurs wherever I give “corporeal relics.” At the places where I do not include the word “corporeal,” the text presents simply dhātu.

For śarīra-dhātu we have in Pāli works occasionally the term sārīrika dhātu ; sometimes in composition, sometimes as two separate words in apposition.

The terms śarīra-dhātu, śārīrika-dhātu, distinguish ‘ corporeal relics ’ from pāribhogika-dhātu, ‘use-relics,’ relics consisting of articles used or worn, and uddēśika-dhātu, ‘illustrative or indicative relics,’ i e., apparently, memorials, including images, of acts performed.

The word dhātu by itself appears to have been used freely in all three senses, according to the context. It occurs both as a masculine and as a neuter. And it seems to mean indifferently either ‘ relic ’ or ‘ relics,’ according to the context, whether it stands in the singular or in the plural.

page 883 note 3 The term used in the text here, and wherever I give “ monuments of religion,” is dharma-rājikā, ‘religion-line, or streak, or row.’

The editors have explained this term, in their index of words, as meaning ‘ a royal edict on the Law.’ And it would not be surprising if the word should be found elsewhere used to denote the columns, sometimes inscribed, sometimes plain, which Aśōka appears to have set up in really large numbers. But it seems to be distinctly indicated as meaning in this text ‘a Stūpa,’ by the employment of the word stūpa itself in the two verses (page 889 below) which sum up what “the Maurya” did.

In order, however, to avoid confusion and to escape the inconvenience of having to give the original terms in brackets, I prefer to use, respectively, “monuments of religion” and “Stūpas,” according to the term actually standing in the text.

The number, 84,000, of these monuments of religion or Stūpas was determined by the number of cities at which they were to be placed. And the number of the cities was, of course, based on there being 84,000 dhammakkhandas or sections of the Law taught by Buddha (see, e.g., Dīpavaṁsa, 6. 92, 95), or 82,000 taught by Buddha and 2,000 by a disciple (Thēragāthā, 1024).

The Dīpavaṁsa would intimate that there were 84,000 cities, and no more, in Jambudīpa, India ; see the passage in 6. 86–99, which describes Asōka as founding, in the course of three years, 84,000 Ārāmas, monasteries, one at each of the 84,000 cities which there were in Jambudīpa (in verse 98, exigencies of metre necessitated an omission of the word for ‘thousands ;’ so the number of cities stands at first sight at only 84: “at that time, in Jambudīpa there were 84[000] cities”). So, also, Buddhaghōsha, in the introduction to his Samantapāsādikā (Vinayapiṭaka, ed. Oldenberg, 3. 303), has described Asōka as founding 84,000 Vihāras, monasteries, adorned by 84,000 Chētiyas,— (this may here denote either ordinary shrines or relic-shrines),— “in 84,000 cities in the whole of Jambudīpa.” At that rate, the cities, towns, and villages in Jambudīpa, India, would be outnumbered by the 99,000 in the three Mahārāshṭra countries, and the 96,000 in the Gaṅgavāḍi province of Mysore. The 84,000 cities in Jambudīpa, however, were all selected ones, each with not less than a crore of inhabitants ; see page 888 below.

This traditional Buddhist number figures, of course, in various other directions. In early ages of the present aeon, there were some successions of 84,000 kings (Dīpavaṁsa, 3. 17, 35, 38), and one of 82,000 (ibid., 43). The great king Mahā-Sudassana possessed 84,000 cities, elephants, horses, chariots, wives, and so on (SBE, 11. 274 ff.). The praises of Buddha, when he was in the Tushita heaven, were sung in 84,000 stanzas (Lalitavistara, ed. Lefmann, 7–11). And, while he was still leading a secular life, Buddha enjoyed the possession of a harem of 84,000 ladies, amongst whom Gōpā, daughter of the Śākya Daṇḍapāni, was his chief queen (ibid., 157).

