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He found Magadha prosperous and pious. Of its capital, Patna, he says "by the side of the topes of Asoka has been made a Mahayana monastery very grand and beautiful, there is also a Hinayana one, the two together containing 600 or 700 monks." It is probable that this was typical of the religious condition of Magadha and Bengal. Both schools existed but the Mahayana was the more flourishing.
The laws regulating their demeanour in sitting, rising, and entering when the others are assembled, are those which have been practised by all the saints since Buddha was in the world down to the present day. The places of the four great topes have been fixed, and handed down without break, since Buddha attained to nirvana.
Over the entire relic of the whole body of him, the Kâsyapa Tathâgata, a great tope was also erected. Going on southeast from the city of Srâvasti for twelve yojanas, the travellers came to a town named Na-pei-keâ, the birthplace of Krakuchanda Buddha. At the place where he and his father met, and at that where he attained to pari-nirvâna, topes were erected.
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. Rama or Ramagrama, between Kapilavastu and Kusanagara. 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.
The spirit thereupon raised a great wind, which blew the filth away, and made the place pure. At this place there are many small topes, at which a man may keep counting a whole day without being able to know their exact number. If he be firmly bent on knowing it, he will place a man by the side of each tope.
At this place there are as many as a thousand topes of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas. Now in India, Fa-Hsien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was. The estimates of it are very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to seven, and sometimes more.
Throngs of women and children mounted upon camels, protected by the peculiar gaudy saddle hood, ornamented with cowrie-shells, accompanied the march; thousands of sheep and goats, driven by Arab boys, were straggling in all directions; baggage-camels, heavily laden with the quaint household goods, blocked up the way; the fine bronzed figures of Arabs, with sword and shield, and white topes, or plaids, guided their milk-white dromedaries through the confused throng with the usual placid dignity of their race, simply passing by with the usual greeting, "Salaam aleikum," "Peace be with you."
At all these places topes were subsequently erected, which are still existing in the city. The Brahmans, with their contrary doctrine, became full of hatred and envy in their hearts, and wished to destroy them, but there came from the heavens such a storm of crashing thunder and flashing lightning that they were not able in the end to effect their purpose.
Besides these rock-hewn temples in India there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called stupas, or topes. The earliest of these are single columns; but the later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds, resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter.
Here and there, a noble poplar stands apart as if disdaining to associate with the more lowly growth of the groves. These "topes" are of varied forms: some rounded, some oval, and others of more irregular shape.
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