大唐西域記序 · The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

English translation source (used with kind permission): http://trip­itaka.cbeta.org/T51n2087_001 ~ http://trip­itaka.cbeta.org/T51n2087_012

大唐西域記序

The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

 

Pre­face [No. 1]

Jing Bo

[0867b15] 竊以穹儀方載之廣，蘊識懷靈之異，《談天》無以究其極，《括地》詎足辯其原？是知方志所未傳，聲教所不暨者，豈可勝道哉！

I ven­ture to con­sider that the vast space between heaven and earth is so ex­tens­ive, and that the dis­sim­il­ar­it­ies of hu­man be­ings en­dowed with con­scious­ness and in­tel­li­gence are so vari­ant, that the Talk on Heaven could not trace their lim­its, nor could the Com­pre­hens­ive Map of the Earth dis­tin­guish their ori­ginal sources. From this we may know that it is im­possible to re­late all the places that are not men­tioned in the re­gional re­cords and lie bey­ond the reach of the in­flu­ence and edu­ca­tion of the im­per­ial court.

[0867b17] 詳夫天竺之為國也，其來尚矣。

As re­gards In­dia, it has a long his­tory since its es­tab­lish­ment as a coun­try’.

聖賢以之疊軫，仁義於焉成俗。然事絕於曩代，壤隔於中土，《山經》莫之紀，《王會》所不書。博望鑿空，徒寘懷於印竹；昆明道閉，謬肆力於神池。遂使瑞表恒星，欝玄妙於千載；夢彰佩日，祕神光於萬里。暨於蔡愔訪道、摩騰入洛，經藏石室，未盡龍宮之奧，

There saints and sages spring up gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion, and the mor­al­ity of kind­ness and justice is their com­mon cus­tom. But in the past we never had con­tacts with that coun­try, and its ter­rit­ory is not con­joined with the Middle King­dom. It is neither re­cor­ded in the Shan­hai jing (Book on Moun­tains and Seas) nor men­tioned in the Wanghui pian (“Chapter on the Royal Meet­ing”). Al­though Zhang Qian, the Mar­quis of Bow­ang, opened the road to the West­ern Re­gions, he was in­spired in vain by the sight at Bact­ria of bam­boo sticks pro­duced at Qionglai Moun­tain in China. The Kun­ming route was ob­struc­ted by the moun­tain­ous re­gion of Yuexi in the south­w­est, and so Em­peror Wu of the Han dyn­asty could only ex­cav­ate the Di­vine Lake at Chang’an to train his navy, but to no ef­fect. There­fore even though as­tro­lo­gical signs had shown the good omen of the birth of the Buddha, his ab­struse teach­ings were im­peded from be­ing in­tro­duced to China for a thou­sand years. Em­peror Ming of the Han dyn­asty dreamed of a golden fig­ure with a sun­like halo be­hind its head, but the di­vine light of Buddhism was still en­shrouded in secret ten thou­sand li away. When Cai Yin was dis­patched to the West­ern Re­gions in search of the Buddhist re­li­gion, he in­vited Kāśyapa-Mātaṅga to Luoy­ang with Buddhist scrip­tures, which were pre­served at die Rock Cham­ber, but these were not as pro­found as the texts kept in the Nāga Palace in In­dia.

像畫涼臺，寧極鷲峯之美。

The Buddha’s im­age was drawn at the Ter­race of Cool­ness, but it was not as fine as the stable erec­ted at Vul­ture Peak.

自茲厥後，時政多虞。閹竪乘權，潰東京而鼎峙；母后成釁，剪中朝而幅裂。憲章泯於函、雒，烽燧警於關塞，四郊因而多壘，

After that the gov­ernance of the state be­came faulty and eu­nuchs and people of ig­noble char­ac­ter swayed the realm. They brought dis­aster upon the East­ern Cap­ital and dis­rup­ted the coun­try. The Empress and Empress Dow­ager star­ted dis­turb­ances and split the na­tion, as one tears a piece of silk into pieces. Polit­ical in­sti­tu­tions and de­crees died out at Hangu Pass and Luoy­ang, and beacon fires were set to give the alarm at the stra­tegic watch-towers. Thus the cit­ies be­came block­aded by fort­resses at the four sub­urbs.

況茲邦之絕遠哉！然而釣奇之客，希世間至。頗存記注，寧盡物土之宜；徒採《神經》，未極真如之旨。

In­dia was sep­ar­ated from here by a very great dis­tance. There were, how­ever, oc­ca­sional in­quis­it­ive trav­el­ers who vis­ited that coun­try to hunt for nov­elty. Al­though they have left us some re­cords, they did not make a full ac­count of the products and to­po­graphy of the places they vis­ited. They merely quoted pas­sages from books of strange stor­ies and did not make a thor­ough study of the truth of bhūtata­th­atā (ab­so­lute truth).

有隋一統，寔務恢疆，尚且睠西海而咨嗟，望東雒而杼軸。揚旌玉門之表，信亦多人；利涉[葸‒十+夕]嶺之源，蓋無足紀。曷能指雪山而長騖，望龍池而一息者哉！良由德不被物，威不及遠。

Even at the time of the Sui dyn­asty, when the em­pire was uni­fied and the do­main con­sid­er­ably ex­pan­ded, people could only gaze at the sea in the West and re­gret that they were un­able to pro­ceed fur­ther. They had to pon­der over the situ­ation while look­ing at the coun­try of Dongli (Tam­raliptī?). It is true that many a man has hois­ted ban­ners and flags out­side the Yu­men Pass, but no re­cord can be found about any­one who suc­cess­fully crossed the Pamir Range. How could any­one ride through the Snow Moun­tains and halt for a while be­side the dragon lake? This was really be­cause the vir­tue of the Sui rulers was not per­vas­ive and their prestige not far-reach­ing.

我大唐之有天下也，闢寰宇而創帝圖，掃攙搶而清天步。功侔造化，明等照臨。人荷再生，肉骨豺狼之吻；家蒙錫壽，還魂鬼蜮之墟。總異類於[葶‒丁+呆]街，掩遐荒於輿地。苑十洲而池環海，小五帝而鄙上皇。

The House of Great Tang, hold­ing sway over the em­pire, has opened up the world for the ini­ti­ation of im­per­ial pro­spects. The comets [of rebels] have been swept away and the for­tune of the na­tion has been brightened. Its achieve­ments are as great as the cre­ation of the uni­verse, and its bril­liance is equal to the light of the sun and the moon. All people are grate­ful for hav­ing gained a new life, as if they had been saved from the mouths of jack­als and wolves. Every fam­ily is glad about hav­ing a new lease on life, as if their souls had re­turned from the sphere of ghosts and demons. Alien res­id­ents of dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­it­ies reside on Gao Street in the cap­ital, and all dis­tant and des­ol­ate places are in­cluded in the im­per­ial ter­rit­ory. It may be said that the Ten Spir­its Is­lands are parts of the Im­per­ial Garden, and that the four seas are re­garded as its ponds and pools. The Five Em­per­ors of old are slighted and the mon­archs of an­cient ages are held in scorn.

[0867c09] 法師幼漸法門，慨祇園之莫履；長懷真迹，仰鹿野而翹心。褰裳淨境，實惟素蓄。

Hav­ing entered the gate of the Dharma in his child­hood, Dharma Mas­ter [Xuan­zang] re­gret­ted that he had not been to the Jetavana Garden; when he grew up he thought about the traces left by the Buddha and eagerly looked for­ward to vis­it­ing the Deer Park. Thus he lif­ted up his robe to start the jour­ney to the Land of Pur­ity; this was his long-cher­ished de­sire.

會淳風之西偃，屬候律之東歸，以貞觀三年，杖錫遵路。資皇靈而抵殊俗，冐重險其若夷；假冥助而踐畏塗，幾必危而已濟。暄°寒驟徙，展轉方達。言尋真相，見不見於空有之間；博考精微，聞不聞於生滅之際。廓群疑於性海，啟妙覺於迷津。於是隱括眾經，無片言而不盡；傍稽聖迹，無一物而不窺。周流多載，方始旋返。十九年正月，屆于長安。所獲經論六百五十七部，有詔譯焉。

At a time when the gen­eral mood of hon­esty was pre­vail­ing west­ward, and in the sea­son when the cli­mate was suit­able for of­fi­cials to take home- bound trips to the east, he star­ted his jour­ney, with his pew­ter staff in hand, in the third year of Zhen­guan. Un­der the spir­itual pro­tec­tion of his an­cest­ors, he was able to reach lands with vari­ous cus­toms, and he met with many dangers that he even­tu­ally weathered safely. With the aid of deit­ies he tra­versed risky paths, from which he barely es­caped with his life. He suffered the ab­rupt changes of scorch­ing heat and bit­ter cold, passing through many places be­fore he reached his des­tin­a­tion. If we speak of in­quir­ing into the truth, it de­pends on whether one sees or does not see the dif­fer­ence between the the­or­ies of empti­ness and ex­ist­ence; re­search into the sub­lime teach­ings lies in whether one has or has not heard about the doc­trine of birth and death. Doubts about the sea of truth must be solved to en­able all liv­ing be­ings to awaken from the stream of de­lu­sion. He col­lec­ted vari­ous scrip­tures, of which not a single word he did not un­der­stand, and he vis­ited all the holy sites, none of which did he not see in per­son. After hav­ing traveled for many years, he re­turned home and reached Chang’an in the first month of the nine­teenth year [of Zhen­guan], bring­ing back six hun­dred fifty-seven books, which he trans­lated into Chinese by im­per­ial de­cree.

[0867c19] 親踐者一百一十國，傳聞者二十八國。會淳風之西偃，屬候律之東歸，以貞觀三年，杖錫遵路。資皇靈而抵殊俗，冐重險其若夷；假冥助而踐畏塗，幾必危而已濟。暄°寒驟徙，展轉方達。言尋真相，見不見於空有之間；博考精微，聞不聞於生滅之際。廓群疑於性海，啟妙覺於迷津。於是隱括眾經，無片言而不盡；傍稽聖迹，無一物而不窺。周流多載，方始旋返。十九年正月，屆于長安。所獲經論六百五十七部，有詔譯焉。，頓顙而知歸；請吏革音，梯山而奉贐。歡闕庭而相抃，襲冠帶而成群。爾其物產風土之差，習俗山川之異。遠則稽之於國典，近則詳之於故老，邈矣殊方，依然在目。無勞握槧，已詳油素。名為「大唐西域記」，一帙，十二卷。竊惟書事記言，固已緝於微婉；瑣詞小道，冀有補於遺闕。

Dharma Mas­ter [Xuan­zang] per­son­ally vis­ited one hun­dred ten coun­tries and heard in­form­a­tion about twenty-eight coun­tries. Some of them are men­tioned in the his­tor­ical re­cords of pre­vi­ous dyn­asties, while oth­ers are known to us for the first time in the present age. All of them are in­flu­enced by the spirit of har­mony and en­joy the be­ne­vol­ence of Great Tang. They have paid homage and sub­mit­ted to the au­thor­ity of the Em­peror, be­seech­ing him to dis­patch of­fi­cials to re­form their lan­guage. They climbed moun­tain­ous paths to come to of­fer trib­ute, and they were so mer­rily en­ter­tained at the im­per­ial court that they clapped their hands; dressed in the cos­tume of the Tang, they formed into groups. Re­gard­ing their dif­fer­ent products and local con­di­tions, as well as their so­cial cus­toms and the moun­tains and rivers of their lands, we have to refer to their books for an­cient times; for re­cent times we can in­quire of eld­erly people. Dis­tant are those alien coun­tries but here they ap­pear clearly be­fore our eyes. We need not take the trouble to write let­ters to find out de­tails that are already writ­ten on white silk and en­titled The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions in twelve fas­cicles kept in one cloth slip­case. I humbly con­sider that the in­form­a­tion provided in this book is quite de­tailed, while cer­tain trivial mat­ters and minor events will, I hope, make up what is miss­ing in former his­tor­ical works.

祕書著作佐郎敬播序之云爾。

This is the pre­face com­posed by Jing Bo, As­sist­ant Writer of the Im­per­ial Sec­ret­arial De­part­ment.

++

大唐西域記敘

Pre­face [No. 2]

尚書左僕射燕國公張說製

Yu Zhin­ing, Duke of Yan­guo and Left Premier of the Board of Min­is­ters

[0868a05] 若夫玉毫流照，甘露灑于大千；金鏡揚暉，薰風被于有截。故知示現三界，粵稱天下之尊；光宅四表，式標域中之大。是以慧日淪影，像化之跡東歸；帝猷宏闡，大章之步西極。

As the ray emit­ted from the white curl between the Buddha’s eye­brows il­lu­min­ates the whole earth, so the sweet dew of his teach­ings spreads over the great chiliocosm. Like a golden mir­ror that shines brightly, the great or­der of the Tang em­pire pre­vails over the whole do­main. Hav­ing mani­fes­ted the three realms of the world, the buddha-dharma may be con­sidered the most ven­er­able of all re­li­gions. With the light of vir­tue shin­ing upon the four quar­ters, the Tang em­pire pos­sesses the largest ter­rit­ory in the world. After the shadow of the Buddha, the Sun of Wis­dom, dis­ap­peared, his teach­ings were in­tro­duced to China in the East, and the Way of the Em­peror was so glor­i­ous that his moral in­flu­ence reached far to the West.

[0868a09] 有慈恩道場三藏法師，諱玄奘，俗姓陳氏，其先頴川人也。帝軒提象，控華渚而開源；大舜賓門，基歷山而聳構。三恪照于姬載，六奇光于漢祀。書奏而承朗月，遊道而聚德星。縱壑駢鱗，培風齊翼。世濟之美，欝為景胄。

The Tripiṭaka Mas­ter of Ci’en Mon­as­tery is named Xuan­zang and has the fam­ily name of Chen; his an­cest­ors were nat­ives of Yingchuan. When the Yel­low Em­peror as­cen­ded the throne at Youx­iong, he con­trolled Huazhu and es­tab­lished the Chen fam­ily. Em­peror Shun threw open the doors at the four sides of his audi­ence hall to re­ceive the princes and dukes un­der his sov­er­eignty, and he laid the found­a­tion of his lofty struc­ture even when he was fan­ning at Lishan. King Wu of the Zhou dyn­asty con­ferred the fief of Chen on a des­cend­ant of Em­peror Shun and made his off­spring one of the three re­spect­able fam­il­ies. Chen Ping’s six in­geni­ous stratagems played a glor­i­ous part in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Han dyn­asty, and the pe­ti­tions sub­mit­ted by Chen Chong and his son Chen Zhong to the em­per­ors of the Later Han dyn­asty were like bril­liant moon­light shin­ing upon the world after sun­set. When Chen Shi and his sons and neph­ews vis­ited Xun Shu and his sons, Jupiter, the star of vir­tue, ap­peared in the sky to mark the meet­ing of vir­tu­ous people of great tal­ent. Prom­in­ent fig­ures emerged in the Chen clan in suc­cess­ive gen­er­a­tions, like huge fishes swim­ming freely side by side in the sea, or enorm­ous rocs fly­ing high with wings fully ex­ten­ded. By their tra­di­tional vir­tue, not only did the stock of the Chen fam­ily prosper but also its branches flour­ished as those of a dis­tin­guished clan.

法師籍慶誕生，含和降德，結根深而[卄/(仁‒二+(公/几))]茂，道源浚而靈長。奇開之歲，霞軒月舉；聚沙之年，蘭薰桂馥。洎乎成立，藝殫墳素。九皐載響，五府交辟。以夫早悟真假，夙照慈慧，鏡真筌而延佇，顧生涯而永息。而朱紱紫纓，誠有界之徽網；寶車丹枕，寔出世之津途。由是擯落塵滓，言歸閑曠。

The Mas­ter was born un­der the fa­vor­able aus­pices of the light of har­mony and the ap­pear­ance of the Star of Vir­tue. He has deep roots with ex­uber­ant fo­liage, and the source of his Way is pro­found and long-last­ing. In his in­fancy he had a lofty bear­ing like the glow of the rising sun and moon, and in child­hood he proved to be a good son, as ad­mir­able and fra­grant as orch­ids and os­manthus. When he had grown up he stud­ied well the an­cient books and his fame spread all over the coun­try, so much so that the local gov­ern­ments of vari­ous places vied with each other in in­vit­ing him to serve in their of­fices. He could dis­cern truth from false­hood at an early age and al­ways had com­pas­sion and wis­dom. He longed to gain a clear un­der­stand­ing of truth and sighed at the lim­it­a­tions of hu­man life. He re­garded the red silk rib­bon at­tached to the of­fi­cial seal and the purple belts worn by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials as snares of the ma­ter­ial world, and he thought that the pre­cious vehicles, the ekayāna (One Vehicle), and the eso­teric texts were truly the ways lead­ing one out of the world. There­fore he des­pised all worldly things as dust and rub­bish, and talked only about se­rene and broad­minded prin­ciples.

