The travellers, going downwards from this towards the east, in five days came to the country of Gandhâra,[1] the place where Dharma-vivardhana,[2] the son of Aśoka,[3] ruled. When Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave his eyes also for another man here;[4] and at the spot they have also reared a large tope, adorned with layers of gold and silver plates. The people of the country were mostly students of the hînayâna.
[1] Eitel says ‘an ancient kingdom, corresponding to the region about Dheri and Banjour.’ But see [chap. xi, note 1].
[2] Dharma-vivardhana is the name in Sanskrit, represented by the Fâ Yî (法益) of the text.
[3] Aśoka is here mentioned for the first time;—the Constantine of the Buddhist society, and famous for the number of vihâras and topes which he erected. He was the grandson of Chandragupta (i.q. Sandracottus), a rude adventurer, who at one time was a refugee in the camp of Alexander the Great; and within about twenty years afterwards drove the Greeks out of India, having defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler of the Indus provinces. He had by that time made himself king of Magadha. His grandson was converted to Buddhism by the bold and patient demeanour of an Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried alive, and became a most zealous supporter of the new faith. Dr. Rhys Davids (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, p. xlvi) says that ‘Aśoka’s coronation can be fixed with absolute certainty within a year or two either way of 267 B.C.’
[4] This also is a Jâtaka story; but Eitel thinks it may be a myth, constructed from the story of the blinding of Dharma-vivardhana.
CHAPTER XI.
TAKSHAŚILÂ. LEGENDS. THE FOUR GREAT TOPES.
Seven days’ journey from this to the east brought the travellers to the kingdom of Takshaśilâ,[1] which means ‘the severed head’ in the language of China. Here, when Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave away his head to a man;[2] and from this circumstance the kingdom got its name.
Going on further for two days to the east, they came to the place where the Bodhisattva threw down his body to feed a starving tigress.[2] In these two places also large topes have been built, both adorned with layers of all the precious substances. The kings, ministers, and peoples of the kingdoms around vie with one another in making offerings at them. The trains of those who come to scatter flowers and light lamps at them never cease. The nations of those quarters all those (and the other two mentioned before) ‘the four great topes.’
[1] See Julien’s ‘Méthode pour déchiffrer et transcrire les Nomes Sanscrits,’ p. 206. Eitel says, ‘The Taxila of the Greeks, the region near Hoosun Abdaul in lat. 35° 48′ N., lon. 72° 44′ E.’ But this identification, I am satisfied, is wrong. Cunningham, indeed, takes credit (‘Ancient Geography of India,’ pp. 108, 109) for determining this to be the site of Arrian’s Taxila,—in the upper Punjâb, still existing in the ruins of Shahdheri, between the Indus and Hydaspes (the modern Jhelum). So far he may be correct; but the Takshaśilâ of Fâ-hien was on the other, or western side of the Indus; and between the river and Gandhâra. It took him, indeed, seven days travelling eastwards to reach it; but we do not know what stoppages he may have made on the way. We must be wary in reckoning distances from his specifications of days.