Regarding the standard numbers, some traditional, some no doubt actual, of the cities, towns, and villages in the ancient territorial divisions of India, see a note in my Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 1, part 2, p. 298, note 2. To the instances given there, it may be added that the traditional number for Kashmīr was 66,063 ; see Stein's translation of the Rājataraṁgiṇī, 2. 438.

It may be observed that the number 84,000 is found amongst the Jains also. For instance, the number of païnnas or scattered pieces of the Siddhānta which belonged to the first twenty-three Tīrthaṁkaras was 84,000 (IA, 21. 299). And 84,000 years formed a period of punishment in hell (Uvāsagadasāō, translation, 162 f.).

page 884 note 1 The text does not mention Chandragupta. It distinctly specifies Ajātaśatru as a son of Bimbisāra. The construction appears to imply that each successor is o be understood as the son of his predecessor. And thus this passage would actually seem to represent Vindusāra as a son of Nanda.

page 886 note 1 The expression in the text is:—chaturaṅgēna balakāyēna gatvā. In consequence of the desire, to discredit the story by any means whatsoever, even this natural and harmless little detail has been seized as a pretext for hostile criticism, based on statements (this Journal, 1901. 400 f.) that “Ajātasattu's stūpa was at Rājagaha, a few miles from Asoka's capital,” and “the time given was one of profound peace,” and on the question:—“What, then, was the mighty force to do?”

As regards the “time of profound peace,” there is no evidence either way. As regards the “few miles,” the distance between Aśōka's capital, Pāṭaliputra, and Rājagṛiha, was not less than about forty miles, or four days' journey ; and the subsequent tour embraced a stretch of not less than 220 miles to Kapilavastu.

The word balakāya, ‘force-body,’ no doubt often denotes a large army. But there is no objection to taking it as meaning simply an armed escort, such as kings would always take with them even on peaceful tours. The Divisional Commissioner of the present day travels with what is, if he has an elephant with him, a complete chaturaṅga-balakāya. Is it to be supposed that Aśōka would go about alone ? The same work similarly represents him (389) as taking a chaturaṅga-balakāya with him, when he went round with Upagupta to see the places at which Buddha had dwelt.

It may be added that, when Aśōka did travel in style with a “mighty force,” he went with no mere chaturaṅga-balakāya, but:— satta-yōjan-āyāmāya yōjana-vitthārāya mahatiyā sēnāya ; “with a great army seven yōjanas long and one yōjana broad:” so at least says Buddhaghōsha (see Vinayapiḷaka, 3. 335), in mentioning a certain occasion on which the king went from Pāṭaliputta to the Bōdhi-tree.

page 887 note 1 The word which I have rendered by “having opened to the bottom” is utpīṭya, ‘having torn up, extirpated.’ The context implies that the Stūpa was not actually destroyed, though it was opened; so we do not give to utpāṭya a force which it sometimes has.

In this passage, the term drōṇa-stūpa has been selected for hostile treatment, on the grounds (this Journal, 1901. 400 f.) that “the Droṇa Stūpa, the one put up over the vessel, was also quite close by” (and so an opening of it would not necessitate an expedition with a mighty force), and that “the expression Droṇa Stūpa is remarkable.”

But the passage does not refer to the Stūpa erected by the Brāhmaṇ Drōṇa. It distinctly speaks of the Stūpa erected by Ajātaśatru. And it simply qualifies that Stūpa as a drōṇa-stūpa in accordance with the idea (see page 667 above) that each of the original eight Stūpas contained a drōṇa of relics.

page 887 note 2 The text says:— uddhāraṇaṁ cha vistarēṇa kṛitvā. Here, vistarēṇa = ‘in detail, fully.’ The expression jīrṇ-ōddh raṇaṁ kṛi, ‘to make repairs of a thing worn out,’ is of constant occurrence in epigraphic records ; and the text must refer here to repairing the relic-chamber ; not to “putting them (the relics) distributively in the place [or the places] whence they had been taken.”

page 887 note 3 The text has:— dhātu-pratyaṁśaṁ dattvā. And, in view of such terms as prativarshaṁ, ‘every year, yearly,’ pratigātraṁ, ‘in every limb,’ &c., it might be rendered by “having given (away) every item of the relics.”

