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As soon, however, as they saw the copper fittings on my scientific instruments, the monkeys, no doubt taking them for some deadly engines, fled on all sides, uttering the most piercing cries. I often also spent my evenings with Châli on one of the external galleries that looked on to the lake of Vihara.
Firstly it mentions "Agiśala the overseer of works at Kanishka's vihâra," that is, probably Agesilaus, a foreigner in the king's service. Secondly it states that the casket was made "for the acceptance of the teachers of the Sarvâstivâdin sect," and the idea that Kanishka was the special patron of the Mahayana must be reconsidered in the light of this statement.
In front of this there is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihara has been built. The door of it faces the north, and on the south of it there is a stone pillar, fourteen or fifteen cubits in circumference, and more than thirty cubits high, on which there is an inscription, saying, "Asoka gave the jambudvipa to the general body of all the monks, and then redeemed it from them with money.
Karanda Venuvana; a park presented to Buddha by king Bimbisara, who also built a vihara in it. See the account of the transaction in M. B., p. 194. The place was called Karanda, from a creature so named, which awoke the king just as a snake was about to bite him, and thus saved his life.
I sprang up: a tremendous roar deafened me, filling the vihara, wakening the slumbering echoes, and resounding, like the softened rumbling of thunder, over all the borders of the precipice. Good heavens! A tiger!
It has been handed down, that, near the time when these things occurred, around the Jetavana vihara there were ninety-eight monasteries, in all of which there were monks residing, excepting only in one place which was vacant. Each had its multitude of followers, and they all beg their food: only they do not carry the alms-bowl.
They answered in the affirmative, saying that he was an Arhat. The king accordingly, when he died, buried him after the fashion of an Arhat, as the regular rules prescribed. Four or five li east from the vihâra there was reared a great pile of firewood, which might be more than thirty cubits square, and the same in height. Near the top were laid sandal, aloe, and other kinds of fragrant wood.
Then the noble friend of the orphans, surrounded by his attendants, who met him on the way, scattering flowers and burning incense, invited the lord to enter the Getavana. In his hand he carried a golden dragon-pitcher, and bending low upon his knees he poured the flowing water as a sign of the gift of the Getavana Vihâra for the use of the priesthood throughout the world.
Inscriptions may still be seen showing that all these temples were built by Buddhists, or, rather, by Jainas. This disagreement is very embarrassing when people try to conjecture the antiquity of this or that vihara or chaitya.
See the subject exhaustively treated in Davids' "Ceylon Coins and Measures," pp. 15-17. The present Hilda, west of Peshawur, and five miles south of Jellalabad. "The vihara," says Hardy, "is the residence of a recluse or priest;" and so Davids: "the clean little hut where the mendicant lives."
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