[67]Translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal and more recently by Professor Legge.
[68]According to Dr. Legge’s orthography this name should be written Hsüen Chwang.
[69]See Beal’s ‘Records of the Western World,’ which gives a translation of these travels in two volumes.
[70]Hiouen Thsang describes the Sthavira form of the Mahā-yāna as existing as far south as Ceylon. He found many monks studying both the Great and Little Vehicles in Central India. Beal’s Records, ii. 247, 254, 257.
[71]As I have shown in ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ the term incarnation is not strictly expressive of the Hindū idea of Avatāra, which means ‘a descent’ of a god (or a portion of his essence) in various forms upon earth.
[72]Professor Legge’s translation, p. 56.
[73]There are four great Buddhist kings of India who may be called historical, the dates of whose reigns may be fixed with fair certainty:—1. Ćandra-gupta, who was at any rate a sympathiser with Buddhism, B.C. 315-291. 2. Aṡoka, a decided Buddhist, B.C. 259-222. 3. Kanishka (see [p. 69]). 4. Ṡilāditya, above. Some consider Kanishka to have founded the Ṡaka era, dating from A.D. 78.
[74]Translated in 1872 by Mr. Palmer Boyd, and published with an interesting introduction by Professor Cowell.
[75]See Beal’s Records, ii. 167-172; a long account of this monastery visited by Hiouen Thsang is there given.
[76]No doubt there are places in the South of India where there is evidence of some violent persecution. I may instance among the places I visited Tanjore and Madura. When I concluded the reading of a paper on this subject at the meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society on February 15, 1886, the then President, Colonel Yule, justly remarked that the members of two religious communions who hold very similar doctrines, often on that account hate and oppose each other all the more; but my point was that the ultra-tolerance which was of the very essence of both Brāhmanism and Buddhism must have prevented actual persecution, except under special circumstances. Brāhmanism was much more likely to have adopted Buddhism as part of its system, than to have persecuted and expelled it. In point of fact, the Brāhmans, as is well known, are ready to regard any great teacher as one of Vishṇu’s incarnations, and in this way are even willing to pay homage to the Head of Christianity.