Cowell and Neil's index of words, however, assigns to pratyaṁśa the meaning of ‘division, share.’ And the word certainly seems to occur in that sense in the same work, 132 f. Also, the general tendency of the whole tradition seems to indicate that we ought to believe that the places visited were not entirely despoiled of their relics. At the same time, the text, mentioning the making of repairs before the giving back of a portion of the relics, would seem to imply that that portion of the relics was not replaced in the relic-chamber. On this point, compare page 908 below, and note.

page 887 note 4 The text has :— yāvat sapta-drōṇād grahāya ; “having taken from as far as seven drōṇus.”

page 887 note 5 That would be under the waters of a lake, according to the usual belief regarding the residences of the Nāgas ; at any rate, in some subterranean place.

page 887 note 6 The meaning is this. The Nāgas were seeking to prevent the king from opening the Stūpa. So, to avoid exciting any temptation, they did not take him to it. They proposed that he should worship it from the place to which they led him. And they asked to be allowed the honour of doing so at the same time and in his company.

page 888 note 1 This has been understood to indicate a solar eclipse. But of course it was a signal, by preconcerted arrangement, for all the Yakshas to work at one and the same time.

page 889 note 1 The text of this Pāda is:— lōkē sāśīti śāsad ahnā sahasraṁ. The metre (Vaiśvadēvī) is faulty at sāśīti śāsad, where we have — — ⌣ — ⌣ instead of — — — — ⌣. I conjecture that the original reading must have been :— lōkē=śītim chatvāri ahnā sahasram ; with an hiatus after chatvāri.

In the second Pāda, tasya ṛishēḥ has of course to be scanned tasy=arshēḥ.

page 891 note 1 The difficulty is created by the combination, not at all made by Professor Kern for the first time (see, e.g., Beal, Records, 1. 56, note 200 ; 151, note 97), of two separate statements, one of which is quite erroneous, without looking fully into them ; with the result (used in Man. Ind. Buddhism, 118) of obtaining an interval of three centuries from the death of that king whom we always mean when we speak of simply Aśōka to the beginning of the reign of Kanishka, and so of placing Kanishka in the last quarter of the first century A.D., and his “Council” about A.D. 100 (id., 121).

On this point, see further a Note on “The Traditional Date of Kanishka” in the Miscellaneous Communications of this Number.

page 891 note 2 For later instances in the same series, see ibid., 40, 41, 262, 265.

page 893 note 1 “We have this expression thirteen times in the Aśōkāvadāna, and always introducing verses which, I think, may fairly be considered framework-verses. I do not find it anywhere else in the Divyāvadāna. But through the rest of the work there run two expressions, not found in the Aśōkāvadāna, namely, gāthāṁ bhāshatē. and gāthām abhāshata, which may or may not mark the use of framework-verses there.

page 893 note 2 According to Fa-hian, the queen of Aśōka— (he does not mention her name)— sent men to cut the tree down.

According to the Divyāvadāna, Tishyarakshitā, the chief queen of Aśōka — (Padmāvatī, the mother of Kunāla, is only styled dēvī),— employed a woman named Mātaṅgī to make the tree wither by charms and by tying a cord round it.

According to the Mahāvamsa (Turnour, 122; corrected by Wijesinha, 78), Tissārakkhā, a queen of Aśōka, destroyed the tree by a thorn (apparently poisonous) of a maṇḍu-plant.

Hiuen Tsiang says (Julien, Mémoires, 1. 462 f. ; Beal, Records, 2. 117 ; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, 2. 115) that Aśōka himself tried to destroy the tree by cutting through its roots ; and that, when that attempt failed, his queen— (he does not mention her name)— cut it down, but Aśōka had meanwhile repented, and by his prayers, and by bathing the roots with perfumed milk, he revived it.

page 893 note 3 According to Turnour (122), the Mahāvamsa says that four years after the death of his beloved queen Asandhimittā, who was a devoted follower of Buddha, the king Dhammāsōka:— tassā rakkhaṁ mahēsittē ṭhapēsi visam-āsayaṁ ; “installed as queen one of her guards women who was of a disagreeable disposition.”