令兄長捷法師，釋門之棟[榦‒木+禾]者也。擅龍象于身世，挺鶖鷺于當年。朝野挹其風猷，中外羨其聲彩。既而情深友愛，道睦天倫。法師服勤請益，分陰靡棄。業光上首，擢秀檀林；德契中庸，騰芬蘭室。抗策平道，包九部而吞夢；鼓枻玄津，俯四韋而小魯。自茲遍遊談肆，載移涼燠。功既成矣，能亦畢矣。

His elder brother, Ven­er­able Changjie, a pil­lar of the gate of Buddhism, was as en­er­getic as a nāga (dragon) in prac­ti­cing the Way, and his wis­dom might be com­pared with that of Sāri­putra of yore. Both those who held of­fice at court and those who were not in of­fice re­spec­ted him for his good de­meanor and learn­ing, and his re­pute and lit­er­ary tal­ent were ad­mired by people both at home and abroad. The two broth­ers had a deep feel­ing of fra­tern­ity in con­cord­ance with the eth­ical re­la­tion­ships between mem­bers of a fam­ily. The Mas­ter was di­li­gent in serving his elder brother and in re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tion from him without wast­ing a single mo­ment. His ac­com­plish­ments in learn­ing qual­i­fied him to be a Chief Monk and thus oc­cupy an out­stand­ing po­s­i­tion in a mon­as­tery. His vir­tue co­in­cided with the prin­ciple of the Middle Way, and he was well known among his fel­low monks. He gal­loped along the path of equal­ity and com­pre­hen­ded the nine classes of the Buddhist texts, his scope of learn­ing be­ing as ex­tens­ive as the marsh­land of Yun­meng. He rowed his way in the sea of ab­struse teach­ings, look­ing down upon the Four Ve­das, which ap­peared to him in­sig­ni­fic­ant. After that he traveled for sev­eral years to vari­ous places to at­tend lec­tures on Buddhist the­or­ies, un­til he suc­ceeded in his stud­ies and gained achieve­ment in learn­ing.

至于泰初日月，燭曜靈臺；子雲鞶悅，發揮神府。于是金文暫啟，佇秋駕而雲趨；玉柄纔撝，披霧市而波屬。若會斵輪之旨，猶知拜瑟之微。以瀉瓶之多聞，泛虛舟而獨遠。迺于轘轅之地，先摧鍱腹之誇；并絡之鄉，遽表浮桮之異。遠邇宗挹，為之語曰：「昔聞荀氏八龍，今見陳門雙驥。」汝、頴多奇士，誠哉此言。

In the re­mote past, at the be­gin­ning of time, the sun and moon shone upon the Ter­race of Spir­itu­al­ity, and Yang Xiong de­lib­er­ated about the Way of Heaven, which called for deep thought in one’s mind. Then the teach­ings of the Buddha were gradu­ally re­vealed, wait­ing to be spread far and wide. Hold­ing the jade handle of his chow­rie (ñy-whisk), the Mas­ter waved off the mist on the sea to un­veil the bil­lows, just like an ex­per­i­enced wheel­wright who knows the es­sence of his craft or a zither maker who un­der­stands the knack of pro­du­cing mu­sical in­stru­ments. He was so well in­formed that he in­struc­ted people with the flu­ency of wa­ter pour­ing out of a bottle, and he traveled alone far away from his nat­ive place in a small boat. While he was still at home, he de­feated a boast­ful man who bragged that he had to wear a cop­per belt around his waist lest his ab­do­men should burst un­der the pres­sure of the know­ledge he had in his pos­ses­sion; when he came to the re­gion of Shu he in­formed his elder brother that he had the de­sire to travel abroad. People far and near said to him, “We have heard that the Xun fam­ily of old had eight prom­in­ent sons, and now we see that the Chen clan has two out­stand­ing broth­ers. It is true that many dis­tin­guished per­sons have emerged in the re­gion between Ruzhou and the Ying River!”

[0868b06] 法師自幼迄長，遊心玄理。名流先達，部執交馳，趨末忘本，摭華捐實，遂有南北異學，是非紛糾。永言于此，良用憮然。或恐傳譯踳駁，未能筌究，欲窮香象之文，將罄龍宮之目。

From his youth un­til he ar­rived at adult­hood, the Mas­ter en­gaged him­self in study­ing ab­struse Buddhist books. Well-known schol­ars and pre­de­cessors grasped the the­or­ies of dif­fer­ent sects of Buddhism, per­form­ing de­tailed re­search into side is­sues and for­get­ting about the root, pluck­ing flowers while neg­lect­ing the fruit. Thus they gave rise to the south­ern and north­ern schools with vari­ous ten­ets and con­tra­dict­ory ar­gu­ments. In the long-stand­ing the­or­et­ical con­ten­tions he was at a loss what to do, and feared that the trans­lat­ors might have made mis­takes and caused con­fu­sion, so that he might not be able to get a thor­ough un­der­stand­ing of the ul­ti­mate truth. With this view in mind, he wished to read all Buddhist texts at the Nāga Palace in In­dia.

以絕倫之德，屬會昌之期，杖錫拂衣，第如遐境。于是背玄灞而延望，指葱山而矯迹。川陸綿長，備甞艱險。陋博望之非遠，嗤法顯之為局。遊踐之處，畢究方言，鐫求幽賾，妙窮津會。于是詞發雌黃，飛英天竺；文傳貝葉，聿歸振旦。

At a time when the coun­try was most pros­per­ous, and equipped with un­par­alleled vir­tue, he star­ted his jour­ney to the re­mote lands car­ry­ing his pew­ter staff and whisked the dust off his robe. In this maimer he left Chang’an be­hind to pro­ceed with big strides to­ward the Pamir Range. In his long jour­ney over land and wa­ter he ex­per­i­enced all sorts of hard­ships and risks. He con­sidered the jour­ney un­der­taken by the Mar­quis of Bow­ang not a long one and re­garded Faxian as hav­ing traveled only in a lim­ited area. Wherever he went he stud­ied the local dia­lect and con­duc­ted re­search into the pro­found the­or­ies there; he probed into the es­sence of the Buddhist teach­ings in a mar­velous way. Thus he was elo­quent in de­bate and be­came fam­ous in In­dia, and he brought back to China the Buddhist scrip­tures writ­ten on palm leaves.

[0868b16] 太宗文皇帝金輪纂御，寶位居尊。載佇風徽，召見青蒲之上；廼睠通識，前膝黃屋之間。手詔綢繆，中使繼路。俯摛睿思，乃製《三藏聖教序》，凡七百八十言。今上昔在春闈，裁《述聖記》，凡五百七十九言。啟玄妙之津，書揄揚之旨。蓋非道映鷄林，譽光鷲嶽，豈能緬降神藻，以旌時秀。

Em­peror Taizong, who as­cen­ded the pre­cious throne as a gold wheel king, was a per­son of el­eg­ant char­ac­ter. He gran­ted an in­ter­view to the Mas­ter in the in­ner cham­ber of the im­per­ial palace, show­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion due to a learned scholar, and listened at­tent­ively to what he said. He per­son­ally wrote de­crees to ex­press his friendly feel­ing to the Mas­ter and sent palace mes­sen­gers in­cess­antly to in­quire after his health. At the re­quest of the Mas­ter, the Em­peror com­posed the Pre­face to the Holy Teach­ings of the Tripiṭaka in seven hun­dred and eighty char­ac­ters. When the reign­ing Em­peror [Gao-zong] was crown prince and liv­ing at the Spring Palace, he wrote A Re­cord Re­lat­ing the Pre­face to the Holy Teach­ings of the Tripiṭaka in five hun­dred and sev­enty-nine char­ac­ters. If the Mas­ter had not cast the light of his prestige upon Kukkuṭārāma Mon­as­tery and had not spread his fame over Vul­ture Peak in In­dia, how could the em­per­ors have con­des­cen­ded to write such or­na­mental com­pos­i­tions for the com­mend­a­tion of a con­tem­por­ary scholar?

奉　詔翻譯梵本，凡六百五十七部。具覽遐方異俗，絕壤殊風，土著之宜，人備之序，正朔所暨，聲教所單，著《大唐西域記》，勒成一十二卷。編錄典奧，綜覈明審，立言不朽，其在茲焉。

Un­der im­per­ial edict, the Mas­ter trans­lated six hun­dred and fifty-seven Sanskrit texts into Chinese. Hav­ing wit­nessed the strange cus­toms of dis­tant lands, the typ­ical scenes of re­mote coun­tries, the spe­cial products of dif­fer­ent places, the pe­cu­liar or­ders of hu­man re­la­tions, the re­gions where the Chinese al­manac has been ad­op­ted, and the loc­al­it­ies where Chinese cul­ture and in­flu­ence have reached, he wrote The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions in twelve fas­cicles, in which he cited pas­sages from pro­found and ob­scure texts and in­cluded com­pre­hens­ive in­vest­ig­a­tions and de­tailed tex­tual re­searches done in such a way as to render it a work of last­ing value.

大唐西域記卷第一(三十四國)

Fas­cile I: Thirty-four Coun­tries, from Agni to Kāpiśī

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

阿耆尼國

1. The Coun­try of Agni

屈支國

2. The Coun­try of Kuci

跋祿迦國

3. The Coun­try of Bālukā

笯(奴故反)赤建國

4. The Coun­try of Nujkend

赭時國

5. The Coun­try of Shash

[怡‒台+巿](敷發反)捍國

6. The Coun­try of Fei­han

窣(蘇沒反)堵利瑟那國

7. The Coun­try of Sutrūshana

颯秣建國

8. The Coun­try of Samarkand

弭秣賀國

9. The Coun­try of Mimohe

劫布呾那國

10. The Coun­try of Kapūtānā

屈霜(去聲)爾伽國

11. The Coun­try of Kuṣāṇṇika

喝捍國

12. The Coun­try of Khagan

捕喝國

13. The Coun­try of Bukhārā

伐地國

14. The Coun­try of Betik

貨利習彌伽國

15. The Coun­try of Hor­iṣmīka

羯霜(去聲)那國

16. The Coun­try of Kas­anna

呾蜜國

17. The Coun­try of Tir­midh

赤鄂衍那國

18. The Coun­try of Sahān­iyan

忽露摩國

19. The Coun­try of Kharūn

愉(色俱反)漫國

20. The Coun­try of Shūmān

鞠和衍那國

21. The Coun­try of Kuvāyāna

鑊沙國

22. The Coun­try of Wakhsh

珂咄羅國

23. The Coun­try of Khut­talān

拘謎(莫閉反)陀國

24. The Coun­try of Ko­m­idai

縛伽浪國

25. The Coun­try of Bagh­lan

紇露悉泯健國

26. The Coun­try of Hrum-Sim­ingān

忽懍國

27. The Coun­try of Khulm

縛喝國

28. The Coun­try of Bak­tra

銳秣陀國

29. The Coun­try of Zu­mathān

胡寔健國

30. The Coun­try of Gūzgānān

呾剌健國

31. The Coun­try of Talaqān

揭職國

32. The Coun­try of Ka­cik

梵衍那國

33. The Coun­try of Bāmīyāna

迦畢試國

34. The Coun­try of Kāpiśī

[0868c24] 歷選皇猷，遐觀帝錄，庖犧出震之初，軒轅垂衣之始，所以司牧黎元，所以疆畫分野。暨乎唐堯之受天運，光格四表，虞舜之納地圖，德流九土。自茲已降，空傳書事之冊，逖聽前修，徒聞記言之史。

By count­ing the grand strategies of suc­cess­ive em­per­ors and read­ing the re­cords of re­mote events of the past mon­archs, we know that when Em­peror Fuxi first as­cen­ded the throne and when the Yel­low Em­peror began to rule over the coun­try, they man­aged the af­fairs of the people and di­vided the coun­try into ad­min­is­trat­ive re­gions. When Em­peror Yao of Tang re­ceived the Man­date of Heaven to be the sov­er­eign his glory reached the four quar­ters, and when Em­peror Shun of Yu ac­cep­ted the map of the em­pire his vir­tue spread over all the nine dis­tricts. Since then only the memor­anda re­cord­ing past events have been trans­mit­ted, and if one wishes to hear from the former sages he or she can only listen to the his­tor­i­ans who re­cor­ded their words.

豈若時逢有道，運屬無為者歟。

How can these be com­pared with our time, when good gov­ern­ment pre­vails in the em­pire un­der a mon­arch who reigns without rul­ing?

我大唐御極則天，乘時握紀，一六合而光宅，四三皇而照臨。玄化滂流，祥風遐扇，同乾坤之覆載，齊風雨之鼓潤。與夫東夷入貢，西戎即敘，創業垂統，撥亂反正，固以跨越前王，囊括先代。同文共軌，至治神功，非載記無以贊大猷，非昭宣何以光盛業。玄奘輒隨遊至，舉其風土，雖未考方辯俗，信已越五踰三。含生之疇，咸被凱澤；能言之類，莫不稱功。越自天府，暨諸天竺，幽荒異俗，絕域殊邦，咸承正朔，俱霑聲教。贊武功之績，諷成口實；美文德之盛，欝為稱首。詳觀載籍，所未甞聞；緬惟圖牒，誠無與二。不有所敘，何記化洽？今據聞見，於是載述。

As to our great Tang dyn­asty, it has held sway over the em­pire in ac­cord­ance with the Man­date of Heaven; tak­ing ad­vant­age of the times, it has con­trolled the power of gov­ernance. The Em­peror has united the six quar­ters into one do­main and filled it with his glory, and he has suc­ceeded to the vir­tu­ous deeds of the three an­cient em­per­ors as the fourth one in or­der, il­lu­min­at­ing the world with his light. His subtle in­flu­ence has per­meated widely and his aus­pi­cious edi­fic­a­tion has ex­ten­ded far. He pos­sesses the power of cov­er­ing and car­ry­ing all things like heaven and earth, and he acts with the func­tions of both the stim­u­lat­ing wind and the moisten­ing rain. With the Yi tribe at the east­ern bor­der com­ing to of­fer trib­ute and the Rong people of the west­ern fron­tier ar­riv­ing to pledge al­le­gi­ance, he has foun­ded an im­per­ial her­it­age for his pos­ter­ity; and in quelling re­bel­lion to re­store or­der, he cer­tainly has sur­passed former kings. His great deeds have in­cluded all those achieved by pre­vi­ous dyn­asties. Now the whole em­pire is in such a uni­form­ity that we use the same char­ac­ters in writ­ing and our car­riages have stand­ard wheels to go in the same mts. This is the mar­velous achieve­ment of his con­sum­mate gov­ern­ment. If I did not men­tion all these points in my Re­cord, I should have nowhere to praise his great ex­ploits, and if I did not pub­lish them abroad, how could I shed light on his pro­fuse mer­its? Wherever I went in my jour­ney I in­quired about the local con­di­tions and cus­toms, and al­though I did not do re­search into their loc­a­tions, nor did I dif­fer­en­ti­ate their so­cial in­sti­tu­tions, I be­lieve that the great mer­its of Em­peror [Taizong] have sur­passed those of the three an­cient em­per­ors and the five mon­archs of old. All liv­ing creatures are be­nefited by his gen­ial in­flu­ence and every hu­man be­ing who can speak ex­tols his mer­its. From the Tang em­pire up to the land of In­dia all the people, either of se­cluded re­gions with dif­fer­ent cus­toms or of isol­ated places and alien coun­tries, ac­cept the Chinese cal­en­dar and en­joy the fame and teach­ings of the Em­peror. The praise of his mil­it­ary feats has be­come a topic of con­ver­sa­tion and the com­mend­a­tion of his civic vir­tue is the most pop­u­lar theme. I ex­amined vari­ous books but found no re­cords of these things, and I pre­sume that there is no sim­ilar in­stance men­tioned in the gene­a­lo­gical tables. Had I not made this nar­ra­tion, how could I re­cord the be­ne­fi­cial in­flu­ence of the Em­peror? The nar­rat­ives I have now com­posed are based on what I saw and heard.

