[9] See [chapter xiii].
[10] Ârya, meaning ‘honourable,’ ‘venerable,’ is a title given only to those who have mastered the four spiritual truths:—(1) that ‘misery’ is a necessary condition of all sentient existence; this is duḥkha: (2) that the ‘accumulation’ of misery is caused by the passions; this is samudaya: (3) that the ‘extinction’ of passion is possible; this is nirodha: and (4) that the ‘path’ leads to the extinction of passion; which is mârga. According to their attainment of these truths, the Âryas, or followers of Buddha, are distinguished into four classes,—Śrotâpannas, Sakṛidâgâmins, Anâgâmins, and Arhats. E. H., p. 14.
[11] This is the first time that Fâ-hien employs the name Ho-shang (和尙), which is now popularly used in China for all Buddhist monks without distinction of rank or office. It is the representative of the Sanskrit term Upadhyâya, ‘explained,’ says Eitel (p. 155) by ‘a self-taught teacher,’ or by ‘he who knows what is sinful and what is not sinful,’ with the note, ‘In India the vernacular of this term is 殞社 (? munshee [? Bronze]); in Kustana and Kashgar they say 鶻社 (hwa-shay); and from the latter term are derived the Chinese synonyms, 和闍 (ho-shay) and 和尙 (ho-shang).’ The Indian term was originally a designation for those who teach only a part of the Vedas, the Vedâṅgas. Adopted by Buddhists of Central Asia, it was made to signify the priests of the older ritual, in distinction from the Lamas. In China it has been used first as a synonym for 法師, monks engaged in popular teaching (teachers of the Law), in distinction from 律師, disciplinists, and 禪師, contemplative philosophers (meditationists); then it was used to designate the abbots of monasteries. But it is now popularly applied to all Buddhist monks. In the text there seems to be implied some distinction between the ‘teachers’ and the ‘ho-shang;’—probably, the Pâli Âkariya and Upagghâya; see Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii, Vinaya Texts, pp. 178, 179.
[12] It might be added, ‘as depending on it,’ in order to bring out the full meaning of the 依 in the text. If I recollect aright, the help of the police had to be called in at Hong Kong in its early years, to keep the approaches to the Cathedral free from the number of beggars, who squatted down there during service, hoping that the hearers would come out with softened hearts, and disposed to be charitable. I found the popular tutelary temples in Peking and other places, and the path up Mount Tʽâi in Shan-lung similarly frequented.
[13] The wife of Anâtha-piṇḍika in [note 5], and who became ‘mother superior’ of many nunneries. See her history in M. B., pp. 220–227. I am surprised it does not end with the statement that she is to become a Buddha.
[14] See E. H., p. 136. Hsüan-chwang does not give the name of this murderer; see in Julien’s ‘Vie et Voyages de Hiouen-thsang,’ p. 125,—‘a heretical Brahmân killed a woman and calumniated Buddha.’ See also the fuller account in Beal’s ‘Records of Western Countries,’ pp. 7, 8, where the murder is committed by several Brahmâcharins. In this passage Beal makes Sundari to be the name of the murdered person (a harlot). But the text cannot be so construed.
[15] Eitel (p. 144) calls her Chañcha; in Singhalese, Chinchi. See the story about her, M. B., pp. 275–277.
[16] ‘Earth’s prison,’ or ‘one of Earth’s prisons.’ It was the Avîchi naraka to which she went, the last of the eight hot prisons, where the culprits die, and are born again in uninterrupted succession (such being the meaning of Avîchi), though not without hope of final redemption. E. H. p. 21.
[17] Devadatta was brother of Ânanda, and a near relative therefore of Śâkyamuni. He was the deadly enemy, however, of the latter. He had become so in an earlier state of existence, and the hatred continued in every successive birth, through which they reappeared in the world. See the accounts of him, and of his various devices against Buddha, and his own destruction at the last, in M. B., pp. 315–321, 326–330; and still better, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, pp. 233–265. For the particular attempt referred to in the text, see ‘The Life of the Buddha,’ p. 107. When he was engulphed, and the flames were around him, he cried out to Buddha to save him, and we are told that he is expected yet to appear as a Buddha under the name of Devarâja, in a universe called Deva-soppana. E. H., p. 39.
[18] ‘A devâlaya (天寺 or 天祠), a place in which a deva is worshipped,—a general name for all Brahmânical temples’ (Eitel, p. 30). We read in the Khang-hsî dictionary under 寺, that when Kaśyapa Mataṅga came to the Western Regions, with his Classics or Sûtras, he was lodged in the Court of State-Ceremonial, and that afterwards there was built for him ‘The Court of the White-horse’ (白馬寺), and in consequence the name of Sze (寺) came to be given to all Buddhistic temples. Fâ-hien, however, applies this term only to Brahmânical temples.