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Updated: July 8, 2025
See M. B., pp. 140-143, and, still better, Rhys Davids' "Birth Stories," pp. 58-63. See also Rhys Davids' "Buddhism," p. 29. This is an addition of my own, instead of "There are also topes erected at the following spots," of former translators. Fa-Hsien does not say that there were memorial topes at all these places. Asita; see Eitel, p. 15.
Fa-Hsien stayed at the Dragon vihara till after the summer retreat, and then, travelling to the south-east for seven yojanas, he arrived at the city of Kanyakubja, lying along the Ganges. There are two monasteries in it, the inmates of which are students of the hinayana.
It must have been a country of considerable size to have so many monks in it. This means in one sense China, but Fa-Hsien, in his use of the name, was only thinking of the three Ts'in states of which I have spoken in a previous note; perhaps only of that from the capital of which he had himself set out. This sentence altogether is difficult to construe, and Mr.
Herbert A. Giles, of H.M.'s Consular Service in China . To these I have to add a series of articles on "Fa-hsien and his English Translators," by Mr. Those articles are of the highest value, displaying accuracy of Chinese scholarship and an extensive knowledge of Buddhism. I have regretted that Mr.
It was near Rajagriha, the earlier capital of Asoka, so that Fa-Hsien connects a legend of it with his account of Patna. It abounded in caverns, and was famous as a resort of ascetics. A Brahman by cast, but a Buddhist in faith. Why should there not have been schools in those monasteries in India as there were in China?
Some said that they had not yet got to Kwang-chow, and others that they had passed it. They found two hunters, whom they brought back with them, and then called on Fa-Hsien to act as interpreter and question them. Fa-Hsien first spoke assuringly to them, and then slowly and distinctly asked them, "Who are you?" They replied, "We are disciples of Buddha?"
When they had succeeded in completing two storeys, they removed the image back to its former place. When Fa-Hsien and Tao-ching first arrived at the Jetavana monastery, and thought how the World-honoured one had formerly resided there for twenty-five years, painful reflections arose in their minds.
Thus treating the dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti king. See the account of a cremation which Fa-Hsien witnessed in Ceylon, chap. xxxix. 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.
Eitel, p. 64. The bhikshunis are the female monks or nuns, subject to the same rules as the bhikshus, and also to special ordinances of restraint. See Hardy's E. M., chap. 17. The Sramaneras are the novices, male or female, who have vowed to observe the Shikshapada, or ten commandments. Fa-Hsien was himself one of them from his childhood.
Fa-Hsien supplies sufficient information of how the common store or funds of the monasteries were provided, farther on in chapters xvi and xxxix, as well as in other passages. In the thirteenth chapter there is an account of one built under the superintendence of Buddha himself, "as a model for all topes in future."
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