[0869a20] 然則索訶世界(舊曰娑婆世界，又曰娑訶世界，皆訛也)，三千大千國土，為一佛之化攝也。今一日月所照臨四天下者，據三千大千世界之中，諸佛世尊皆此垂化，現生現滅，導聖導凡。蘇迷盧山(唐言妙高山。舊曰須彌，又曰須彌，婁皆訛略也)，四寶合成，在大海中，據金輪上，日月之所照迴，諸天之所遊舍。七山七海，環峙環列；山間海水，具八功德。七金山外，乃鹹海也。海中可居者，大略有四洲焉。東毘提訶洲(舊曰弗婆提，又曰弗于逮，訛也)，南贍部洲(舊曰閻浮提洲，又曰剡浮洲，訛也)，西瞿陀尼洲(舊曰瞿耶尼，又曰的伽尼，訛也)，北拘盧洲(舊曰欝單越，又曰鳩樓。訛也)。金輪王乃化被四天下，銀輪王則政隔北拘盧，銅輪王除北拘盧及西瞿陀尼，鐵輪王則唯贍部洲。夫輪王者，將即大位，隨福所感，有大輪寶，浮空來應，感有金、銀、銅、鐵之異，境乃四、三、二、一之差，因其先瑞，即以為號。

Now the sahā world, con­sist­ing of one great chiliocosm, is the sphere of the spir­itual in­flu­ence of one buddha. The four con­tin­ents un­der the il­lu­min­a­tion of one sun and moon within the great chiliocosm are the places where the buddhas, the World-honored Ones, emerge in their in­carn­a­tion bod­ies and mani­fest birth and death to en­lighten saints and or­din­ary be­ings. Mount Sumeru, mean­ing “Won­der­ful High Moun­tain,” is com­posed of the four pre­cious sub­stances. It is loc­ated in the sea, stand­ing on the golden wheel, un­der the il­lu­min­a­tion of the sun and moon in ro­ta­tion, be­ing the res­id­ence of heav­enly be­ings, sur­roun­ded by a ring of seven moun­tains and seven seas. The wa­ter in the seas between the moun­tains pos­sesses the eight vir­tues. Bey­ond the seven golden moun­tains is the Salt Sea. Roughly speak­ing, there are four hab­it­able con­tin­ents in the seas, namely, the Videha con­tin­ent in the east, the Jambu con­tin­ent in the south, the Godānīya con­tin­ent in the west, and the Kuru con­tin­ent in the north. A gold wheel king rules over all these four con­tin­ents, a sil­ver wheel king ad­min­is­ters all ex­cept the Kuru con­tin­ent in the north, a cop­per wheel king’s dom­in­a­tion does not in­clude the Kuru con­tin­ent in the north or the Godānīya con­tin­ent in the west, while an iron wheel king con­trols only the Jambu con­tin­ent in the south. When a wheel king is about to as­cend the throne a great pre­cious wheel of gold, sil­ver, cop­per, or iron will ap­pear in the air ac­cord­ing to his mer­its, to em­power him to rule over four, three, two, or one con­tin­ent, as the case may be. As the wheel is an aus­pi­cious sym­bol, it is ad­op­ted as the title of the kings.

則贍部洲之中地者，阿那婆答多池也(唐言無熱惱。舊曰阿耨達池，訛也)。在香山之南，大雪山之北，周八百里矣。金、銀、瑠璃、頗胝，飾其岸焉。金沙彌漫，清波皎鏡。八地菩薩以願力故，化為龍王，於中潛宅。出清冷水，給贍部洲。是以池東面銀牛口流出殑(巨勝反)伽河(舊曰恒河，又曰恒伽，訛也)，繞池一匝，入東南海；池南面金象口流出信度河(舊曰辛頭河，訛也)，繞池一匝，入西南海；池西面瑠璃馬口流出縛芻河(舊曰博叉河，訛也)，繞池一匝，入西北海；池北面頗胝師子口流出徙多河(舊曰私陀河，訛也)，繞池一匝，入東北海，或曰潛流地下，出積石山，即徙多河之流，為中國之河源云。

In the cen­ter of the Jambu con­tin­ent is Anavata­pta Lake, mean­ing “No Trouble of Heat,” which is south of Fra­grant Moun­tain and north of the Great Snow Moun­tains, with a cir­cuit of eight hun­dred li. Its banks are ad­orned with gold, sil­ver, lapis lazuli, and crys­tal. It is full of golden sand and its wa­ter is as pure and clean as a mir­ror. A bod­hisat­tva of the eighth stage, hav­ing trans­formed him­self into a nāga king by the power of his res­ol­ute will, makes his abode at the bot­tom of the lake and sup­plies wa­ter for the Jambu con­tin­ent. Thus from the mouth of the sil­ver ox at the east side of the lake flows the Ganges River, which, after go­ing round the lake once, enters the South­east Sea; from the mouth of the golden ele­phant at the south side of the lake flows the In­dus River, which, after wind­ing round the lake once, enters the South­w­est Sea; from the mouth of the lapis lazuli horse at the west side of the lake flows the Oxus River, which, after me­an­der­ing round the lake once, enters the North­w­est Sea; and from the mouth of the crys­tal lion at the north side of the lake flows the Sītā River, which, after en­circ­ling the lake once, enters the North­east Sea, or it is said that it flows by a sub­ter­ranean course to Jishi Moun­tain, where the wa­ter re­appears as a trib­u­tary of the Sītā and be­comes the source of the Yel­low River in China.

[0869b20] 時無輪王應運，贍部洲地有四主焉。南象主則暑濕宜象，西寶主乃臨海盈寶，北馬主寒勁宜馬，東人主和暢多人。故象主之國躁烈篤學，特閑異術，服則橫巾右袒，首則中髻四垂，族類邑居，室宇重閣。寶主之鄉，無禮義，重財賄，短製左衽，斷髮長髭，有城郭之居，務殖貨之利。馬主之俗，天資獷暴，情忍殺戮，毳帳穹廬，鳥居逐牧。人主之地，風俗機惠，仁義照明，冠帶右衽，車服有序，安土重遷，務資有類。

As there is no ruler now destined to be a wheel king, the Jambu con­tin­ent is reigned by four lords. The domin­ion un­der the sov­er­eignty of the lord of ele­phants in the south is hot and hu­mid in cli­mate, and it is fit for breed­ing ele­phants. In the west the lord of treas­ure rules over the land be­side the sea, where there are plenty of pre­cious sub­stances. The place of the lord of horses in the north is cold and bra­cing, and it is good for rear­ing horses. The coun­try of the lord of hu­mans in the east is well pop­u­lated with ami­able in­hab­it­ants. The people of the lord of ele­phants are im­petu­ous by nature, but they are de­voted to stud­ies and are es­pe­cially skill­ful in mi­ra­cu­lous arts. They wear a piece of cloth across the body, leav­ing the right shoulder bare. Their hair is made into a top­knot with tufts fall­ing down on the sides. They live in groups of clans in towns, and their houses are multistor­ied. In the coun­try of the lord of treas­ure the people know noth­ing of pro­pri­ety and right­eous­ness and over­es­tim­ate wealth and prop­erty. They wear short jack­ets fastened on the left side and cut their hair short but keep long mus­taches. They live in towns and gain profit by en­ga­ging in trade. The people un­der the rule of the lord of horses are of a furi­ous dis­pos­i­tion and are cruel man-slay­ers. They live in felt yurts and are mi­grat­ory herds­men. In the land of the lord of hu­mans the people are clever and skill­ful with ob­vi­ous sen­ti­ments of kind­ness and right­eous­ness. They wear hats and belts and their gar­ments are buttoned on the right side. Their car­riages and clothes are clas­si­fied ac­cord­ing to the ranks and or­ders of the people, and they are at­tached to their nat­ive land and un­will­ing to leave it. They have a class of people spe­cially de­voted to com­merce.

三主之俗，東方為上，其居室則東闢其戶，旦日則東向以拜。人主之地，南面為尊。方俗殊風，斯其大概。至於君臣上下之禮，憲章文軌之儀，人主之地，無以加也。清心釋累之訓，出離生死之教，象主之國，其理優矣。斯皆著之經誥，問諸土俗，博關今古，詳考見聞。

Ex­clud­ing the lord of hu­mans, the other three lords hold the east as the su­per­ior dir­ec­tion. Their people build houses with doors open­ing to the east, and early in the morn­ing they pay rev­er­ence to­ward that dir­ec­tion. In the land of the lord of hu­mans the people re­spect the south­ern dir­ec­tion. Such is the gen­eral con­di­tion of the dif­fer­ent cus­toms and modes of liv­ing in the di­verse coun­tries. As re­gards the etiquette ob­served between a mon­arch and his sub­jects and that between the su­per­ior and the in­ferior, and the cul­tural in­sti­tu­tions and polit­ical sys­tems, the land of the lord of hu­mans ex­cels all the other coun­tries; as to in­struc­tions con­cern­ing the puri­fic­a­tion of the mind and lib­er­a­tion from worldly bur­dens, as well as teach­ings to re­lieve one from birth and death, the best the­or­ies are in the coun­try of the lord of ele­phants. All these mat­ters are re­cor­ded in clas­sical works and im­per­ial man­dates and are also heard from the local people. I have made a care­ful check about what I saw and heard.

然則佛興西方，法流東國，通譯音訛，方言語謬，音訛則義失，語謬則理乖。故曰：「必也正名乎」，貴無乖謬矣。

Though the Buddha was born in the West his Dharma has spread to the East. In the course of trans­la­tion mis­takes may have crept into the texts, and idioms may have been mis­ap­plied. When the words are wrong the mean­ing is lost, and when a phrase is mis­taken the doc­trine be­comes dis­tor­ted. Hence the say­ing, “It is ne­ces­sary to use cor­rect names.” What is valu­able is the ab­sence of faults!

[0869c09] 夫人有剛柔異性，言音不同，斯則繫風土之氣，亦習俗之致也。若其山川物產之異，風俗性類之差，則人主之地，國史詳焉；馬主之俗，寶主之鄉，史誥備載，可略言矣。至於象主之國，前古未詳，或書地多暑濕，或載俗好仁慈，頗存方志，莫能詳舉，豈道有行藏之致，固世有推移之運矣。是知候律以歸化，飲澤而來賓，越重險而款玉門，貢方奇而拜絳闕者，蓋難得而言焉。由是之故，訪道遠遊，請益之隙，存記風土。

Hu­man be­ings are of dif­fer­ent dis­pos­i­tions, stub­born or pli­able, and speak dif­fer­ent lan­guages. This is caused by cli­matic con­di­tions and by cus­tom­ary us­age. As to the vari­et­ies of phys­ical fea­tures and nat­ural products of the land of the lord of hu­mans, and the dif­fer­ent cus­toms and tem­pera­ments of its people, they are re­cor­ded in de­tail in our na­tional his­tor­ies. As to the cus­toms of the land of the lord of horses and the coun­try of the lord of treas­ure, they are fully de­scribed in his­tor­ical re­cords, and we can give a brief ac­count of them. But as to the coun­try of the lord of ele­phants, it has never been de­scribed ac­cur­ately in our an­cient lit­er­at­ure. Some said that it was mostly a hot and hu­mid coun­try, and oth­ers de­pic­ted its people as cus­tom­ar­ily fond of kind­ness and com­pas­sion. These are men­tioned in to­po­graph­ies, but no de­tailed in­form­a­tion can be found. As the Way is some­times pre­val­ent and some­times in hid­ing, do not hu­man af­fairs also have changes of for­tune? Thus we may know that it is dif­fi­cult to de­scribe all those who pre­dict the right sea­son to pledge al­le­gi­ance and who come to sub­mit to the be­ne­vol­ence of the Em­peror, or those who, passing one danger after an­other, seek ad­mit­tance at Yu­men Pass bear­ing trib­ute of nat­ive rar­it­ies and bow be­fore the gate of the im­per­ial palace.

黑嶺已來。莫非胡俗。雖戎人同貫，而族類群分，畫界封疆，大率土著。建城郭°，務殖田畜；性重財賄，俗輕仁義；嫁娶無禮，尊卑無次；婦言是用，男位居下。死則焚骸，喪期無數；釐面截耳，斷髮裂裳，屠殺群畜，祀祭幽魂。吉乃素服，凶則皂衣。同風類俗，略舉條貫；異政殊制，隨地別敘。印度風俗，語在後記。

Up to the Black Range, the cus­toms of the Hu people are pre­val­ent. Al­though they live to­gether with the Rong people in the same loc­al­it­ies, they are dis­tinct tribes and their ter­rit­or­ies are de­marc­ated. They are mostly ab­ori­gines, liv­ing in walled cit­ies, en­ga­ging in ag­ri­cul­ture and rear­ing cattle. They value wealth and prop­erty, and to des­pise kind­ness and right­eous­ness is their cus­tom. They have no ce­re­mony for mar­riage and no dis­tinc­tion between the su­per­ior people and the in­ferior. The wife’s word is au­thor­it­at­ive and the hus­band oc­cu­pies a low po­s­i­tion. They cremate the bod­ies of the dead and have no fixed period of mourn­ing, but they scrape their faces, mu­til­ate their ears, cut off their hair, and rend their gar­ments. They slaughter do­mestic an­im­als as sac­ri­fices offered to the manes of the dead. On happy oc­ca­sions they put on white clothes, while at sor­row­ful events they are dressed in black. This is a brief ac­count of the com­mon or sim­ilar cus­toms of the tribes; the dif­fer­ent polit­ics and vari­ous in­sti­tu­tions of di­verse coun­tries will be de­scribed sep­ar­ately as the oc­ca­sion arises, and the man­ners and cus­toms of In­dia will be nar­rated in the fol­low­ing Re­cord.

[0870a02] 出高昌故地，自近者始，曰阿耆尼國(舊曰烏耆)。

Go­ing out of what was formerly the land of Gaochang, I star­ted my jour­ney with the nearest coun­try, called Agni (formerly known as Yanqi).

[0870a04] 阿耆尼國，東西六百餘里，南北四百餘里。國大都城周六七里。四面據山，道險易守。泉流交帶，引水為田。土宜穈、黍、宿麥、香棗、蒲萄、梨、柰諸菓。氣序和暢，風俗質直。文字取則印度，微有繒絹。服飾氈褐，斷髮無巾。貨用金錢、銀錢、小銅錢。王，其國人也，勇而寡略，好自稱伐，國無綱紀，法不整肅。伽藍十餘所，僧徒二千餘人，習學小乘教說一切有部，經教律儀，既遵印度，諸習學者，即其文而翫之。

The coun­try of Agni, which is more than six hun­dred li from east to west and over four hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing six or seven li in cir­cuit, is sur­roun­ded by hills on four sides with per­il­ous tracks that are eas­ily de­fen­ded. Spring wa­ter flows in a net­work of chan­nels, lead­ing the wa­ter to ir­rig­ate cul­tiv­ated fields. The soil is suit­able for grow­ing mil­let, broom­com, winter wheat, fra­grant jujubes, grapes, pears, cra­bapples, and other fruit. The cli­mate is mod­er­ate and pleas­ant, and the people are hon­est and straight­for­ward by so­cial cus­tom. Their al­pha­bet is taken from that of In­dia with slight modi­fic­a­tions. The gar­ments of the people are made of felt and hempen cloth. The men cut their hair short without wear­ing any he­ad­dress. As to their cur­rency, they use gold, sil­ver, and small cop­per coins. The king, a nat­ive of the coun­try, is a brave man but he lacks re­source­ful­ness and he in­dulges in brag­ging about his own mer­its. The coun­try has no guid­ing prin­ciple or dis­cip­line and gov­ern­ment or­ders are im­per­fect and not ser­i­ously im­ple­men­ted. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over two thou­sand monks, who are fol­low­ers of the Sar­vāstivāda school of the Hinay­ana teach­ings. Since they prac­tice the scrip­tural the­or­ies and ob­serve the Vinaya dis­cip­line of In­dia, the stu­dents care­fully study these sub­jects in In­dian texts.

