People Dip Their Hands In It
And Wash Their Faces, And Rub Their Eyes With It, Saying:
'This is
Buddha's water, which will make us pure and clean.'" - H.C.]
[Illustration: Adam's Peak.
"Or est voir qe en ceste ysle a une montagne mont haut et si degrot de les
rocches qe nul hi puent monter sus se ne en ceste mainere qe je voz
dirai"....]
"The veneration with which this majestic mountain has been regarded for
ages, took its rise in all probability amongst the aborigines of
Ceylon.... In a later age, ... the hollow in the lofty rock that crowns
the summit was said by the Brahmans to be the footstep of Siva, by the
Buddhists of Buddha, ... by the Gnostics of Ieu, by the Mahometans of
Adam, whilst the Portuguese authorities were divided between the
conflicting claims of St. Thomas and the eunuch of Candace, Queen of
Ethiopia." (Tennent, II. 133.)
["Near to the King's residence there is a lofty mountain reaching to the
skies. On the top of this mountain there is the impress of a man's foot,
which is sunk two feet deep in the rock, and is some eight or more feet
long. This is said to be the impress of the foot of the ancestor of
mankind, a Holy man called A-tan, otherwise P'an-Ku." (Ma-Huan, p.
213.) - H.C.]
Polo, however, says nothing of the foot; he speaks only of the
sepulchre of Adam, or of Sakya-muni. I have been unable to find any
modern indication of the monument that was shown by the Mahomedans as the
tomb, and sometimes as the house, of Adam; but such a structure there
certainly was, perhaps an ancient Kist-vaen, or the like. John
Marignolli, who was there about 1349, has an interesting passage on the
subject: "That exceeding high mountain hath a pinnacle of surpassing
height, which on account of the clouds can rarely be seen. [The summit is
lost in the clouds. (Ibn Khordadhbeh, p. 43.) - H.C.] But God, pitying
our tears, lighted it up one morning just before the sun rose, so that we
beheld it glowing with the brightest flame. [They say that a flame bursts
constantly, like a lightning, from the Summit of the mountain. - (Ibn
Khordadhbeh, p. 44.) - H.C.] In the way down from this mountain there is
a fine level spot, still at a great height, and there you find in order:
first, the mark of Adam's foot; secondly, a certain statue of a sitting
figure, with the left hand resting on the knee, and the right hand raised
and extended towards the west; lastly, there is the house (of Adam), which
he made with his own hands. It is of an oblong quadrangular shape like a
sepulchre, with a door in the middle, and is formed of great tabular slabs
of marble, not cemented, but merely laid one upon another. (Cathay,
358.) A Chinese account, translated in Amyot's Memoires, says that at
the foot of the mountain is a Monastery of Bonzes, in which is seen the
veritable body of Fo, in the attitude of a man lying on his side" (XIV.
25). [Ma-Huan says (p. 212): "Buddhist temples abound there. In one of
them there is to be seen a full length recumbent figure of Shakyamuni,
still in a very good state of preservation. The dais on which the figure
reposes is inlaid with all kinds of precious stones. It is made of
sandalwood and is very handsome. The temple contains a Buddha's tooth and
other relics. This must certainly be the place where Shakyamuni entered
Nirvana." - H.C.] Osorio, also, in his history of Emanuel of Portugal,
says: "Not far from it (the Peak) people go to see a small temple in which
are two sepulchres, which are the objects of an extraordinary degree of
superstitious devotion. For they believe that in these were buried the
bodies of the first man and his wife" (f. 120 v.). A German traveller
(Daniel Parthey, Nurnberg, 1698) also speaks of the tomb of Adam and his
sons on the mountain. (See Fabricius, Cod. Pseudep. Vet. Test. II. 31;
also Ouseley's Travels, I. 59.)
It is a perplexing circumstance that there is a double set of indications
about the footmark. The Ceylon traditions, quoted above from Hardy, call
its length 3 inches less than a carpenter's cubit. Modern observers
estimate it at 5 feet or 5-1/2 feet. Hardy accounts for this by supposing
that the original footmark was destroyed in the end of the sixteenth
century. But Ibn Batuta, in the 14th, states it at 11 spans, or more
than the modern report. [Ibn Khordadhbeh at 70 cubits. - H.C.] Marignolli,
on the other hand, says that he measured it and found it to be 2-1/2
palms, or about half a Prague ell, which corresponds in a general way with
Hardy's tradition. Valentyn calls it 1-1/2 ell in length; Knox says 2
feet; Herman Bree (De Bry ?), quoted by Fabricius, 8-1/2 spans; a Chinese
account, quoted below, 8 feet. These discrepancies remind one of the
ancient Buddhist belief regarding such footmarks, that they seemed greater
or smaller in proportion to the faith of the visitor! (See Koeppen, I.
529, and Beal's Fah-hian, p. 27.)
The chains, of which Ibn Batuta gives a particular account, exist still.
The highest was called (he says) the chain of the Shahadat, or Credo,
because the fearful abyss below made pilgrims recite the profession of
belief. Ashraf, a Persian poet of the 15th century, author of an
Alexandriad, ascribes these chains to the great conqueror, who devised
them, with the assistance of the philosopher Bolinas,[1] in order to
scale the mountain, and reach the sepulchre of Adam. (See Ouseley, I.
54 seqq.) There are inscriptions on some of the chains, but I find no
account of them. (Skeen's Adam's Peak, Ceylon, 1870, p. 226.)
NOTE 2. - The general correctness with which Marco has here related the
legendary history of Sakya's devotion to an ascetic life, as the
preliminary to his becoming the Buddha or Divinely Perfect Being, shows
what a strong impression the tale had made upon him.
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