E. H., P. 51.

[3] Ganga, explained by "Blessed water," and "Come from heaven to earth."

[4] This village (the Chinese editions read "forest") has hardly been clearly identified.

CHAPTER XIX

SHA-CHE. LEGEND OF BUDDHA'S DANTA-KASHTHA.

Going on from this to the south-east for three yojanas, they came to the great kingdom of Sha-che.[1] As you go out of the city of Sha-che by the southern gate, on the east of the road (is the place) where Buddha, after he had chewed his willow branch,[2] stuck it in the ground, when it forthwith grew up seven cubits, (at which height it remained) neither increasing nor diminishing. The Brahmans with their contrary doctrines[3] became angry and jealous. Sometimes they cut the tree down, sometimes they plucked it up, and cast it to a distance, but it grew again on the same spot as at first. Here also is the place where the four Buddhas walked and sat, and at which a tope was built that is still existing.

NOTES

[1] Sha-che should probably be Sha-khe, making Cunningham's identification of the name with the present Saket still more likely. The change of {.} into {.} is slight; and, indeed, the Khang-hsi dictionary thinks the two characters should be but one and the same.

[2] This was, no doubt, what was called the danta-kashtha, or "dental wood," mostly a bit of the /ficus Indicus/ or banyan tree, which the monk chews every morning to cleanse his teeth, and for the purpose of health generally.

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