戒行律儀，潔清勤勵。然食雜三淨，滯於漸教矣。

They are pure and strict in ob­serving the Vinaya rules, but they eat the three kinds of pure meat to­gether with other food­stuffs, which shows that they are stag­nat­ing in the stage of the gradual teach­ing.

[0870a14] 從此西南行二百餘里，踰一小山，越二大河，西得平川，行七百餘里，至屈(居勿反)支國(舊曰龜茲)。

Go­ing from here to­ward the south­w­est for more than two hun­dred li, I climbed over a hill and crossed two large rivers and then reached a plain in the west. After pro­ceed­ing for more than seven hun­dred li, I ar­rived in the coun­try of Kuci (formerly known as Qiuci).

[0870a17] 屈支國，東西千餘里，南北六百餘里。國大都城周十七八里，宜穈、麥，有粳稻，出蒲萄、石榴，多梨、柰、桃、杏。土產黃金、銅、鐵、鉛、錫。氣序和，風俗質。文字取則印度，粗有改變。管絃伎樂，特善諸國。服飾錦褐，斷髮巾帽。貨用金錢、銀錢、小銅錢。王，屈支種也，智謀寡昧，迫於強臣。其俗生子以木押頭，欲其遍遞也。伽藍百餘所，僧徒五千餘人，習學小乘教說一切有部。經教律儀，取則印度，其習讀者，即本文矣。尚拘漸教，食雜三淨。潔清耽翫，人以功競。

The coun­try of Kuci is over one thou­sand li from east to west and over six hun­dred li from south to north, and its cap­ital city is about sev­en­teen or eight­een li in cir­cuit. The soil is fit for grow­ing mil­let and wheat. It yields round-grained rice, grapes, and pomegranates, and plenty of pears, cra­bapples, peaches, and apricots. It pro­duces gold, cop­per, iron, lead, and tin. Its cli­mate is mild and the people are hon­est and up­right by nature. Their writ­ing is taken from that of In­dia but with minor al­ter­a­tions. Their skill in play­ing wind and stringed in­stru­ments is well known in vari­ous coun­tries. They dress in bro­cade and hempen clothes, cut their hair short, and wear turbans. For cur­rency they use gold, sil­ver, and small cop­per coins. Be­ing a man of Kuci, the king has little re­source­ful­ness and is un­der the con­trol of power­ful min­is­ters. It is their cus­tom to press the heads of their ba­bies into a flat shape with wooden planks. There are over one hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with some five thou­sand monks, who study the Sar­vāstivāda school of the Hinay­ana teach­ings. Their scrip­tural teach­ings and Vinaya dis­cip­line fol­low the ex­ample of In­dia, so they study the books on these sub­jects in the ori­ginal In­dian lan­guage. As they eat the three kinds of pure meat to­gether with other food­stuffs, they are still stag­nat­ing in the stage of the gradual teach­ing. But they are pure in con­duct and deeply en­grossed in stud­ies, and they com­pete with one an­other in their achieve­ment of spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion.

[0870a27] 國東境城北天祠前，有大龍池。諸龍易形，交合牝馬，遂生龍駒，[怡‒台+龍]戾難馭。龍駒之子，方乃馴駕，所以此國多出善馬。聞諸先志曰：近代有王，號曰金花，政教明察，感龍馭乘。王欲終沒，鞭觸其耳，因即潛隱，以至于今。城中無井，取彼池水。龍變為人，與諸婦會，生子驍勇，走及奔馬；如是漸染，人皆龍種，恃力作威，不恭王命。王乃引搆突厥，殺此城人，少長俱戮，略無噍類。城今荒蕪，人煙斷絕。

In front of a deva temple to the north of a city in the east­ern part of the coun­try there is a big dragon pond. The dragons of the pond of­ten changed their form to mate with mares and gave birth to dragon colts, which were fierce and un­ruly, but the off­spring of the dragon colts were tam­able. That is why plenty of good horses are bred in this coun­try. I heard some old people say that there was re­cently a king named Golden Flower who, through his saga­cious ad­min­is­tra­tion and sharp in­sight into polit­ical af­fairs, con­vinced one of tihe dragons to pull his car­riage for him. When the king was ap­proach­ing death he touched the dragon’s ear with his whip and it then sub­merged into the pond and hid it­self, up to the present time. As there was no well in the city the people drew wa­ter from this pond. The dragons trans­formed them­selves into hu­man form and mated with the wo­men. Their des­cend­ants were strong and cour­ageous and could ran as fast as a gal­lop­ing horse. In this man­ner the blood of the dragons was dif­fused and every­body be­came a per­son of the dragon race. Re­ly­ing on their phys­ical strength, they rode rough­shod over oth­ers and paid no heed to the king’s or­ders. Thus the king col­luded with the Turks to slaughter all the in­hab­it­ants, old and young, in the city. After the mas­sacre not a single per­son was left liv­ing in the city, which is now a deser­ted place without a trace of hu­man hab­it­a­tion.

[0870b08] 荒城北四十餘里，接山阿，隔一河水，有二伽藍，同名照怙釐，而東西隨稱。佛像莊飾，殆越人工。僧徒清齋，誠為勤勵。

More than forty li to the north of the deser­ted city there are two mon­as­ter­ies sep­ar­ated by a river close to the corner of a moun­tain. Both mon­as­ter­ies, one on the east side and the other on the west side of the river, are named Cak­uri. The im­ages of the Buddha and the or­na­ments are so beau­ti­fully made that they al­most ex­cel hu­man crafts­man­ship. The monks are pure and aus­tere in con­duct and are sin­cere and di­li­gent in their stud­ies.

東照怙釐佛堂中有玉石，面廣二尺餘，色帶黃白，狀如海蛤。其上有佛足履之迹，長尺有八寸，廣餘六寸矣。或有齋日，照燭光明。

In the buddha hall of East­ern Cak­uri Mon­as­tery there is a jade stone about two feet in width, yel­low­ish-white in color, in the shape of a sea clam. On the stone there is a foot­print of the Buddha, one foot eight inches in length and more than six inches wide. On fast days it some­times is­sues a bril­liant light.

[0870b13] 大城西門外，路左右各有立佛像，高九十餘尺。於此像前，建五年一大會處。每歲秋分數十日間，舉國僧徒皆來會集。上自君王，下至士、庶，捐廢俗務，奉持齋戒，受經聽法，渴日忘疲。諸僧伽藍莊嚴佛像，瑩以珍寶，飾之錦綺，載諸輦輿，謂之行像，動以千數，雲集會所。常以月十五日、晦日，國王、大臣謀議國事，訪及高僧，然後宣布。

There are two stand­ing statues of the Buddha, more than ninety feet in height, one at each side of the road out­side the west gate of the cap­ital city. It is at this place in front of the statues that the great quin­quen­nial con­greg­a­tions are held. Every year, for sev­eral tens of days around the au­tum­nal equi­nox, all the monks in the whole coun­try come here to at­tend a meet­ing. From the mon­arch and princes on down to the com­mon­ers, all sus­pend their sec­u­lar af­fairs and ob­serve the pre­cepts; they study the scrip­tures and listen to the dis­courses on the Dharma for a whole day at a time without feel­ing fa­tigue. All the mon­as­ter­ies dec­or­ate their buddha im­ages with jew­els and gems, dress them in bro­cade and dam­ask, and carry them in hand­carts, coun­ted by the thou­sand, to con­duct what is known as the pro­ces­sion of im­ages, flock­ing to meet­ing place. The king al­ways dis­cusses state af­fairs with his min­is­ters on the fif­teenth and the last day of the lunar month and, after con­sult­ing with the em­in­ent monks about their dis­cus­sion, they make a pro­clam­a­tion.

[0870b22] 會場西北渡河，至阿奢理貳伽藍(唐言奇特)。庭宇顯敞°，佛像工飾。僧徒肅穆，精勤匪怠，並是耆艾宿德，碩學高才，遠方俊彥，慕義至止。國王、大臣、士、庶、豪右，四事供養，久而彌敬。

At the north­w­est of the meet­ing place I crossed a river and reached Āś­carya (“Mar­velous”) Mon­as­tery. The build­ings and court­yards of the mon­as­tery are splen­did and spa­cious and the buddha im­ages are well ad­orned. The monks, quiet and aus­tere in ap­pear­ance, are di­li­gent in their stud­ies, without neg­li­gence. Old people of vir­tue with much learn­ing and great tal­ents are ven­er­ated. In ad­mir­a­tion of their good con­duct, bril­liant schol­ars come here from dis­tant lands to stay with them. The king and his min­is­ters, as well as the com­mon people and mag­nates, provide the monks with the four mon­astic re­quis­ites with in­creas­ing re­spect as time goes on.

聞諸先志曰：昔此國先王，崇敬三寶，將欲遊方，觀禮聖迹，乃命母弟，攝知留事。其弟受命，竊自割勢，防未萌也。封之金函，持以上王。王曰：「斯何謂也？」對曰：「迴駕之日，乃可開發。」即付執事，隨軍掌護。王之還也，果有搆禍者，曰：「王令監國，婬亂中宮。」王聞震怒，欲置嚴刑。弟曰：「不敢逃責，願開金函。」王遂發而視之，乃斷勢也。曰：「斯何異物？欲何發明？」對曰：「王昔遊方，命知留事，懼有讒禍，割勢自明。今果有徵，願垂照覽。」王深驚異，情愛彌隆，出入後庭，無所禁礙。

I heard some old people say­ing that once a pre­vi­ous king of this coun­try, who revered the Triple Gem, wished to go on tour to wor­ship vari­ous holy sites at dif­fer­ent places, and he had his younger brother act as re­gent dur­ing his ab­sence. Upon re­ceiv­ing the king’s or­der the younger brother secretly cut off his own gen­ital or­gan and put it in a golden cas­ket, as a pre­cau­tion against pos­sible calumny. He sent the cas­ket to the king, who asked, “What is it?” His younger brother said in reply, “Upon your re­turn, Your Majesty may open it and see.” The cas­ket was then handed to a guard of the king’s ret­inue for safe­keep­ing dur­ing the jour­ney. When the king re­turned from his trip a slan­derer ac­tu­ally ac­cused the re­gent, say­ing, “The re­gent ap­poin­ted by the king com­mit­ted adul­tery in the in­ner palace.” On hear­ing this ac­cus­a­tion the king was en­raged and in­ten­ded to im­pose a heavy pun­ish­ment on the cul­prit. His younger brother said, “I would not dare evade the re­spons­ib­il­ity but I hope that the golden cas­ket can be opened.” When the king opened the cas­ket and found a severed male or­gan con­tained in it, he asked, “What is this strange thing? What do you want to say about it?” His younger brother said, “When Your Majesty went out on tour and ap­poin­ted me as re­gent, I feared that the dis­aster of a pos­sible [ac­cus­a­tion of] calumny might be­fall me, so I cut off my gen­ital or­gan to prove my in­no­cence. Now this mis­for­tune has ac­tu­ally happened to me. I hope Your Majesty will make a clear in­vest­ig­a­tion into the case.” The king was deeply sur­prised to hear this and since then his fra­tern­ity to­ward his younger brother be­came more pro­found, so that he was al­lowed free ad­mis­sion to the in­ner palace without hindrance.

王弟於後，行遇一夫，擁五百牛，欲事形腐。見而惟念，引類增懷：「我今形虧，豈非宿業？」即以財寶，贖此群牛。以慈善力，男形漸具。以形具故，遂不入宮。王怪而問之，乃陳其始末。王以為奇特也，遂建伽藍，式旌美迹，傳芳後葉。

Later, when the king’s younger brother was walk­ing on the road, he met with a herds­man driv­ing a herd of five hun­dred bulls to be cas­trated. On see­ing these an­im­als that were about to suf­fer the same impair­ment as he had, the king’s younger brother re­flec­ted on his own fate and thought, “Is it not due to my past evil deeds that I am now a de­formed manin this life?” Thus he re­deemed the herd of bulls from mu­til­a­tion with money and valu­ables, and through the power of his com­pas­sion his gen­ital or­gan was gradu­ally re­stored. As he re­gained his mas­culin­ity he re­fused to enter the in­ner palace any more. When the amazed king asked him why, he told the king all the de­tails. Re­gard­ing this as a mar­velous af­fair, the king con­struc­ted the mon­as­tery in a beau­ti­ful style to trans­mit [his brother’s] good repu­ta­tion to pos­ter­ity.

[0870c13] 從此西行六百餘里，經小沙磧，至跋祿迦國(舊謂姑黑，又曰亟黑)。[0870c15] 跋祿迦國，東西六百餘里，南北三百餘里。國大都城周五六里。土宜氣序，人性風俗，文字法則同屈支國，語言少異。細氈細褐，隣國所重。伽藍數十所，僧徒千餘人，習學小乘教說一切有部。

From here go­ing west­ward for more than six hun­dred li, I crossed a small desert and ar­rived in the coun­try of Bālukā (formerly known as Gumo or Jimo). The coun­try of Bālukā is over six hun­dred li from east to west and more than three hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing five or six li in cir­cuit. The nat­ive products, cli­mate, tem­pera­ment of the people, cus­toms, writ­ten lan­guage, and law are all the same as in the coun­try of Kuci, but the spoken lan­guage dif­fers some­what. Its fine cot­ton and hempen cloth is much val­ued in the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. There are sev­eral tens of mon­as­ter­ies with more than a thou­sand monks, who study the Sar­vāstivāda school of the Hinay­ana teach­ings.

[0870c20] 國西北行三百餘里，度石磧，至凌山。此則葱嶺北原，水多東流矣。山谷積雪，春夏合凍，雖時消泮，尋復結氷。經途險阻，寒風慘烈。多暴龍難，凌犯行人。由此路者，不得赭衣持瓠，大聲叫喚。微有違犯，災禍目覩。暴風奮發，飛沙雨石，遇者喪沒，難以全生。

Pro­ceed­ing north­w­est from this coun­try for more than three hun­dred li, I crossed a stony desert and reached the Ice Moun­tains, which are loc­ated at the north­ern side of the Pamir Range, where most of the streams flow east­ward. Snow is ac­cu­mu­lated in the val­leys, which are freez­ing even in the spring and sum­mer sea­sons, and al­though they some­times melt a little they soon be­come frozen again. The path is dan­ger­ous and the cold wind blows with a pier­cing vehe­mence. There are fre­quent dis­asters caused by fe­ro­cious dragons that give trouble to trav­el­ers. Trav­el­ers go­ing by this route should not wear gar­ments of red­dish-brown color, nor should they carry cala­bashes or shout loudly. The slight­est in­fringe­ment of these ta­boos will cause im­me­di­ate dis­aster. A fierce wind will arise all of a sud­den, sand fly­ing in the air and pebbles rain­ing down from the sky. Those who en­counter such a cata­strophe are sure to die, [or at least] it is dif­fi­cult for them to es­cape alive.

[0871a02] 山行四百餘里，至大清池(或名熱海，又謂鹹海)。周千餘里，東西長，南北狹。四面負山，眾流交湊，色帶青黑，味兼鹹苦，洪濤浩汗，驚波汩°淴。龍魚雜處，靈怪間起，所以往來行旅，禱以祈福，水族雖多，莫敢漁捕。

Go­ing among the moun­tains for over four hun­dred li, I reached the Great Pure Lake (also known as the Hot Sea or the Salt Sea), which is more than one thou­sand li in cir­cuit. It is long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. There are hills around the lake and many streams flow into it. The wa­ter is dark blue in color and brack­ish and bit­ter in taste. It is a vast ex­panse of wa­ter with huge and bois­ter­ous waves. Fish and dragons live to­gether in the lake and su­per­nat­ural mon­sters some­times ap­pear in it. There­fore passing trav­el­ers pray to them for good for­tune and there are plenty of aquatic an­im­als, though no one would ven­ture to catch them.