Wijesinha indicates (78) that the correct reading is, not tassā rakkhaṁ, but Tissārakkhaṁ.

Perhaps so. But, as tissā is another form of tassā, ‘of her,’ and as it seems that we have Tissārakkhā in Pāli against (with a difference in the quantity of the vowel in the second syllable) Tishyarakshitā in Sanskṛit, it is not impossible that the name was not taken into Pāli from a Sanskṛit original, but was evolved from tissā rakkhā, and consequently that it was of Pāli invention and was subsequently Sanskṛitized.

Is the name found in any of the writings of Buddhaghōsha ? And, if so, in what precise form ?

page 894 note 1 The supposed date of this occurrence is A.D. 302. That, however, is according to the arrangement of the chronology with B.C. 543, for the death of Buddha, as the starting-poiut. But that arrangement antedates all the early chronology by just about sixty years; it places, for instance, the initial date of Chandragupta, the grandfather of Aśōka, in B.C. 381, whereas we know from the Greek sources that Chandragupta's initial date was closely about B.C. 320.

Up to what exact time a continuous correction, perhaps gradually diminishing from about sixty years to a vanishing point in the twelfth or thirteenth century A.D., must be made in the Ceylonese chronology, is not quite certain yet. But an adjustment of closely about sixty years has to be made until at any rate after the times of Buddhaghōsha and the Thēra Mahānāma.

page 894 note 2 This form seems to have been obtained, not by inverting the components of Dhammāsōka, but by joining together, with an omission of the ending rāja, the two separate bases Asōka and dhammarāja, “Asōka the king of religion,” from which we have the accusative Asōkaṁ dhammarājānaṁ in 15. 6, 9. Compare note 3 on page 903 below.

page 895 note 1 See note 3 on page 883 above.

page 895 note 2 We are, perhaps, not really concerned with anything after the gift of relics by Aśōka. But the whole story may as well be given, to round the matter off, and to be available for any other purpose.

page 895 note 3 This novice appears to have been selected for the mission, partly because he had evidently attained magical powers, partly because (see 15. 93 ; also Buddhaghōsha, op. cit., page 903 below, 328, 334) he was a grandson of Aśōka.

page 895 note 4 That it was this mountain, is indicated by 14. 56.

page 895 note 5 The verse says:—“Having heard the speech (of Sumana), the king, rejoicing and excited, dhāiu pattaṁ apūrēsi, (and said): ‘Quickly depart, pious man.’”

The previous statement, that Sumana had taken his alms-bowl with him, indicates plainly that it was Sumana's alms-bowl that the king filled with relics. And so Oldenberg has translated:—“…filled the alms-bowl with relics.”

The point calls for comment because of the different meaning adopted, as we shall see, by Mahānāma in the Mahāvaṁsa. Compare page 904 below.

page 895 note 6 Nothing is said here about Indra possessing also a tooth of Buddha.

Page 896 note 1 From Buddhaghōsha and the Mahāvaṁsa, we learn that it was the right collar-bone that was thus disposed of.

The extant text of the Dīpavaṁsa gives no clue as to what was done with the relics given by Asōka. So, even apart from what is stated by Buddhaghōsha, it would seem that an appreciable amount has been lost at this point.

The Mahāvaṁsa says (Turnour, 122 ; Wijesinha, 78) that the relics obtained from Asōka, including, according to it, the alms-bowl of Buddha himself, were installed by Dēvānaṁpiya-Tissa vatthu-gharē subhē, or, according to the translators, “ in a superb apartment of the royal residence.”

Page 896 note 2 We have here the plural, dhātuyō. But, from verse 73, as well as from what is said by Buddhaghōsha and in the Mahāvaṁsa, it appears to denote only the right collar-bone.

