[3] This would be what is known as ‘Adam’s peak,’ having, according to Hardy (pp. 211, 212, notes), the three names of Selesumano, Samastakûta, and Samanila. ‘There is an indentation on the top of it,’ a superficial hollow, 5 feet 3¾ inches long, and about 2½ feet wide. The Hindus regard it as the footprint of Siva; the Mohameddans, as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in the text,—as having been made by Buddha.
[4] Meaning ‘The Fearless Hill.’ There is still the Abhayagiri tope, the highest in Ceylon, according to Davids, 250 feet in height, and built about B.C. 90, by Waṭṭa Gâmiṇi, in whose reign, about 160 years after the Council of Patna, and 330 years after the death of Śâkyamuni, the Tripiṭaka was first reduced to writing in Ceylon;—‘Buddhism,’ p. 234.
[5] We naturally suppose that the merchant-offerer was a Chinese, as indeed the Chinese texts say, and the fan such as Fâ-hien had seen and used in his native land.
[6] This should be the pippala, or bodhidruma, generally spoken of, in connexion with Buddha, as the Bo tree, under which he attained to the Buddhaship. It is strange our author should have confounded them as he seems to do. In what we are told of the tree here, we have, no doubt, his account of the planting, growth, and preservation of the famous Bo tree, which still exists in Ceylon. It has been stated in a previous note that Aśoka’s son, Mahinda, went as the apostle of Buddhism to Ceylon. By-and-by he sent for his sister Sanghamittâ, who had entered the order at the same time as himself, and whose help was needed, some of the king’s female relations having signified their wish to become nuns. On leaving India, she took with her a branch of the sacred Bo tree at Buddha Gayâ, under which Śâkyamuni had become Buddha. Of how the tree has grown and still lives we have an account in Davids’ ‘Buddhism.’ He quotes the words of Sir Emerson Tennent, that it is ‘the oldest historical tree in the world;’ but this must be denied if it be true, as Eitel says, that the tree at Buddha Gayâ, from which the slip that grew to be this tree was taken more than 2000 years ago, is itself still living in its place. We must conclude that Fâ-hien, when in Ceylon, heard neither of Mahinda nor Sanghamittâ.
[7] Compare what is said in [chap. xvi], about the inquiries made at monasteries as to the standing of visitors in the monkhood, and duration of their ministry.
[8] The phonetic values of the two Chinese characters here are in Sanskrit sâ; and vâ, bo or bhâ. ‘Sabæan’ is Mr. Beal’s reading of them, probably correct. I suppose the merchants were Arabs, forerunners of the so-called Moormen, who still form so important a part of the mercantile community in Ceylon.
[9] A Kalpa, we have seen, denotes a great period of time; a period during which a physical universe is formed and destroyed. Asaṅkhyeya denotes the highest sum for which a conventional term exists;—according to Chinese calculations equal to one followed by seventeen ciphers; according to Thibetan and Singhalese, equal to one followed by ninety-seven ciphers. Every Mahâ-kalpa consists of four Asaṅkhyeya-kalpas. Eitel, p. 15.
[10] [10] See [chapter ix].
[11] [11] See [chapter xi].
[12] He had been born in the Śâkya house, to do for the world what the character of all his past births required, and he had done it.