[0871a06] 清池西北行五百餘里，至素葉水城。城周六七里，諸國商胡雜居也。土宜糜、麥、蒲萄，林樹稀疎。氣序風寒，人衣氈褐。[0871a09] 素葉已西數十孤城，城皆立長，雖不相稟命，然皆役屬突厥。

From the Pure Lake go­ing north­w­est for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the City of Sushe River, which is about six or seven li in cir­cuit, a place where traders of the Hu tribes from dif­fer­ent coun­tries mingle their abodes. The soil is good for grow­ing mil­let, wheat, and grapes but fruit trees are scarce. The cli­mate is windy and cold and the people wear clothes made of felt and hemp. To the west of Sushe River are some tens of isol­ated cit­ies, each hav­ing its own ruler, but they do not obey one an­other and they are all un­der the dom­in­a­tion of the Turks.

[0871a10] 自素葉水城，至羯霜那國，地名窣利，人亦謂焉。文字語言，即隨稱矣。字源簡略，本二十餘言，轉而相生，其流浸廣，粗有書記，竪讀其文，遞相傳授，師資無替。服氈褐，衣皮[疊*毛]，裳服褊急。齊髮露頂，或總剪剃，繒綵絡額，形容偉大，志性恇怯，風俗澆訛，多行詭詐，大抵貪求，父子計利，財多為貴，良賤無差。雖富巨萬，服食麁弊。力田逐利者雜半矣。

The re­gion stretch­ing from city of Sushe River up to the coun­try of Kas­anna is called Suli, and the people are known by the same name. Their lan­guage is also known as Suli. The al­pha­bet of their lan­guage is brief and simple, hav­ing only twenty-odd rudi­ment­ary let­ters, with which a vast vocab­u­lary is formed by a meth­od­ical spelling sys­tem. The people have rough writ­ten re­cords, which are read ver­tic­ally and are trans­mit­ted from teacher to pu­pil without in­ter­rup­tion. They dress in felt and hempen clothes and put on fur and cot­ton gar­ments. Both their un­der­gar­ments and their up­per clothes fit tightly. They cut their hair short and ex­pose the tops of their heads, or they shave their heads com­pletely, ty­ing a colored silk band on the fore­head. They are tall and sturdy in stature but timid in dis­pos­i­tion. Their gen­eral mood is per­fi­di­ous and de­cept­ive. They are mostly av­ar­i­cious and take ac­count of money mat­ters even between father and son. Wealthy people are honored and es­teemed and there is no dis­tinc­tion between the well-born and the low­born. A mil­lion­aire, how­ever, may lead a simple and coarse life. Half of the pop­u­la­tion are farm­ers and the other half traders.

[0871a19] 素葉城西行四百餘里，至千泉。千泉者，地方二百餘里，南面雪山，三陲平陸。水土沃潤，林樹扶疎，暮春之月，雜花若綺。泉池千所，故以名焉。突厥可汗每來避暑。中有群鹿，多飾鈴鐶，馴狎於人，不甚驚走。可汗愛賞，下命群屬，敢加殺害，有誅無赦。故此群鹿，得終其壽。

Go­ing west­ward from Sushe City for more than four hun­dred li, I ar­rived at Thou­sand Springs. The dis­trict known by this name is over two hun­dred li square, fa­cing the Snow Moun­tains in the north, with plains on the three other sides. The soil is fer­tile and damp and there are lux­uri­ant trees. In late spring vari­ous flowers bloom as beau­ti­fully as em­broidered silk. As there are a thou­sand springs, the dis­trict is named as such. The Turk­ish Khan of­ten comes here in the sum­mer sea­son to avoid the heat. There are flocks of deer, most of them wear­ing bells and rings. They are do­cile and friendly with people and do not eas­ily be­come so afraid as to flee. These an­im­als are pets of the Khan, who has for­bid­den his sub­jects to slaughter them on pen­alty of death, so they can live out their nat­ural life­times.

[0871a25] 千泉西行百四五十里，至呾邏私城。城周八九里，諸國商胡雜居也。土宜氣序，大同素葉。[0871a27] 南行十餘里，有小孤城，三百餘戶，本中國人也，昔為突厥所掠，後遂鳩集同國，共保此城，於中宅居。衣服去就，遂同突厥；言辭儀範，猶存本國。

Go­ing west­ward from Thou­sand Springs for one hun­dred and forty or fifty li, I reached the city of Taras, eight or nine li in cir­cuit, be­ing a place where traders of the Hu tribes from dif­fer­ent coun­tries make their abodes to­gether. The nat­ural products and cli­mate are roughly the same as in Sushe. Go­ing south­ward for about ten li is a small isol­ated town, in which live more than three hun­dred Chinese fam­il­ies who were formerly taken pris­oner by the Turks. Af­ter­ward they gathered to­gether all their com­pat­ri­ots and safe­guarded this town, in which they settled. They ad­op­ted the cos­tume and etiquette of the Turks but re­tained the lan­guage and ways of life of their own coun­try.

[0871a25] 千泉西行百四五十里，至呾邏私城。城周八九里，諸國商胡雜居也。土宜氣序，大同素葉。[0871a27] 南行十餘里，有小孤城，三百餘戶，本中國人也，昔為突厥所掠，後遂鳩集同國，共保此城，於中宅居。衣服去就，遂同突厥；言辭儀範，猶存本國。

Go­ing west­ward from Thou­sand Springs for one hun­dred and forty or fifty li, I reached the city of Taras, eight or nine li in cir­cuit, be­ing a place where traders of the Hu tribes from dif­fer­ent coun­tries make their abodes to­gether. The nat­ural products and cli­mate are roughly the same as in Sushe. Go­ing south­ward for about ten li is a small isol­ated town, in which live more than three hun­dred Chinese fam­il­ies who were formerly taken pris­oner by the Turks. Af­ter­ward they gathered to­gether all their com­pat­ri­ots and safe­guarded this town, in which they settled. They ad­op­ted the cos­tume and etiquette of the Turks but re­tained the lan­guage and ways of life of their own coun­try.

[0871b01] 從此西南行二百餘里，至白水城。城周六七里。土地所產，風氣所宜，逾勝呾邏私。[0871b03] 西南行二百餘里，至恭御城。城周五六里。原隰膏腴，樹林蓊欝。

From here go­ing south­w­est for more than two hun­dred li, I ar­rived at the City of White Wa­ter, which is six or seven li in cir­cuit. The nat­ive products and cli­matic con­di­tions are much bet­ter than in Taras. Go­ing south for more than two hun­dred li, I reached Gongyu City, which is five or six li in cir­cuit. The plains and marsh­lands are rich and fer­tile and covered with lux­uri­ant trees.

[0871b04] 從此南行四五十里，至笯(奴故反)赤建國。[0871b06] 笯赤建國，周千餘里。地沃壤，備稼穡，草木欝茂，華果繁盛，多蒲萄，亦所貴也。城邑百數，各別君長，進止往來，不相稟命。雖則畫野區分，總稱笯赤建國。

From here go­ing south for forty or fifty li, I came to the coun­try of Nujkend. The coun­try of Nujkend is more than one thou­sand li in cir­cuit, and the soil is fer­tile, tilled and reaped per­fectly. The ve­get­a­tion is lux­uri­ant and there are pro­fuse flowers and fruit. Grapes are grown in large quant­it­ies and are highly val­ued. There are about a hun­dred cit­ies and towns, each gov­erned by its own ruler, and they are mu­tu­ally in­de­pend­ent in tak­ing ac­tion. Al­though they have clearly de­marc­ated areas they are col­lect­ively known as the coun­try of Nujkend.

[0871b09] 從此西行二百餘里，至赭時國(唐言石國)。[0871b11] 赭時國，周千餘里。西臨葉河。東西狹、南北長。土宜氣序，同笯赤建國。城邑數十，各別君長，既無總主，役屬突厥。

From here go­ing west­ward for over two hun­dred li, I came to the coun­try of Shash (known as the coun­try of Shi in Chinese). The coun­try of Shash is more than one thou­sand li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing the She River on the west. It is nar­row from east to west and long from south to north. The nat­ural products and cli­mate are the same as in Nujkend. There are sev­eral tens of cit­ies and towns, each hav­ing its own ruler without a sov­er­eign lord, and all of them are un­der the con­trol of the Turks.

[0871b13] 從此東南千餘里，至[怡‒台+巿](敷發反)捍國。[0871b15] [怡‒台+巿]捍國，周四千餘里，山周四境。土地膏腴，稼穡滋盛，多花菓，宜羊馬。氣序風寒，人性剛勇，語異諸國，形貌醜弊。自數十年，無大君長，酋豪力競，不相賓伏，依川據險，畫野分都。

From here pro­ceed­ing south­east for more than one thou­sand li, I reached the coun­try of Fei­han. The coun­try of Fei­han is over four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and is sur­roun­ded by moun­tains on four sides. The land is fer­tile and the ag­ri­cul­tural products are rich. There are plenty of flowers and fruit, and it is fit for rear­ing sheep and horses. The cli­mate is windy and cold and the people are stout and brave by nature. Their lan­guage is dif­fer­ent from those of other coun­tries, and their fea­tures are ugly and mis­shapen. For the last sev­eral dec­ades there has been no sov­er­eign ruler in the coun­try; the chief­tains com­pete with one an­other for power and no one yields to the oth­ers. They have de­lim­ited the bound­ar­ies of their dis­tricts by rivers and pre­cip­it­ous moun­tains.

[0871b19] 從此西行千餘里，至窣堵利瑟那國。[0871b21] 窣堵利瑟那國，周千四、五百里。東臨葉河。葉河出葱嶺北原，西北而流，浩汗渾濁汩淴°漂急。土宜風俗，同赭時國。自有王，附突厥。

From here go­ing west­ward for more than one thou­sand li, I reached the coun­try of Sutrūshana. The coun­try of Sutrūshana is four­teen or fif­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing the She River on the east, which has its source in the plat­eau to the north of the Pamir Range. It is a mighty river of muddy wa­ter with rapid cur­rents. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Shash. In this coun­try there is a king who is af­fil­i­ated with the Turks.

[0871b24] 從此西北入大沙磧，絕無水草。途路彌漫，疆境難測，望大山，尋遺骨，以知所指，以記經途。

From here go­ing to­ward the north­w­est, I entered a great desert in which there is ab­so­lutely no wa­ter or grass. The roads are lost in the vast waste, and its lim­its are un­fathom­able. Only by look­ing at the huge moun­tains and fol­low­ing the scattered skel­et­ons can one know the dir­ec­tion and find the path.

行五百餘里，至颯秣建國(唐言康國)。[0871b28] 颯秣建國，周千六七百里，東西長，南北狹。國大都城周二十餘里，極險固，多居人。異方寶貨，多聚此國。土地沃壤，稼穡備植，林樹蓊欝，花菓滋茂，多出善馬。機巧之技，特工諸國。氣序和暢，風俗猛烈。凡諸胡國，此為其中，進止威儀，近遠取則。其王豪勇，隣國承命。兵馬強盛，多諸赭羯。赭羯之人，其性勇烈，視死如歸，戰無前敵。

After trav­el­ing for over five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Samarkand (known as Kang­guo in Chinese). The coun­try of Samarkand is six­teen or sev­en­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. The cap­ital city is more than twenty li in cir­cuit and is a com­pletely in­vul­ner­able strong­hold with a large pop­u­la­tion. Pre­cious goods of dif­fer­ent quar­ters are mostly cent­ral­ized in this coun­try. The soil is rich and fer­tile and all kinds of crops are cul­tiv­ated. The trees of the forests are lux­uri­ant and have pro­fuse flowers and fruit. This coun­try yields many good horses and its skill­ful crafts­men are the best among vari­ous coun­tries. The cli­mate is mild and tem­per­ate but the people are iras­cible by nature. The vari­ous states of the Hu tribe re­gard this coun­try as their cen­ter, and people far and near fol­low the ex­ample of this coun­try in so­cial man­ners and be­ha­vior. The king is a val­or­ous man and the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries obey his or­ders. He has a strong mil­it­ary force con­sist­ing of a large body of Cakar war­ri­ors; the Cakar people are cour­ageous by nature, fear­less of death, and without rival in mar­tial skill.

[0871c06] 從此東南至弭秣賀國(唐言米國)。[0871c08] 弭秣賀國，周四五百里。據川中，東西狹，南北長。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From here pro­ceed­ing to­ward the south­east, one goes to the coun­try of Mimohe (known as Miguo in Chinese). The coun­try of Mimohe is four or five hun­dred It in cir­cuit, situ­ated in the middle of a plain, nar­row from east to west and long from south to north. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此北至劫布呾那國(唐言曹國)。[0871c11] 劫布呾那國，周千四五百里，東西長，南北狹。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From here pro­ceed­ing to­ward the north, one ar­rives at the coun­try of Kapūtānā (known as Caoguo in Chinese). The coun­try of Kapūtānā is four­teen or fif­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此國西三百餘里，至屈(居勿反)霜(去聲)爾迦國(唐言何國)。[0871c14] 屈霜爾迦國，周千四五百里，東西狹，南北長。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From this coun­try pro­ceed­ing west­ward for more than three hun­dred li, one ar­rives at the coun­try of Kuṣāṇika (known as Heguo in Chinese). The coun­try of Kuṣāṇika is four­teen or fif­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, nar­row from east to west and long from south to north. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此國西二百餘里，至喝捍國(唐言東安國)。[0871c17] 喝捍國，周千餘里。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From this coun­try pro­ceed­ing west­ward for more than two hun­dred li, one reaches the coun­try of Khagan (known as East An­guo in Chinese). The coun­try of Khagan is more than one thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此國西四百餘里，至捕喝國(唐言守安國)。[0871c19] 捕喝國，周千六七百里，東西長，南北狹。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From this coun­try pro­ceed­ing west­ward for more than four hun­dred li, one reaches the coun­try of Bukhara (known as Middle An­guo in Chinese). The coun­try of Bukhara is six­teen or sev­en­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此國西四百餘里，至伐地國(唐言西安國)。[0871c22] 伐地國，周四百餘里，土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。

From this coun­try pro­ceed­ing west­ward for more than four hun­dred li, one reaches the coun­try of Betik (known as West An­guo in Chinese). The coun­try of Betik is more than four hun­dred li in cir­cuit and its nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand.

從此西南五百餘里，至貨利習彌伽國。[0871c24] 貨利習彌伽國，順縛芻河兩岸，東西二三十里，南北五百餘里。土宜風俗，同伐地國，語言少異。

From here pro­ceed­ing south­w­est for over five hun­dred li, one reaches the coun­try of Hor­iṣmīka. The coun­try of Hor­iṣmīka, ly­ing along the Oxus River on both banks, is twenty or thirty li from east to west and over five hun­dred li from south to north. The nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Betik but the lan­guage is slightly dif­fer­ent.

從颯秣建國西南行三百餘里，至羯霜(去聲)那國(唐言史國)。[0871c28] 羯霜那國，周千四五百里。土宜風俗，同颯秣建國。從此西南行二百餘里，入山。山路崎嶇，谿徑危險，既絕人里，又少水草。

Go­ing south­w­est from the coun­try of Samarkand for more than three hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Kas­anna (known as Shiguo in Chinese). The coun­try of Kas­anna is four­teen or fif­teen hun­dred li in cir­cuit, and the nat­ive products and cus­toms are the same as in the coun­try of Samarkand. From here go­ing south­w­est for more than two hun­dred li, I entered a moun­tain­ous re­gion, where the roads are rough and rugged and the nar­row path is dan­ger­ous. There are no in­hab­it­ants and little wa­ter and grass.

東南山行三百餘里，入鐵門。[0872a02] 鐵門者，左右帶山，山極峭峻，雖有狹徑，加之險阻，兩傍石壁，其色如鐵。既設門扉，又以鐵鋦，多有鐵鈴，懸諸戶扇，因其險固，遂以為名。

Go­ing south­east among the moun­tains for over three hun­dred li, I entered the Iron Gate. On both sides of the Iron Gate there are pre­cip­it­ous rocks. Al­though there is a nar­row path, it is hardly ac­cess­ible. The rocky walls stand­ing on both sides of the path are of the color of iron. The door pan­els are strengthened with iron and many iron bells are hanging on them. As it is in an im­preg­nable po­s­i­tion, it is called by this name.