Page 898 note 1 The names are not given, either of the kings or of the countries. “The kings of seven countries” would perhaps be a more correct translation than “ the kings of the seven countries,” as we do not know of any particular seven countries, which could be mentioned without specific names, except the saptadvīpa, the seven divisions of the whole world.

Page 898 note 2 As is well known, the word dāgoba is a corruption of the term dhātugarbha, ‘relic-chamber.’ It seems, however, to have become established in the wider sense of the erection (Stūpa, or shrine) containing a dhātugarbha.

Page 898 note 3 The “pitcher ” is marked as a golden pitcher again in verse 2206, at the end of the account of the cremation:—“The scented oil consumed, the fire declines, the bones they place within a golden pitcher.”

Page 899 note 1 The meaning seems to be that it was illness that led to his conversion.

Page 899 note 2 For kappa, = kalpa as the termination of a place-name, compare Uchchakalpa, the town of a line of princes in Central India in the period A.D. 493–533 (F.GI, 117 ff.). But, except to that extent, I do not at present recognize the Sanskṛit form of the Pāli name Allakappa. A Tibetan translation of some version of apparently the Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta itself with the later verses added at the end. substitutes for Allakappa a name which is explained as meaning “of wavering judgment” (AR, 20. 215). But, while we may no doubt render kappa, kalpa, by judgment,'— (Monier-Williams assigns to it the meaning of ‘ resolve, determination’),— that does not help to explain the first component of the name, which can hardly represent alpa ; moreover, the term alpa-kalpa would mean ‘ of little judgment,’ and ‘ of wavering judgment’ would probably be skhalat-, or skhalita-kalpa. Childers gives a Pāli word alla, with the sense of ‘ wet, moist’ ; but that would hardly suit the Tibetan rendering. Still less so would the Sanskrit āla, ‘ not little or insignificant; excellent ’

Allakappa seems to have been a territory, rather than a town. But I do not find, either in Buddhaghōsha's commentary on the Dhammapada, 153, or in the Buddhavaṁsa, 28. 2, the authority for the statement, made in Müller's List of Pāli Proper Names, that Allakappa was “ a country adjacent to Magadha.” In another direction, however, it would seem that Allakappa and Vēṭhadīpa were near each other, or perhaps that Vēṭhadīpa was a division of Allakappa. At any rate, Buddhaghōsha says, in the passage indicated just above, that in the Allakappa country (raṭṭha) there were two kings, the Allakappa king and the Vēṭhadīpa king ; they were companions, educated together, from childhood; and, together, they renounced the world, became wandering ascetics, and went to the Himālaya region and settled there.

Page 900 note 1 Here, again, I cannot at present determine the Sanskṛit form of the name ; beyond of course recognizing that it may have been Vishṭadvīpa, Vēshṭadvīpa, or Vaishṭadvīpa, of any of which words, however, as a place-name, I cannot find any trace. It may, however, be mentioned that the St. Petersburg Dictionary quotes Vaishṭapurēya, from the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, 14. 5, 5, 20 ; 7, 3, 35, as a. personal name ; and this suggests the existence of a town named Vishṭapura, which might easily be the capital of a Vishṭadvīpa territory. The Tibetan translation mentioned in the preceding note substitutes (loc. cit.) for Vēṭhadīpa a name which is explained as meaning “ Vishṇu's region: ” but we do not know any Vishṇudvīpa ; and it is difficult to find any connexion between vishṛu and vētha, except by assuming that vēṭha has been mistakenly confused with some Prākṛit form biṭṭa, bitṭi, etc.) of vishṇu.

From the statement of Buddhaghōsha, mentioned in the preceding note, it would seem that Vēṭhadīpa was a town in. or a division of, a territory named Allakappa. Taking Vēṭhadīpa as a town, Mr. Hoey has suggested to me that we may recognize it in the ‘ Bettiah,’ ‘ Bettia,’ or ‘ Bettiā’ of the present day. in the Champāran district. This seems to me highly probable, if the true spelling of the modern name is such as to justify the connexion.

