(1) Muttra, “the peacock city;” lat. 27° 30′ N., lon. 77° 43′ E. (Hunter); the birthplace of Krishna, whose emblem is the peacock.
(2) This must be the Jumna, or Yamuna. Why it is called, as here, the P’oo-na has yet to be explained.
(3) In Pâli, Majjhima-desa, “the Middle Country.” See Davids’ “Buddhist Birth Stories,” page 61, note.
(4) Eitel (pp. 145, 6) says, “The name Chandalas is explained by ‘butchers,’ ‘wicked men,’ and those who carry ‘the awful flag,’ to warn off their betters;—the lowest and most despised caste of India, members of which, however, when converted, were admitted even into the ranks of the priesthood.”
(5) “Cowries;” {.} {.}, not “shells and ivory,” as one might suppose; but cowries alone, the second term entering into the name from the marks inside the edge of the shell, resembling “the teeth of fishes.”
(6) See chapter xii, note 3, Buddha’s pari-nirvâna is equivalent to Buddha’s death.
(7) See chapter xiii, note 6. The order of the characters is different here, but with the same meaning.
(8) See the preparation of such a deed of grant in a special case, as related in chapter xxxix. No doubt in Fâ-Hien’s time, and long before and after it, it was the custom to engrave such deeds on plates of metal.
(9) “No monk can eat solid food except between sunrise and noon,” and total abstinence from intoxicating drinks is obligatory (Davids’ Manual, p. 163). Food eaten at any other part of the day is called vikala, and forbidden; but a weary traveller might receive unseasonable refreshment, consisting, as Watters has shown (Ch. Rev. viii. 282), of honey, butter, treacle, and sesamum oil.
(10) The expression here is somewhat perplexing; but it occurs again in chapter xxxviii; and the meaning is clear. See Watters, Ch. Rev. viii. 282, 3. The rules are given at length in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, p. 272 and foll., and p. 279 and foll.