[0872a05] 出鐵門，至覩貨邏國(舊曰吐火羅國，訛也)。其地南北千餘里，東西三千餘里。東阨葱嶺，西接波剌°斯，南大雪山，北據鐵門，縛芻大河中境西流。自數百年，王族絕嗣，酋豪力競，各擅君長，依川據險，分為二十七國。雖畫野區分，總役屬突厥。氣序既溫，疾疫亦眾。冬末春初，霖雨相繼。故此境已南，濫波已北，其國風土，並多溫疾。而諸僧徒以十二月十六日入安居，三月十五日解安居，斯乃據其多雨，亦是設教隨時也。其俗則志性恇怯；容貌鄙陋，粗知信義，不甚欺詐。語言去就，稍異諸國。字源二十五言，轉而相生，用之備物，書以橫讀，自左向右，文記漸多，逾廣窣利。多衣[疊*毛]，少服褐。貨用金、銀等錢，模樣異於諸國。

Go­ing out of the Iron Gate, I ar­rived at the coun­try of Tukhāra (formerly tran­scribed in­cor­rectly as the coun­try of Tuhuoluo). This ter­rit­ory is over one thou­sand li from south to north and more than three thou­sand li from east to west. It bor­ders on the Pamir Range in the east, ad­joins Per­sia in the west, touches the Great Snow Moun­tains in the south, and oc­cu­pies the Iron Gate in the north, with the great Oxus River flow­ing west­ward through the middle of it. For sev­eral cen­tur­ies the royal fam­ily had no off­spring and the power­ful chief­tains com­peted vig­or­ously with one an­other, each try­ing to be the lord of his own dis­trict, de­lim­ited by rivers and stra­tegic po­s­i­tions, and they di­vided the coun­try into twenty-seven states. Al­though each [of these chief­tains] has his own clearly de­marc­ated ter­rit­ory they are all un­der the dom­in­a­tion of the Turks. As the cli­mate is tem­per­ate ill­ness and pes­ti­lence are rampant. By the end of winter and at the be­gin­ning of spring, when there is con­tinu­ous heavy rain, feb­rile ail­ments are pre­val­ent in all the coun­tries south of this ter­rit­ory down to the north of Lampā. The monks com­mence their sum­mer re­treat on the six­teenth day of the twelfth month and end it on the fif­teenth day of the third month. It is be­cause this place has so much rain that the dates are thus fixed ac­cord­ing to the sea­sons. The people are timid and cow­ardly and are bad-look­ing, but in man­ner they are cred­it­able and loyal and they sel­dom re­sort to de­cep­tion. Their lan­guage and man­ners dif­fer slightly from those of other coun­tries. There are twenty-five let­ters in their al­pha­bet, by which vari­ous words are formed to ex­press all things. Their writ­ing is ho­ri­zontal, from left to right, and their re­cords have been gradu­ally in­creased un­til they ex­ceed those of Suli in num­ber. They use more cot­ton than hemp in mak­ing clothes. For cur­rency they use golden, sil­ver, and other coins, which are dif­fer­ent in shape from those of other coun­tries.

[0872a20] 順縛芻河北下流至呾蜜國。[0872a21] 呾蜜國，東西六百餘里，南北四百餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。東西長，南北狹。伽藍十餘所，僧徒千餘人。諸窣堵波，即舊所謂浮圖也，又曰鍮婆，又曰塔婆，又曰私鍮簸，又曰藪斗波，皆訛也。及佛尊像，多神異，有靈鑒。

Fol­low­ing the course of the Oxus River north­ward to the lower reaches, one ar­rives at the coun­try of Tir­midh. The coun­try of Tir­midh is more than six hun­dred li from east to west and over four hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing more than twenty li in cir­cuit, long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks. The stu­pas (known in old times as futu, toupo, tapo, sit­oubo, or soudoubo, all er­ro­neous) and the ven­er­ated im­ages of the Buddha are mostly mi­ra­cu­lous and cause spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions.

[0872a26] 東至赤鄂衍那國。[0872a27] 赤鄂衍那國，東西四百餘里，南北五百餘里。國大都城周十餘里。伽藍五所，僧徒尠少。

To the east of this coun­try is the coun­try of Sahān­iyan. The coun­try of Sahān­iyan is more than four hun­dred li from east to west and over five hun­dred li from south to north; its cap­ital city is more than ten li in cir­cuit. There are five mon­as­ter­ies with very few monks.

[0872a29] 東至忽露摩國。[0872b01] 忽露摩國，東西百餘里，南北三百餘里。國大都城周十餘里。其王奚素突厥也。伽藍二所，僧徒百餘人。

To the east of this coun­try is the coun­try of Kharūn. The coun­try of Kharūn is over one hun­dred li from east to west and more than three hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing over ten li in cir­cuit. The king is a Turk from Xisu. There are two mon­as­ter­ies with over one hun­dred monks.

[0872b03] 東至愉(朔俱反)漫國。[0872b04] 愉漫國，東西四百餘里，南北百餘里。國大都城周十六七里。其王奚素突厥也。伽藍二所，僧徒寡少。

To the east of this coun­try is the coun­try of Shūmān. The coun­try of Shūmān is more than four hun­dred li from east to west and over one hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing six­teen or sev­en­teen li in cir­cuit. The king is a Turk from Xisu. There are two mon­as­ter­ies with very few monks.

[0872b06] 西南臨縛芻河，至鞠和衍那國。[0872b08] 鞠和衍那國，東西二百餘里，南北三百餘里。國大都城周十餘里。伽藍三所，僧徒百餘人。

To the south­w­est along the Oxus River is the coun­try of Kuvāyāna. The coun­try of Kuvāyāna is more than two hun­dred li from east to west and over three hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing over ten li in cir­cuit. There are three mon­as­ter­ies with over one hun­dred monks.

[0872b10] 東至鑊沙國。[0872b11] 鑊沙國，東西三百餘里，南北五百餘里。國大都城周十六七里。

To the east of this coun­try is the coun­try of Wakhsh. The coun­try of Wakhsh is more than three hun­dred li from east to west and over five hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing six­teen or sev­en­teen li in cir­cuit.

[0872b12] 東至珂咄羅國。[0872b13] 珂咄羅國，東西千餘里，南北千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。[0872b14] 東接葱嶺，至拘謎(莫閉反)陀國。

To the east of this coun­try is the coun­try of Khut­talān. The coun­try of Khut­talān is over one thou­sand li from east to west and more than one thou­sand li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing over twenty li in cir­cuit. It ad­joins the Pamir Range and reaches the coun­try of Ko­m­idai in the east.

[0872b16] 拘謎陀國，東西二千餘里，南北二百餘里。據大葱嶺中。國大都城周二十餘里。西南隣縛芻河，南接尸棄尼國。南渡縛芻河，至達摩悉鐵帝國、鉢鐸創那國、淫薄健國、屈浪拏國、呬(火利反)摩呾羅國、鉢利曷國、訖栗瑟摩國、曷邏胡國、阿利尼國、瞢健國。自活國東南至闊悉多國、安呾羅°縛國，事在迴記。

The coun­try of Ko­m­idai is more than two thou­sand li from east to west and over two hun­dred li from south to north, be­ing situ­ated among the moun­tains of the Pamir Range. The cap­ital city is more than twenty li in cir­cuit. It bor­ders on the Oxus River in the south­w­est and ad­joins the coun­try of Śikni in the south. Cross­ing the Oxus River to the south, it reaches the coun­try of Dharma- sthiti, the coun­try of Madakh­shān, the coun­try of Yamgān, the coun­try of Kurān, the coun­try of Hi­matala, the coun­try of Pārghar, the coun­try of Kishm, the coun­try of Rāhula, the coun­try of Ārhan, and the coun­try of Mun­gān. To the south­east of the coun­try of War­wālīz are the coun­tries of Khost and An­darāb. Ac­counts of these coun­tries may be found in the de­scrip­tions of my re­turn jour­ney.

[0872b23] 活國西南至縛伽浪國。[0872b24] 縛伽浪國，東西五十餘里，南北二百餘里。國大都城周十餘里。

To the south­w­est of the coun­try of War­wālīz is the coun­try of Bagh­lan. The coun­try of Bagh­lan is more than fifty li from east to west and over two hun­dred li from south to north; its cap­ital city is more than ten li in cir­cuit.

[0872b25] 南至紇露悉泯健國。[0872b26] 紇露悉泯健國，周千餘里。國大都城周十四五里。

To the south is the coun­try of Hrum-Sim­ingān. The coun­try of Hrum-Sim­ingān is over one thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit.

[0872b27] 西北至忽懍國。[0872b28] 忽懍國，周八百餘里。國大都城周五六里。伽藍十餘所，僧徒五百餘人。

To the south­w­est is the coun­try of Khulm. The coun­try of Khulm is over eight hun­dred li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is five or six li in cir­cuit. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over five hun­dred monks.

[0872b29] 西至縛喝國。[0872c01] 縛喝國，東西八百餘里，南北四百餘里。北臨縛芻河。國大都城周二十餘里，人皆謂之小王舍城也。其城雖固，居人甚少。土地所產，物類尤多，水陸諸花，難以備舉。伽藍百有餘所，僧徒三千餘人，並皆習學小乘法教。

To the west is the coun­try of Bak­tra. The coun­try of Bak­tra is more than eight hun­dred li from east to west and over four hun­dred li from south to north, bordered by the Oxus River on the north. Its cap­ital city, which is more than twenty li in cir­cuit, is pop­ularly known as Smal­ler Rā­jagṛha. It is a strongly for­ti­fied city but sparsely pop­u­lated. There are a great many vari­et­ies of nat­ive products and the ter­restrial and aquatic flowers are too many to be enu­mer­ated. There are more than one hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with over three thou­sand monks, all of whom study and prac­tice the Hinay­ana teach­ings.

城外西南有納縛(唐言新)僧伽藍，此國先王之所建也。大雪山北作論諸師，唯此伽藍美業不替。其佛像則瑩以名珍，堂宇乃飾之奇寶。故諸國君長，利之以攻劫。此伽藍素有毘沙門天像，靈鑒可恃，冥加守衛。近突厥葉護可汗子肆葉護可汗，傾其部落，率其戎旅，奄襲伽藍，欲圖珍寶。去此不遠，屯軍野次，其夜夢見毘沙門天曰：「汝有何力，敢壞伽藍？」因以長戟，貫徹胸背。可汗驚悟，便苦心痛，遂告群屬所夢咎徵，馳請眾僧，方申懺謝，未及返命，已從殞歿。

To the south­w­est out­side the city is New Mon­as­tery, built by a pre­vi­ous king of this coun­try. This is the only mon­as­tery north of the Great Snow Moun­tains in which vari­ous Buddhist com­ment­at­ors have worked con­tinu­ously without in­ter­mis­sion. The Buddha’s im­age is ad­orned with fam­ous jew­els and the halls are dec­or­ated with rare pre­cious sub­stances. For this reason the rulers of vari­ous coun­tries at­tacked the mon­as­tery in or­der to cap­ture the valu­ables. In the mon­as­tery there is a statue of the deity Vaiśravaṇa, who is re­li­able in his spir­itual power and serves as a guard­ian of the mon­as­tery in a hid­den sense. Re­cently the Turk­ish Shehu Khan’s son, named Si Shehu Khan, mo­bil­iz­ing all the forces of his tribe and com­mand­ing his army, launched a sur­prise at­tack on the mon­as­tery and at­temp­ted to seize the jew­els. Not far away from the mon­as­tery he camped with his troops. Dur­ing the night he dreamed of Vaiśravaṇa, who said to him, “What power do you have that you dare to dev­ast­ate the mon­as­tery?” So say­ing, he thrust his spear through the Khan’s chest. Wak­ing in ter­ror, the Khan felt an acute heartache and told his sub­or­din­ates about his evil dream. Then he hur­riedly sent mes­sen­gers to in­vite the monks so that he might con­fess his wicked­ness in their pres­ence, but he died be­fore the mes­sen­gers re­turned.

[0872c16] 伽藍內南佛堂中有佛澡罐，量可斗餘；雜色炫燿，金石難名。又有佛牙，其長寸餘，廣八九分，色黃白，質光淨。又有佛掃箒，迦奢草作也，長餘二尺，圍可七寸，其把以雜寶飾之。凡此三物，每至六齋，法俗咸會，陳設供養，至誠所感，或放光明。[0872c23] 伽藍北有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，金剛泥塗，眾寶廁飾。中有舍利，時燭靈光。

In the south­ern buddha hall of this mon­as­tery there is a Buddha’s bathing pot of about one dou (1 deca­l­iter) in ca­pa­city. It is of a varie­gated color and dazzlingly bril­liant, and it is dif­fi­cult to say whether it is made of metal or of stone. There is also a Buddha’s tooth relic about one inch long and eight or nine fen (1 fen = 1/10 of an inch) wide. It is yel­low­ish-white in color and bright and clean in tex­ture. There is also a Buddha’s broom, made of kāśa grass, about two feet long and seven inches around, the handle ad­orned vari­ous pre­cious sub­stances. These three art­icles are al­ways shown on the six fast days to the as­sembly of monks and laypeople, who make of­fer­ings to them. When moved by the sin­cer­ity of the de­votees these art­icles may emit a bril­liant light. To the north of the mon­as­tery there is a stupa over two hun­dred feet in height, plastered with dia­monds and dec­or­ated with vari­ous pre­cious sub­stances. A piece of relic bone is en­shrined in the stupa, which of­ten is­sues a di­vine light.

[0872c25] 伽藍西南有一精廬，建立已來，多歷年所。遠方輻湊，高才類聚，證四果者，難以詳舉。故諸羅漢將入涅槃，示現神通，眾所知識，乃有建立，諸窣堵波基跡相隣，數百餘矣。雖證聖果，終無神變，蓋亦千計，不樹封記。今僧徒百餘人，夙夜匪懈，凡聖難測。

To the south­w­est of the mon­as­tery there is a vi­hāra (temple) that was built many years ago. Nu­mer­ous learned monks con­greg­ated at this mon­as­tery from dis­tant places, and it is dif­fi­cult to num­ber those who were ar­hats (saints). There­fore only those ar­hats who had mani­fes­ted su­per­nat­ural powers at the time of en­ter­ing nir­vana and had be­come well known to the monks had stu­pas built for them. These were a hun­dred in num­ber, with their bases very close to­gether. Al­though those monks who had at­tained saint­hood were also numbered by the thou­sand no me­mori­als were erec­ted for them, as they did not show su­per­nat­ural powers at death. Now there are over a hun­dred monks, who work hard day and night for spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion, but it is dif­fi­cult to know who is an or­din­ary monk and who is a saint.

[0873a02] 大城西北五十餘里至提謂城，城北四十餘里有波利城。城中各有一窣堵波，高餘三丈。

Over fifty li to the north­w­est of the cap­ital is the city of Trapuṣa, and over forty li to the north of this city is the city of Bhal­lika. In each of the two cit­ies there is a stupa more than thirty feet in height.