Page 901 note 1 So also Beal:—“ …… the new Rājagṛiha. This was the town which King Ajātaśatru built.” Regarding the old and the new towns at Rājagṛiha, see more under Hiuen Tsiang.

Page 901 note 2 For the essential part of Legge's version (op. cit., 68), which does not differ in any material point, reference may be made to this Journal, 1901. 403.

Page 903 note 1 The supposed period is A.D. 410–32. But see note 1 on page 894 above.

Page 903 note 2 On this point, see a note under the matter of the traditional date of Kanishka, further on in this Number.

Page 903 note 3 On page 328 we have:— Asōkaṁ dhammarājānaṁ upasaṁkamitvā This perhaps indicates that the compound Asōkadhammarāja, as used by Buddhaghōsha, should always he understood in that way.

Similarly, while presenting in various other places unmistakably the name Asōkadhamma, the Dīpavaṁsa makes Mahinda say to Sumana (15. 6):— Asōkaṁ dhammarājānam ēvaṁ cha ārōchayāhi tvaṁ ; and in verse 9 we have :— Asōkaṁ dhammarājānaṁ ārōchēsi. Compare note 2 on page 894 above.

In the Divyāvadāna, 368, 379, 402, the expression is :– Aśōkō nāmnā rājā bhavishyati chaturbhāga-chakravartī dhārmikō dharmarājā.

Page 904 note 1 The words are :— gandhēhi ubbaṭṭetvā vara-mutta-sadisānaṁ dhātūnaṁ pūretvā adāsi.

Page 905 note 1 The Chētiyagiri is the Missaka of the Dīpavaṁsa (page 895 above). The Mahāvamsa explains (Turnour, 106 ; Wijesinha, 68) that the Missaka mountain received the name Chētiyagiri because Mahinda deposited there the relics obtained from Asōka.

Page 905 note 2 Regarding the ultimate disposal of these relics, see note 1 on page 896 above.

Page 905 note 3 The meaning of a few words here and there remains to he cleared up when we have a critical edition of the commentary. But no doubt of any kind attends any essential part of the story.

Page 906 note 1 This is explained by a previous statement by Buddhaghōsha, that the bones of Buddha were conveyed from the cremation-ground to the townhall of the Mallas in suvaṇṇa-dōni, a golden trough, on the shoulders of an elephant.

Page 906 note 2 The relics, presumably, only seemed to be gold-coloured, as the result of reflection from the sides of the trough.

Page 906 note 3 In explanation of this, see, e.g., the Lalitavistara, ed. Lefmann, 105; trans., Foucaux, 1. 95. There, the great sage Asita is enumerating to Śuddhōdana the thirty-two signs of a great personage by which the body of the infant Buddha was marked. Amongst them, No. 17 is sūkshma-suvarṇavarṇachchhavi, “a fine smooth cuticle, of the colour of gold.”

Compare the Dīgha-Nikāya, part 2, p. 17. There, the Brṇhman astrologers were explaining the thirty-two signs of a great personage to king Bandhumat, when his son the Buddha Vipassi was born; and they said:—“He is of the colour of gold, and has a skin resembling gold ; he has a fine smooth cuticle, and, because of the fine smoothness of it, dust and dirt do not adhere to his body.”

Page 906 note 4 The text seems to have vēṭh-antarē. I suppose that this stands for vēṭhan-antarē; unless vēṭha = vēshṭa occurs alongside of vēṭhana = vēshṭana, ‘a waist-band, girdle ; a headband, turban.’

Page 907 note 1 The whole of Buddhaghōsha's commentary is not before me. I presume that he introduced a mention of this suvaṇṇa -kumbha in some previous passage.

