North of the vih‚ra two or three li there was the Smas‚nam, which name means in Chinese "the field of graves into which the dead are thrown."
As they kept along the mountain on the south, and went west for three hundred paces, they found a dwelling among the rocks, named the Pippala cave, in which Buddha regularly sat in meditation after taking his mid-day meal.
Going on still to the west for five or six li, on the north of the hill, in the shade, they found the cavern called Srataparna, [1] the place where, after the nirv‚na of Buddha, five hundred Arhats collected the SŻtras. When they brought the SŻtras forth, three lofty seats had been prepared and grandly ornamented. S‚riputtra occupied the one on the left, and Maudgaly‚yana that on the right. Of the number of five hundred one was wanting. Mah‚kasyapa was president on the middle seat. ¬nanda was then outside the door, and could not get in. At the place there was subsequently raised a tope, which is still existing.
Along the sides of the hill, there are also a very great many cells among the rocks, where the various Arhans sat and meditated. As you leave the old city on the north, and go down east for three li, there is the rock dwelling of Devadatta, and at a distance of fifty paces from it there is a large, square, black rock. Formerly there was a bhikshu, who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon it, thought with himself:—"This body is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and vanity, and which cannot be looked on as pure. I am weary of this body, and troubled by it as an evil." With this he grasped a knife, and was about to kill himself. But he thought again:—"The World-honored one laid down a prohibition against one's killing himself." [2] Further it occurred to him:—"Yes, he did; but I now only wish to kill three poisonous thieves." Immediately with the knife he cut his throat. With the first gash into the flesh he attained the state of a Srot‚panna; when he had gone half through, he attained to be an An‚g‚min; and when he had cut right through, he was an Arhat, and attained to pari-nirv‚na, and died.
[Footnote 1: A very great place in the annals of Buddhism. The Council in the Srataparna cave did not come together fortuitously, but appears to have been convoked by the older members to settle the rules and doctrines of the order. The cave was prepared for the occasion by king Aj‚tasatru.]
[Footnote 2: Buddha made a law forbidding the monks to commit suicide. He prohibited any one from discoursing on the miseries of life in such a manner as to cause desperation.]
CHAPTER XXXI
~S‚kyamuni's Attaining to the Buddhaship~
From this place, after travelling to the west for four yojanas, the pilgrims came to the city of Gay‚; but inside the city all was emptiness and desolation. Going on again to the south for twenty li, they arrived at the place where the Bodhisattva for six years practised with himself painful austerities. All around was forest.
Three li west from here they came to the place where, when Buddha had gone into the water to bathe, a deva bent down the branch of a tree, by means of which he succeeded in getting out of the pool.