昔者如來初證佛果，起菩提樹，方詣鹿園。時二長者遇被威光，隨其行路之資，遂獻麨蜜，世尊為說人天之福，最初得聞五戒十善也。既聞法誨，請所供養，如來遂授其髮、爪焉。二長者將還本國，請禮敬之儀式。如來以僧伽胝(舊曰僧祇梨，訛也)，方疊布下，次欝多羅僧，次僧却崎(舊曰僧祇支，訛也)，又覆鉢，竪錫杖，如是次第，為窣堵波。二人承命，各還其城，擬儀聖旨，式修崇建，斯則釋迦法中最初窣堵波也。

When the Tathāgata first real­ized buddha­hood, he rose from his seat un­der the bodhi tree. When he was about to go to the Deer Park, the two eld­ers [Trapuṣa and Bhal­lika] met him in his majestic glory and offered him some parched grain and honey out of their trav­el­ing pro­vi­sions. The World-honored One spoke to them on the blessed­ness ac­quired by hu­man and heav­enly be­ings, and they were the first to hear the five pre­cepts and the ten good deeds. After hav­ing heard the in­struc­tions on the Dharma they re­ques­ted some­thing for them to wor­ship. Then the Tathāgata gave them some of his hair and nail par­ings to take back home. As they asked about the man­ner of ven­er­at­ing these rel­ics, the Tathāgata fol­ded his samghāti (double robe; in­cor­rectly tran­scribed as sen­gqili in olden times) into a square and spread it on the ground, and he did the same with his ut­tarāsaṅga (up­per robe) and samkakṣikā (side-cov­er­ing vest; in­cor­rectly tran­scribed as sen­gq­izhi in olden times). Then he placed his in­ver­ted alms­bowl on the robes and set his pew­ter staff on top of the bowl to make the shape of a stupa. The two men re­turned to their re­spect­ive cit­ies and each built a stupa after the pat­ternn shown by the holy Buddha. This was the pro­to­type of the stu­pas built by the Buddhists ac­cord­ing to the teach­ings of the Buddha.

[0873a14] 城西七十餘里有窣堵波，高餘二丈，昔迦葉波佛時之所建也。

More than sev­enty li to the west of the city is a stupa over twenty feet in height, which had been built long ago at the time of Kāśyapa Buddha.

[0873a15] 從大城西南入雪山阿，至銳秣陀國。[0873a17] 銳秣陀國，東西五六十里，南北百餘里。國大都城周十餘里。

Pro­ceed­ing south­w­est from the cap­ital city, one enters a nook of the Snow Moun­tains and reaches the coun­try of Zu­mathān. The coun­try of Zu­mathān is fifty or sixty li from east to west and over one hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing more than ten li in cir­cuit.

[0873a18] 西南至胡寔健國。[0873a19] 胡寔健國，東西五百餘里，南北千餘里。國大都城。周二十餘里。多山川，出善馬。

Pro­ceed­ing south­w­est one reaches the coun­try of Gūzgānān. The coun­try of Gūzgānān is more than five hun­dred li from east to west and over one thou­sand li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing more than twenty li in cir­cuit. This coun­try has many moun­tains and rivers and pro­duces good horses.

[0873a20] 西北至呾剌健國。[0873a22] 呾剌健國，東西五百餘里，南北五六十里。國大都城周十餘里。西接波剌斯國界。

Pro­ceed­ing north­w­est one reaches the coun­try of Talaqān. The coun­try of Talaqān is over five hun­dred li from east to west and fifty or sixty li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing more than ten li in cir­cuit. It bor­ders on the coun­try of Per­sia in the west.

[0873a23] 從縛喝國南行百餘里，至揭職國。[0873a25] 揭職國，東西五百餘里，南北三百餘里。國大都城周四五里，土地磽确陵阜連屬。少花果，多菽、麥。氣序寒烈，風俗剛猛。伽藍十餘所，僧徒三百餘人，並學小乘教說一切有部。

Go­ing south from the coun­try of Bak­tra for more than one hun­dred li, I ar­rived at the coun­try of Ka­cik. The coun­try of Ka­cik is more than five hun­dred li from east to west and over three hun­dred li from south to north, its cap­ital city be­ing four or five li in cir­cuit. The soil is hard and in­fer­tile, with hills and mounds con­nect­ing to one an­other. There are few flowers or fruit but much pulse and wheat. The cli­mate is severely cold and the people are harsh and fierce by cus­tom. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over three hun­dred monks, all of whom study the Sar­vāstivāda school of the Hinay­ana teach­ings.

[0873a29] 東南入大雪山，山谷高深，峯巖危險，風雪相繼，盛夏合凍，積雪彌谷，蹊徑難涉。山神鬼魅，暴縱妖祟°，群盜橫行，殺害為務。

Pro­ceed­ing south­east one enters the Great Snow Moun­tains. The moun­tains are high and the val­leys deep, and the peaks and cliffs are fraught with danger. Wind and snow­fall fol­low each other and even at the height of sum­mer it is cold to the point of freez­ing. Snow heaps up in the val­leys and the foot­path is hard to walk on. Moun­tain deit­ies and evil ghosts, when en­raged, send forth mon­strous sprites to cre­ate havoc. It is also in­fes­ted with gangs of brig­ands, whose busi­ness is murder.

[0873b02] 行六百餘里，出都貨邏國境，至梵衍那國。[0873b04] 梵衍那國，東西二千餘里，南北三百餘里，在雪山之中也。人依山谷，逐勢邑居。國大都城據崖跨谷，長六七里，北背高巖，有宿麥，少花果，宜畜牧，多羊馬。氣序寒烈，風俗剛獷，多衣皮褐，亦其所宜。文字、風教，貨幣°之用，同都貨邏國。語言少異，儀貌大同。淳信之心，特甚隣國。上自三寶，下至百神，莫不輸誠，竭心宗敬。商估往來者，天神現徵祥，示祟變，求福德。伽藍數十所，僧徒數千人，宗學小乘說出世部。

Go­ing for more than six hun­dred li, I came out of the ter­rit­ory of Tukhāra coun­try and reached the coun­try of Bāmīyāna. The coun­try of Bāmīyāna is more than two thou­sand li from east to west and over three hun­dred li from south to north, be­ing situ­ated among the Snow Moun­tains. The people lived on the slopes of the val­leys and gradu­ally be­came town-dwell­ers. The cap­ital city lies upon a cliff and stretches across a val­ley six or seven li in length, with a lofty pre­cip­ice at its back on the north. It pro­duces winter wheat but few flowers and fruit. It is fit for cattle breed­ing and there are many sheep and horses. The cli­mate is severely cold and the cus­toms are harsh and rude. The people mostly wear fur and hempen clothes, which are suit­able for them. The writ­ten lan­guage, so­cial in­sti­tu­tions, and cur­rency are the same as those in Tukhāra. The spoken lan­guage is slightly dif­fer­ent but the man­ners and fea­tures of the people are gen­er­ally the same. Their mind of pure faith is far bet­ter than that of the people in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. They wor­ship the Triple Gem with ut­most sin­cer­ity and ven­er­ate all gods down to the vari­ous deit­ies. When mer­chants com­ing and go­ing hap­pen to wit­ness vis­ions of heav­enly deit­ies, whether as good omens or as pre­dic­tions of dis­aster, they wor­ship the deit­ies to pray for blessed­ness. There are sev­eral tens of mon­as­ter­ies with sev­eral thou­sand monks, who fol­low the Hinay­ana teach­ings of the Lokot­tara­vāda school.

[0873b13] 王城東北山阿有立佛石像，高百四五十尺，金色晃曜，寶飾煥爛。東有伽藍，此國先王之所建也。伽藍東有鍮石釋迦佛立像，高百餘尺，分身別鑄，總合成立。

To the north­east of the royal city, at a corner of the moun­tains, there is a rock statue of the stand­ing Buddha, one hun­dred forty or fifty feet in height, of a dazzling golden color and ad­orned with bril­liant gems. To the east there is a mon­as­tery built by a pre­vi­ous king of the coun­try. To the east of the mon­as­tery there is a cop­per statue of the stand­ing Buddha, more than one hun­dred feet tall. It was cast in sep­ar­ate pieces and then wel­ded to­gether into shape.

[0873b18] 城東二三里伽藍中有佛入涅槃臥像，長千餘尺。其王每此設無遮大會，上自妻子，下至國珍，府庫既傾，復以身施，群官僚佐就僧酬贖，若此者以為所務矣。

In the mon­as­tery situ­ated two or three li to the east of the city there is an im­age of the re­cum­bent Buddha, more than one thou­sand feet long, in the pos­ture of en­ter­ing nir­vana. At this place the king of­ten con­vened the quin­quen­nial as­sembly, in which he offered everything from his queen down to the na­tional treas­ures as alms to the monks. When the state re­pos­it­ory was ex­hausted he gave him­self up to the monks, and then his of­fi­cials paid ransom to the monks to re­deem the king. This prac­tice has be­come the king’s reg­u­lar duty.

[0873b22] 臥像伽藍東南行二百餘里，度大雪山，東至小川澤，泉池澄鏡，林樹青葱。有僧伽藍，中有佛齒及劫初時獨覺齒，長餘五寸，廣減四寸；復有金輪王齒，長三寸，廣二寸；商諾迦縛娑(舊曰商那和修，訛也)大阿羅漢所持鐵鉢，量可八九升。凡三賢聖遺物，並以黃金緘封。

Go­ing from the mon­as­tery of the im­age of the re­cum­bent Buddha to­ward the south­east for over two hun­dred li, I crossed the Great Snow Moun­tains and reached the Small Marsh­land in the east, where the wa­ter of the springs and ponds is as clear and lu­cid as a mir­ror, with lux­uri­ant trees of green fo­liage. There is a mon­as­tery in which are pre­served a tooth relic of the Buddha and a tooth of a pratyeka­buddha who lived at the be­gin­ning of the present kcd­pct (eon), more than five inches long and less than four inches wide. There is also a tooth of a gold wheel king, three inches long and two inches wide, as well as the iron alms­bowl used by the great ar­hat Sāṇakavāsa (in­cor­rectly tran­scribed as Shangna-hexiu in olden times), with a ca­pa­city of eight or nine sheng (liter). These three kinds of rel­ics left by the holy ones are sealed up in golden con­tain­ers.

又有商諾迦縛娑九條僧伽胝衣，絳赤色，設諾迦草皮之所績成也。商諾迦縛娑者，阿難弟子也，在先身中，以設諾迦草衣，於解安居日，持施眾僧。承茲福力，於五百身中陰、生陰，恒服此衣。以最後身，從胎俱出，身既漸長，衣亦隨廣；及阿難之度出家也，其衣變為法服；及受具戒，更變為九條僧伽胝。將證寂滅，入邊際定，發智願力，留此袈裟，盡釋迦遺法。法盡之後，方乃變壞。今已少損，信有徵矣。

There is also pre­served a piece of Śāṇakavāsa’s samghāti robe, con­sist­ing of nine stripes of a dark red color. It was made of the cloth woven with the fiber of the śāṇaka (hemp) plant. Sāṇakavāsa was a dis­ciple of Ān­anda. In a former life he presen­ted a piece of hempen robe to the monks on the last day of the sum­mer re­treat. Through this mer­it­ori­ous deed he was born five hun­dred times al­ways wear­ing a hempen gar­ment, whether he was in the state of in­ter­me­di­ate ex­ist­ence or born into the hu­man world. In his last birth he was born wrapped in a hempen gar­ment, which en­larged with the growth of his body. When he was con­ver­ted to the Buddhist or­der by Ān­anda his gar­ment turned into a re­li­gious robe, and when he re­ceived full or­din­a­tion it be­came a samghāti robe of nine stripes. When he was about to real­ize nir­vana he entered the ul­ti­mate samādhi of per­fec­tion; through the power of his vow of wis­dom he left his robe to last in the world un­til the end of the be­queathed teach­ings of the Buddha. It will de­cay only after the ter­min­a­tion of the Dharma. It is now slightly di­min­ished, and this is evid­ence for the vera­city of the le­gend.

[0873c08] 從此東行入雪山，踰越黑嶺，至迦畢試國。[0873c10] 迦畢試國，周四千餘里，北背雪山，三陲黑嶺。國大都城周十餘里。宜穀、麥、多果、木，出善馬、欝金香。異方奇貨，多聚此國。氣序風寒，人性暴獷，言辭鄙[卄/執/衣]，婚姻雜亂。文字大同覩貨邏國。習俗、語言、風教頗異。服用毛[疊*毛]，衣兼皮褐。貨用金錢、銀錢及小銅錢，規矩模樣異於諸國。王，剎利種也，有智略，性勇烈，威懾隣境，統十餘國。愛育百姓，敬崇三寶，歲造丈八尺銀佛像，兼設無遮大會，周給貧窶，惠施鰥寡。伽藍百餘所，僧徒六千餘人，並多習學大乘法教。窣堵波、僧伽藍崇高弘敞°，廣博嚴淨。天祠數十所，異道千餘人，或露形，或塗灰，連絡髑髏，以為冠鬘。

Go­ing from here to the east and after cross­ing the Black Range, I reached the coun­try of Kāpiśī. The coun­try of Kāpiśī is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with the Snow Moun­tains at its back in the north and the Black Range sur­round­ing the three other sides. It is fit for grow­ing rice and wheat and there are plenty of fruit trees. It pro­duces good horses and aro­matic tur­meric. Rare com­mod­it­ies from dif­fer­ent places are mostly con­cen­trated in this coun­try. The cli­mate is windy and cold and the people are rude and rus­tic by nature. Their lan­guage is vul­gar and in­de­cent and they prac­tice mixed mar­riage. The writ­ten lan­guage is gen­er­ally the same as in the coun­try of Tukhāra but the cus­toms and spoken lan­guage and so­cial in­sti­tu­tions are quite dif­fer­ent. They wear woolen and cot­ton clothes and also use fur and hemp in mak­ing gar­ments. For cur­rency they use golden and sil­ver coins and small cop­pers, whose sizes and shapes dif­fer from those of other coun­tries. The king, who be­longs to the Suli tribe, is a man of strategy, brave and fiery by nature and feared by neigh­bor­ing re­gions; he has more than ten coun­tries un­der his domin­ion. He loves and nur­tures his sub­jects and ven­er­ates the Triple Gem. Every year he makes a sil­ver im­age of the Buddha, eight­een feet in height. He also holds a quin­quen­nial as­sembly for the dis­tri­bu­tion of char­ity to the poor and needy, and he gives alms to wid­ows and wid­owers. There are over one hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with more than six thou­sand monks, most of whom study the teach­ings of the Ma­hay­ana school. The stu­pas and mon­as­ter­ies are tall and spa­cious and are kept clean in a sol­emn man­ner. There are over ten deva temples with more than one thou­sand heretical be­liev­ers, who either go about na­ked or with dust smeared on their bod­ies; some wear strings of skulls as head or­na­ments.

[0873c23] 大城東三四里北山下有大伽藍，僧徒三百餘人，並學小乘法教。聞諸先志曰：昔健馱邏國迦膩色迦王威被隣國，化洽遠方，治兵廣地，至葱嶺東，河西蕃維畏威送質。迦膩色迦王既得質子，特加禮命，寒暑改館，冬居印度諸國，夏還迦畢試國，春、秋止健馱邏國。故質子三時住處，各建伽藍；今此伽藍即夏居之所建也。故諸屋壁，圖畫質子，容貌服飾，頗同中夏。其後得還本國，心存故居，雖阻山川，不替供養。故今僧眾，每至入安居、解安居，大興法會，為諸質子祈福樹善，相繼不絕，以至于今。

Three or four li to the east of the great city there is a large mon­as­tery at the foot of the north­ern moun­tain with over three hun­dred monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana schools. I heard some old people say that when King Kan­iṣka of the coun­try of Gand­hāra was on the throne, his prestige ex­ten­ded to the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries and his in­flu­ence reached dis­tant re­gions. He strengthened his mil­it­ary forces and ex­pan­ded his ter­rit­ory to the east of the Pamir Range. Out of fear of the king’s might, the lord of a Chinese vas­sal state west of the Yel­low River sent his son as host­age to the king. Upon re­ceiv­ing the host­age prince King Kan­iṣka treated him with spe­cial kind­ness and cour­tesy, provid­ing him with dif­fer­ent lodgings ac­cord­ing to the sea­sons. In the winter he stayed in vari­ous states in In­dia and in the sum­mer he re­turned to the coun­try of Kāpiśī, while in the spring and au­tumn he stayed in the coun­try of Gand­hāra. There­fore a mon­as­tery was built at each of these places where the host­age prince lived in the three dif­fer­ent sea­sons. This mon­as­tery was the one built at his sum­mer res­id­ence. Painted on the walls of the build­ings are pic­tures of the host­age prince, his fea­tures and cos­tume be­ing quite the same as those of the Chinese people. Af­ter­ward he was sent back to his own coun­try, but in memory of his old res­id­ences he con­tin­ued to send of­fer­ings to the mon­as­ter­ies without in­ter­rup­tion in spite of the obstacles of moun­tains and rivers. Now the monks of the mon­as­tery still per­form grand re­li­gious func­tions at the times of com­men­cing and dis­solv­ing the sum­mer re­treat to pray for blessed­ness and per­form mer­it­ori­ous deeds on be­half of the host­age prince, without cease up to the present time.