Page 907 note 2 I am informed that in both the Burmese and the Singhalese texts the reading is distinctly pañchavīsati, ‘twenty-five,’ not pañchattiṁsuti, “thirty-five.’ That being so, this statement, coupled with certain other statements of distances in the Pāli books and with other indications, would place Kusinārā somewhere about thirty-two miles towards the north-west of Chhaprā, the headquarters town of the Sāran district, and some fifty miles towards the south-east-by-south from Kasiā in the Gōrakhpūr district.

Page 908 note 1 That is, excepting Rāmagāma, and including Rājagaha. We might assume that a paricharaṇa-relic was left at Rājagaha also; and that the paricharaṇa-relics were left inside the Thūpas, as is said to have been done by Asōka when he opened and closed again the underground deposit at Rājagaha (page 913 below). Against that, however, is the statement that Asōka obtained no relics at all from any of the original Thūpas (page 912 below), though, with the exception of that at Rāmagāma, he opened them all. It would seem, therefore, that the paricharaṇa-relics were left outside the Thūpas, in the hands of priests. On this point compare note 3 on page 887 above.

Page 909 note 1 I can only follow the text here just as it stands ; the ultimate meaning is not clear to me. But it seems to suggest an allusion to some enormous natural cavity, air-tight and waterproof, accessible through a crevice in a slab or stratum of rock, such as those which exist, and are used as grain-pits, in some parts of the Southern Marāṭhā, country.

Page 910 note 1 The text in the Nidānakathā runs:— Yasmim pana samayē amhākaṁ Bōdhisattō Lumbinivanē jātō tasmiṁ yēva samayē Rāhula-mātā dēvī Chhannō amachchō Kāludāyi amachchō Kanthakō assa-rājā Mahābōdhi rukkhō chattārō nidhi-kumbhiyō cha jātā tattha ēkā gāvuta-ppamāṇā ēkā addha-yōjana-ppamāṇā, ēkā tigāvuta-ppamāṇā ēkā yōjana-ppamāṇā ahōs=īti imē satta sahajātā nāma.

On some grounds which I cannot trace, Bigandet (Life or Legend of Gaudama, first ed., 36) and Hardy (Manual of Buddhism, second ed., 149) omitted Buddha, and inserted Ānanda between Chhanna and Kāḷudāyi. The text, however, makes no mention of Ānanda, and distinctly counts the Bōdhisatta, i.e. Buddha, as one of the Seven: it does not say “these are the seven sahajātā of the Bōdhisatta;” mentioning first the Bōdhisatta, it says “these (including him) are the seven sahajātā.”

We might have expected that the learned translator of the Nidānakathā would have set things right. But, following previous writers instead of weighing the words of the text, he has said (Buddhist Birth Stories, 68, note) :—“There “is some mistake here, as the list contains nine—or if the four treasures count as “one; only six— Connatal Ones. I think before Kaludāyi we should insert “Ānanda, the loving disciple.” And unfortunately the mistake has been carried over into Kern's Manual of Indian Buddhism, 14.

he tradition about Ānanda appears to have been that he was born when Buddha was either thirty (Laidlay, Pilgrimage of Fa Hian, 77) or thirty-five years of age (Hardy, Manual, 241). The four treasure-vases counted as only one among the sahajātā because, evidently, they fitted inside each other and were produced so arranged.

For another list, in two recensions, of persons and animals born at the same time with Buddha,—including Yaśōdharā-Yaśovatī (= Rāhulamātā), Chhandaka, and Kaṇthaka, but otherwise differing very materially,— see the Mahāvastu, ed. Senart, 2. 25, and the Lalitavistara, ed. Lefmann, 95, trans. Foucaux, 1. 86.

Page 911 note 1 Of course, the jewel was to be sold, and the proceeds were to be applied. Compare the story about the inscribed tablet and the pearls mentioned by Sung-yun in connexion with the pagoda or tower built by Kanishka at the capital of the Gandhāra country ; see Beal, Records, 1. introd., 105.

Page 911 note 2 This, the Brick Hall or Tiled Hall, was a building at Nādika.

Page 912 note 1 The suggestion is that the locality had become overgrown with jungle.