[6] A Brahmân of Benâres, said to have been 120 years old, who came to learn from Buddha the very night he died. Ânanda would have repulsed him; but Buddha ordered him to be introduced; and then putting aside the ingenious but unimportant question which he propounded, preached to him the Law. The Brahmân was converted and attained at once to Arhatship. Eitel says that he attained to nirvâṇa a few moments before Śâkyamuni; but see the full account of him and his conversion in ‘Buddhist Suttas,’ p. 103–110.
[7] Thus treating the dead Buddha as if he had been a Chakravartti king. Hardy’s M. B., p. 347, says:—‘For the place of cremation, the princes (of Kusinârâ) offered their own coronation-hall, which was decorated with the utmost magnificence, and the body was deposited in a golden sarcophagus.’ See the account of a cremation which Fâ-hien witnessed in Ceylon, [chap. xxxix].
[8] The name Vajrapâṇi is explained as ‘he who holds in his hand the diamond club (or pestle = sceptre),’ which is one of the many names of Indra or Śakra. He therefore, that great protector of Buddhism, would seem to be intended here; but the difficulty with me is that neither in Hardy nor Rockhill, nor any other writer, have I met with any manifestation of himself made by Indra on this occasion. The princes of Kuśanagara were called mallas, ‘strong or mighty heroes;’ so also were those of Pâvâ and Vaiśâlî; and a question arises whether the language may not refer to some story which Fâ-hien had heard,—something which they did on this great occasion. Vajrapâṇi is also explained as meaning ‘the diamond mighty hero;’ but the epithet of ‘diamond’ is not so applicable to them as to Indra. The clause may hereafter obtain more elucidation.
[9] Of Kuśanagara, Pâvâ, Vaiśâlî, and other kingdoms. Kings, princes, brahmâns,—each wanted the whole relic; but they agreed to an eightfold division at the suggestion of the brahmân Droṇa.
[10] These ‘strong heroes’ were the chiefs of Vaiśâlî, a kingdom and city, with an oligarchical constitution. They embraced Buddhism early, and were noted for their peculiar attachment to Buddha. The second synod was held at Vaiśâlî, as related in the next chapter. The ruins of the city still exist at Bassahar, north of Patna, the same, I suppose, as Besarh, twenty miles north of Hajipûr. See Beal’s Revised Version, p. lii.
CHAPTER XXV.
VAIŚÂLÎ. THE TOPE CALLED ‘WEAPONS LAID DOWN.’ THE COUNCIL OF VAIŚÂLÎ.
East from this city ten yojanas, (the travellers) came to the kingdom of Vaiśâlî. North of the city so named is a large forest, having in it the double-galleried vihâra[1] where Buddha dwelt, and the tope over half the body of Ânanda.[2] Inside the city the woman Âmbapâlî[3] built a vihâra in honour of Buddha, which is now standing as it was at first. Three le south of the city, on the west of the road, (is the) garden (which) the same Âmbapâlî presented to Buddha, in which he might reside. When Buddha was about to attain to his pari-nirvâṇa, as he was quitting the city by the west gate, he turned round, and, beholding the city on his right, said to them, ‘Here I have taken my last walk.’[4] Men subsequently built a tope at this spot.
Three le north-west of the city there is a tope called, ‘Bows and weapons laid down.’ The reason why it got that name was this:—The inferior wife of a king, whose country lay along the river Ganges, brought forth from her womb a ball of flesh. The superior wife, jealous of the other, said, ‘You have brought forth a thing of evil omen,’ and immediately it was put into a box of wood and thrown into the river. Farther down the stream another king was walking and looking about, when he saw the wooden box (floating) in the water. (He had it brought to him), opened it, and found a thousand little boys, upright and complete, and each one different from the others. He took them and had them brought up. They grew tall and large, and very daring, and strong, crushing all opposition in every expedition which they undertook. By-and-by they attacked the kingdom of their real father, who became in consequence greatly distressed and sad. His inferior wife asked what it was that made him so, and he replied, ‘That king has a thousand sons, daring and strong beyond compare, and he wishes with them to attack my kingdom; this is what makes me sad.’ The wife said, ‘You need not be sad and sorrowful. Only make a high gallery on the wall of the city on the east; and when the thieves come, I shall be able to make them retire.’ The king did as she said; and when the enemies came, she said to them from the tower, ‘You are my sons; why are you acting so unnaturally and rebelliously?’ They replied, ‘If you do not believe me,’ she said, ‘look, all of you, towards me, and open your mouths.’ She then pressed her breasts with her two hands, and each sent forth 500 jets of milk, which fell into the mouths of the thousand sons. The thieves (thus) knew that she was their mother, and laid down their bows and weapons.[5] The two kings, the fathers, thereupon fell into reflection, and both got to be Pratyeka Buddhas.[6] The tope of the two Pratyeka Buddhas is still existing.
In a subsequent age, when the World-honoured one had attained to perfect Wisdom (and become Buddha), he said to is disciples, ‘This is the place where I in a former age laid down my bow and weapons.’[7] It was thus that subsequently men got to know (the fact), and raised the tope on this spot, which in this way received its name. The thousand little boys were the thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa.[8]