[2] Canouge, the latitude and longitude of which have been given in a previous note. The Sanskrit name means ‘the city of humpbacked maidens;’ with reference to the legend of the hundred daughters of king Brahmâ-datta, who were made deformed by the curse of the ṛishi Mahâ-vṛiksha, whose overtures they had refused. E. H., p. 51.
[3] Gaṅgâ, 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.
SHÂ-CHE. LEGEND OF BUDDHA’S DANTA-KÂSHṬHA.
Going on from this to the south-east for three yojanas, they came to the great kingdom of Shâ-che.[1] As you go out of the city of Shâ-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 Brahmâns 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.
[1] Shâ-che should probably be Shâ-khe, making Cunningham’s identification of the name with the present Saket still more likely. The change of 祗 into 祇 is slight; and, indeed, the Khang-hsî dictionary thinks the two characters should be but one and the same.
[2] This was, no doubt, what was called the danta-kâshṭha, 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. The Chinese, not having the banyan, have used, or at least Fâ-hien used, Yang (楊, the general name for the willow) instead of it.
[3] Are two classes of opponents, or only one, intended here, so that we should read ‘all the unbelievers and Brahmâns,’ or ‘heretics and Brahmâns?’ I think the Brahmâns were also ‘the unbelievers’ and ‘heretics,’ having 外道, views and ways outside of, and opposed to, Buddha’s.