The King, Besides, Prepares Elsewhere In The City A Common Supply Of Food For Five Or Six Thousand More.

When any want, they take their great bowls, and go (to the place of distribution), and take as much as the vessels will hold, all returning with them full.

The tooth of Buddha is always brought forth in the middle of the third month. Ten days beforehand the king grandly caparisons a large elephant, on which he mounts a man who can speak distinctly, and is dressed in royal robes, to beat a large drum, and make the following proclamation: - "The Bodhisattva, during three Asankhyeya-kalpas,[9] manifested his activity, and did not spare his own life. He gave up kingdom, city, wife, and son; he plucked out his eyes and gave them to another;[10] he cut off a piece of his own flesh to ransom the life of a dove;[10] he cut off his head and gave it as an alms;[11] he gave his body to feed a starving tigress;[11] he grudged not his marrow and his brains. In many such ways as these did he undergo pain for the sake of all living. And so it was, that, having become Buddha, he continued in the world for forty-five years, preaching his Law, teaching and transforming, so that those who had no rest found rest, and the unconverted were converted. When his connexion with the living was completed,[12] he attained to pari-nirvana (and died). Since that event, for 1497 years, the light of the world has gone out,[13] and all living beings have had long-continued sadness. Behold! ten days after this, Buddha's tooth will be brought forth, and taken to the Abhayagiri-vihara. Let all and each, whether monks or laics, who wish to amass merit for themselves, make the roads smooth and in good condition, grandly adorn the lanes and by-ways, and provide abundant store of flowers and incense to be used as offerings to it."

When this proclamation is over, the king exhibits, so as to line both sides of the road, the five hundred different bodily forms in which the Bodhisattva has in the course of his history appeared: - here as Sudana,[14] there as Sama;[15] now as the king of elephants;[16] and then as a stag or a horse.[16] All these figures are brightly coloured and grandly executed, looking as if they were alive. After this the tooth of Buddha is brought forth, and is carried along in the middle of the road. Everywhere on the way offerings are presented to it, and thus it arrives at the hall of Buddha in the Abhayagiri-vihara. There monks and laics are collected in crowds. They burn incense, light lamps, and perform all the prescribed services, day and night without ceasing, till ninety days have been completed, when (the tooth) is returned to the vihara within the city. On fast-days the door of that vihara is opened, and the forms of ceremonial reverence are observed according to the rules.

Forty le to the east of the Abhayagiri-vihara there is a hill, with a vihara on it, called the Chaitya,[17] where there may be 2000 monks. Among them there is a Sramana of great virtue, named Dharma-gupta,[18] honoured and looked up to by all the kingdom. He has lived for more than forty years in an apartment of stone, constantly showing such gentleness of heart, that he has brought snakes and rats to stop together in the same room, without doing one another any harm.

NOTES

[1] It is desirable to translate {.} {.}, for which "inhabitants" or "people" is elsewhere sufficient, here by "human inhabitants." According to other accounts Singhala was originally occupied by Rakshasas or Rakshas, "demons who devour men," and "beings to be feared," monstrous cannibals or anthropophagi, the terror of the shipwrecked mariner. Our author's "spirits" {.} {.} were of a gentler type. His dragons or nagas have come before us again and again.

[2] That Sakyamuni ever visited Ceylon is to me more than doubtful. Hardy, in M. B., pp. 207-213, has brought together the legends of three visits, - in the first, fifth, and eighth years of his Buddhaship. It is plain, however, from Fa-hien's narrative, that in the beginning of our fifth century, Buddhism prevailed throughout the island. Davids in the last chapter of his "Buddhism" ascribes its introduction to one of Asoka's missions, after the Council of Patna, under his son Mahinda, when Tissa, "the delight of the gods," was king (B.C. 250-230).

[3] This would be what is known as "Adam's peak," having, according to Hardy (pp. 211, 212, notes), the three names of Selesumano, Samastakuta, and Samanila. "There is an indentation on the top of it," a superficial hollow, 5 feet 3 3/4 inches long, and about 2 1/2 feet wide. The Hindus regard it as the footprint of Siva; the Mohameddans, as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in the text, - as having been made by Buddha.

[4] Meaning "The Fearless Hill." There is still the Abhayagiri tope, the highest in Ceylon, according to Davids, 250 feet in height, and built about B.C. 90, by Watta Gamini, in whose reign, about 160 years after the Council of Patna, and 330 years after the death of Sakyamuni, the Tripitaka was first reduced to writing in Ceylon; - "Buddhism," p. 234.

[5] We naturally suppose that the merchant-offerer was a Chinese, as indeed the Chinese texts say, and the fan such as Fa-hien had seen and used in his native land.

[6] This should be the pippala, or bodhidruma, generally spoken of, in connexion with Buddha, as the Bo tree, under which he attained to the Buddhaship. It is strange our author should have confounded them as he seems to do. In what we are told of the tree here, we have, no doubt, his account of the planting, growth, and preservation of the famous Bo tree, which still exists in Ceylon.

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