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In many cases there is definite evidence to show that pilgrimage sites remain sacred even when religions change. Mecca was a resort of pilgrims in the first century B.C., 700 years before Muhammad. The Central-Asian shrines visited by Buddhist pilgrims from China on their way to India, Fa-hsien in the fifth and Hsuan-tsang in the seventh century, are now appropriated to Islam.
These must have been Tao-ching and Hwuy-king. Probably the Safeid Koh, and on the way to the Kohat pass. All the texts have Kwuy-king. See chapter xii, note 13. A very natural exclamation, but out of place and inconsistent from the lips of Fa-Hsien. The term implies a factor, or fa-tor, and supposes the ordination of Heaven or God. A Confucian idea for the moment overcame his Buddhism.
A doubt is intimated on page 24 as to the identification of T'o-leih with Darada, but Greenough's "Physical and Geological Sketch-Map of British India" shows "Dardu Proper," all lying on the east of the Indus, exactly in the position where the Narrative would lead us to place it. The point at which Fa-Hsien recrossed the Indus into Udyana on the west of it is unknown.
A golden plough had been provided, and the king himself turned up a furrow on the four sides of the ground within which the building was supposed to be. In this country Fa-Hsien heard an Indian devotee, who was reciting a Sutra from the pulpit, say: "Buddha's alms-bowl was at first in Vaisali, and now it is in Gandhara.
Here the first synod assembled within a year after Sakyamuni's death. Eitel says it was built by Bimbisara, while Fa-Hsien ascribes it to Ajatasatru. I suppose the son finished what the father had begun. One of the five first followers of Sakyamuni. He is also called Asvajit; in Pali Assaji; but Asvajit seems to be a military title= "Master or trainer of horses."
When the processions of images in the fourth month were over, Sang-shao, by himself alone, followed a Tartar who was an earnest follower of the Law, and proceeded towards Kophene. Fa-Hsien and the others went forward to the kingdom of Tsze-hoh, which it took them twenty-five days to reach.
In this also there were more than four thousand monks, all students of the hinayana. They were very strict in their rules, so that sramans from the territory of Ts'in were all unprepared for their regulations. Fa-Hsien and the rest, however, through the liberality of Foo Kung-sun, managed to go straight forward in a south-west direction. They found the country uninhabited as they went along.
Beal says on this: "General Cunningham, who visited the spot , found a pillar, evidently of the age of Asoka, with a well-carved elephant on the top, which, however, was minus trunk and tail. He supposes this to be the pillar seen by Fa-Hsien, who mistook the top of it for a lion. That is, in niches on the sides. The pillar or column must have been square. Equivalent to "all through."
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.
Eitel and others identify this with Darada, the country of the ancient Dardae, the region near Dardus; lat. 30d 11s N., lon. 73d 54s E. See E. H. p. 30. I am myself in more than doubt on the point. But as I read our narrative, Fa-Hsien is here on the eastern bank of the Indus, and only crosses to the western bank as described in the next chapter.
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