[0874a06] 伽藍佛院東門南大神王像右足下，坎地藏寶，質子之所藏也。故其銘曰：「伽藍朽壞，取以修治。」近有邊王，貪婪凶暴，聞此伽藍多藏珍寶，驅逐僧徒。方事發掘，神王冠中鸚鵡鳥像乃奮羽驚鳴，地為震動，王及軍人辟易僵仆，久而得起，謝咎以歸。

Un­der the right foot of the statue of the great deity at the south­ern side of the east gate of the buddha hall court­yard of the mon­as­tery, there was an un­der­ground treas­ure laid up by the host­age prince with an in­scrip­tion that reads, “When the mon­as­tery is in need of re­pair, take this treas­ure for its renov­a­tion.” Re­cently the king of a fron­tier coun­try, an av­ar­i­cious and cruel man, heard that there were plenty of jew­els and gems stored in the mon­as­tery. After he had ex­pelled the monks and was about to dig up the treas­ure, the fig­ure of a par­rot on the crown of the great deity vig­or­ously flapped its wings and screamed in a ter­rible man­ner, caus­ing an earth­quake. The king and his sol­diers were so frightened that they fain­ted and fell on the ground and it was a long time be­fore they came to, after which they apo­lo­get­ic­ally re­turned home.

[0874a12] 伽藍北嶺上有數石室，質子習定之處也。其中多藏雜寶，其側有銘，藥叉守衛。有欲開發取中寶者，此藥叉神變現異形，或作師子，或作蟒蛇、猛獸、毒虫，殊形震怒，以故無人敢得攻發。

On the moun­tain to the north of the mon­as­tery there are sev­eral caves in which the host­age prince prac­ticed med­it­a­tion. A large quant­ity of mis­cel­laneous valu­ables was stored in the caves, with an in­scrip­tion placed be­side them and guarded by a yakṣa (de­mon). Whenever any­one wished to open the caves to take away the treas­ure the yakṣa, through his su­per­nat­ural power, would ap­pear in dif­fer­ent forms: as a py­thon, a fierce an­imal, or a pois­on­ous in­sect, all greatly en­raged. There­fore no one dared to at­tempt to take the valu­ables by force.

[0874a16] 石室西二三里大山嶺上有觀自在菩薩像，有人至誠願見者，菩薩從其像中出妙色身，安慰行者。

On a great moun­tain two or three li to the west of the caves there is a statue of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. When any­body earn­estly wishes to see the bod­hisat­tva he ap­pears out of the statue in a grace­ful form to com­fort the de­votee.

[0874a19] 大城東南三十餘里至曷邏怙羅僧伽藍，傍有窣堵波，高百餘尺，或至齋日，時燭光明。覆鉢勢上石隙間流出黑香油，靜夜中時聞音樂之聲。聞諸先志曰：昔此國大臣遏邏怙邏之所建也。功既成已，於夜夢中有人告曰：「汝所建立窣堵波未有舍利，明旦有獻上者，宜從王請。」旦入朝進請曰：「不量庸昧，敢有願求。」王曰：「夫何所欲？」對曰：「今有先獻者，願垂恩賜。」王曰：「然。」

Over thirty li to the south­east of the great city is Rāhula Mon­as­tery. Be­side it there is a stupa more than one hun­dred feet in height that some­times emits a bril­liant light on fast days. From a crevice on the body of the stupa in the shape of an in­ver­ted alms­bowl black aro­matic oil oozes out, and on a quiet night one some­times hears the sound of mu­sic. I heard some old people say that it was built by Rāhula, a min­is­ter of this coun­try. When the con­struc­tion was com­pleted he dreamed that someone said to him, “In the stupa you have con­struc­ted there is no śarīra (relic bone) en­shrined. To­mor­row morn­ing someone will of­fer one to the king. You may as well ask the king for it.” The next morn­ing the min­is­ter went to court and said to the king, “May I have the im­pudence to beg a fa­vor from Your Majesty?” The king said, “What is your de­sire?” The min­is­ter asked, “Will Your Majesty grant me what is first offered to you today?” The king said, “Let it be so!”

遏邏怙羅佇立宮門，瞻望所至。俄有一人持舍利瓶，大臣問曰：「欲何獻上？」曰：「佛舍利。」大臣曰：「吾為爾守，宜先白王。」遏邏怙羅恐王珍貴舍利，追悔前恩，疾往伽藍，登窣堵波，至誠所感，其石覆鉢自開，安置舍利，已而疾出，尚拘衣襟。王使逐之，石已掩矣。故其隙間，流黑香油。

Rāhula then waited at the gate of the palace to see who was com­ing first, and in a mo­ment a man came with a bottle con­tain­ing a grain of śarīra. The min­is­ter in­quired of the man, “What are you go­ing to of­fer to the king?” The man said, “A buddha śarīra (relic).” The min­is­ter said, “I shall watch the śarīra for you while you go in to re­port first to the king.” Rāhula, fear­ing that the king might be re­luct­ant to part with the pre­cious śarīra and might go back on his prom­ise, quickly went to the mon­as­tery and climbed up on the stupa with such a pi­ous mind that the stupa in the shape of an in­ver­ted alms­bowl, moved by his earn­est­ness, opened by it­self so that he could de­posit the śarīra in­side. He then hur­riedly came out and the gus­set of his robe was caught by the clos­ing crevice. The king’s mes­sen­ger chased after the relic but the stone stupa had already closed. Thus black aro­matic oil oozed out from the crevice.

[0874b06] 城南四十餘里至霫(胥立反)蔽多伐剌°祠城。凡地大震，山崖崩墜，周此城界，無所動搖。

More than forty li to the south of the city is the City of Svetavat Temple. Whenever there is a big earth­quake and the moun­tains and pre­cip­ices col­lapse, noth­ing is shaken within the lim­its of this city.

[0874b09] 霫蔽多伐剌°祠城南三十餘里，至阿路猱(奴高反)山，崖嶺°峭峻，巖谷杳冥。其峯每歲增高數百尺，與漕矩吒國[禾*芻](士句反，下同)那呬羅山髣髴相望，便即崩墜。聞諸土俗曰：初，[禾*芻]那天神自遠而至，欲止此山。山神震怒，搖蕩谿谷。天神曰：「不欲相舍，故此傾動。少垂賓主，當盈財寶。吾今往漕矩吒國[禾*芻]那呬羅山，每歲至我受國王、大臣祀獻之時，宜相屬望。」故阿路猱山增高既已，尋即崩墜。

More than thirty li to the south of the City of Śvetavat Temple is Aruṇa Moun­tain, with its lofty peaks and cliffs and gloomy val­leys stretch­ing far. The top of the moun­tain in­creases every year by sev­eral hun­dred feet in height, as if to look at Śun­āśīra Moun­tain in the coun­try of Jāguda, and then it sud­denly col­lapses. I heard the local people say that when the deity Śunā first came here from a dis­tant place, he wished to stay at this moun­tain. Ter­ri­fied, the moun­tain god shook the rivu­lets in the val­leys. The deity said, “You do not wish me to take up lodging with you, and so you shook the earth. If you had shown me a little hos­pit­al­ity I would have filled your chest with riches and valu­ables. Now I am go­ing to Śun­āśīra Moun­tain in the coun­try of Jāguda. Every year at the time when I re­ceive wor­ship and of­fer­ings from the king and his min­is­ters, you may only look at me!” Thus Aruṇa Moun­tain in­creases to a height and then im­me­di­ately col­lapses.

[0874b19] 王城西北二百餘里至大雪山。山頂有池，請雨祈晴，隨求果願。聞諸先志曰：昔健馱邏國有阿羅漢，常受此池龍王供養。每至中食，以神通力，并坐繩床，凌虛而往。侍者沙彌密於繩床之下，攀援潛隱，而阿羅漢時至便往，至龍宮乃見沙彌，龍王因請留食。龍王以天甘露飯阿羅漢，以人間味而饌沙彌。阿羅漢飯食已訖，便為龍王說諸法要。沙彌如常為師滌器，器有餘粒，駭其香味，即起惡願，恨師忿龍：「願諸福力，於今悉現，斷此龍命，我自為王。」沙彌發是願時，龍王已覺頭痛矣。羅漢說法誨喻，龍王謝咎責躬；沙彌懷忿，未從誨謝。既還伽藍，至誠發願，福力所致，是夜命終，為大龍王，威猛奮發，遂來入池，殺龍王，居龍宮，有其部屬，總其統命。以宿願故，興暴風雨，摧拔樹木，欲壞伽藍。

More than two hun­dred li to the north­w­est of the royal city are the Great Snow Moun­tains, at the top of which there is a lake. Whenever people come here to pray for rain or fine weather their wishes are al­ways ful­filled. I heard some old people say that formerly there was an ar­hat in Gand­hāra, who al­ways re­ceived of­fer­ings of alms from the nāga king of this lake. Every day at the time of the mid­day meal he would sit on his fold­ing chair and fly through the air to the lake through su­per­nat­ural power. Once his at­tend­ant novice hid him­self be­low the fold­ing chair and the ar­hat went to the lake as usual when the time ar­rived for him to make the jour­ney. On ar­riv­ing at the nāga’s palace he dis­covered the novice, and so the nāga king also in­vited the novice to the meal. The nāga king offered heav­enly de­li­cious rice to en­ter­tain the ar­hat, while he gave the novice food of the hu­man world. When the meal was over the ar­hat preached the Dharma for the nāga king, and the novice washed his mas­ter’s alms­bowl, as usual. When he dis­covered some re­main­ing grains of rice in the bowl he was amazed by its fra­grance and he im­me­di­ately cher­ished a ma­lig­nant feel­ing against his mas­ter and the nāga king, say­ing, “May the power of whatever good deeds I have per­formed ap­pear to kill this nāga and let me be the king.” The mo­ment the novice ex­pressed this de­sire the nāga king felt a head­ache. After listen­ing to the ser­mons de­livered by the ar­hat, the nāga king re­pen­ted his mis­deed and blamed him­self, but the novice, deeply re­sent­ful, would not make a con­fes­sion nor ac­cept the nāga king’s apo­logy. Hav­ing re­turned to the mon­as­tery, the novice, by his earn­est de­sire and the power of his good deeds, died that night and was re­born as a great nāga king with majesty and valor. He came to the lake, killed the res­id­ent nāga king, oc­cu­pied the nāga palace, took pos­ses­sion of his sub­or­din­ates, and be­came the mas­ter of all. Out of his old in­dig­na­tion he caused a vi­ol­ent storm that up­rooted the trees, in­tend­ing to des­troy the mon­as­tery.

時迦膩色迦王怪而發問，其阿羅漢具以白王。王即為龍於雪山下立僧伽藍，建窣堵波，高百餘尺。龍懷宿忿，遂發風雨。王以弘濟為心，龍乘瞋毒作暴，僧伽藍、窣堵波六壞七成。迦膩色迦王恥功不成，欲填龍池，毀其居室，即興兵眾，至雪山下。時彼龍王深懷震懼，變作老婆羅門，叩王象而諫曰：「大王宿殖善本，多種勝因，得為人王，無思不服。今日何故與龍交爭？夫龍者，畜也，卑下惡類，然有大威，不可力競。乘雲馭風，蹈虛履水，非人力所制，豈王心所怒哉？王今舉國興兵，與一龍鬪，勝則王無伏遠之威，敗則王有非敵之恥。為王計者，宜可歸兵。」

At that time King Kan­iṣka, per­plexed by the ac­ci­dent, made in­quir­ies into the mat­ter and the ar­hat told him everything. The king then built a mon­as­tery at the foot of the Snow Moun­tains with a stupa over one hun­dred feet high for the nāga. Out of his old re­sent­ment the nāga sent forth wind and rain. The king cher­ished the mind of uni­ver­sal sal­va­tion but the nāga, out of his ma­lig­nance and hatred, caused storms six times to des­troy the mon­as­tery and stupa, but they were re­built seven times. King Kan­iṣka, ashamed of his fail­ure, in­ten­ded to fill up the nāga’s lake and de­mol­ish his dwell­ings. He mo­bil­ized his troops and came to the foot of the Snow Moun­tains. Deeply ter­ri­fied, the nāga king trans­formed him­self into the form of an old brah­man, hal­ted the king’s ele­phant, and offered a re­mon­strance to him, say­ing, ‘‘Be­cause, Great King, you have in the past per­formed good deeds and sowed many su­per­ior causes, you are now a king of hu­mans and no one dares to dis­obey you. Why do you con­tend with a nāga today? A nāga is an an­imal, and though of a base and evil spe­cies he still pos­sesses great power and can­not be sub­jug­ated by strength. He can ride on a piece of cloud and fly through the air, or tread upon empty space and walk over wa­ter, bey­ond the con­trol of hu­man power. What in­flu­ence can your an­ger pro­duce upon him? Now you have mo­bil­ized all of the mil­it­ary forces in the whole coun­try to fight with a nāga. Even if you win in the battle you will not gain the prestige that you achieve when you con­quer a dis­tant land; if you lose the war you will bring shame on your­self for be­ing un­able to de­feat your en­emy. It is in your own in­terest to with­draw your troops.”

迦膩色迦王未之從也。龍即還池，聲震雷動，暴風拔木，沙石如雨，雲霧晦冥，軍馬驚駭。王乃歸命三寶，請求加護，曰：「宿殖多福，得為人王，威懾強敵，統贍部洲°，今為龍畜所屈，誠乃我之薄福也。願諸福力，於今現前。」即於兩肩起大煙焰，龍退風靜，霧卷雲開。王令軍眾人擔一石，用填龍池。龍王還作婆羅門，重請王曰：「我是彼池龍王，懼威歸命，唯王悲愍，赦其前過。王以含育，覆燾生靈，如何於我獨加惡害？王若殺我，我之與王，俱墮惡道，王有斷命之罪，我懷怨讎之心，業報皎然，善惡明矣。」

King Kan­iṣka did not listen to this re­mon­strance so the nāga re­turned to his lake and caused a thun­der­storm and a hur­ricane that up­rooted the trees. Sand and stones rained down from the air, clouds and mist darkened the world, and the king’s troops and horses were frightened. The king then took refuge in the Triple Gem, beg­ging for pro­tec­tion, say­ing, “Be­cause I have done many good deeds in the past I am now a king of hu­man be­ings with mighty power to sub­due strong en­emies and rule over Jam­bud­vīpa. Now I am hu­mi­li­ated by this nāga an­imal, which shows that my blessed­ness is scanty. May whatever power I have gathered from do­ing good deeds be present at this very mo­ment!” Im­me­di­ately a huge flame arose from his shoulders, the nāga re­treated, the wind died down, and the mist and clouds dis­persed. The king ordered each sol­dier in his army to carry a piece of stone to fill up the nāga lake. The nāga king re­sumed the form of a brah­man and said again to the king, “I am the nāga king of this lake and, out of fear of your great power, I have come to pledge al­le­gi­ance to you. May the king take pity on me and for­give me for the faults I have com­mit­ted. You are a king who nour­ishes and pro­tects all liv­ing be­ings, so why should you do harm to me alone? If you kill me, we will both fall into the evil ways of ex­ist­ence, be­cause you will have com­mited the sin of tak­ing life, while I will have cher­ished a feel­ing of hatred and ven­geance in my mind. Karmic re­tri­bu­tion is ap­par­ent and shows plainly what is good and what is evil.”

王遂與龍明設要契，後更有犯，必不相赦。龍曰：「我以惡業，受身為龍，龍性猛惡，不能自持，瞋心或起，當忘所制。王今更立伽藍，不敢摧毀。每遣一人候望山嶺，黑雲若起，急擊揵槌，我聞其聲，惡心當息。」其王於是更修伽藍，建窣堵波，候望雲氣，於今不絕。[0875a08] 聞諸先志曰：窣堵波中有如來骨肉舍利，可一升餘，

The king then reached an agree­ment with the nāga that should the nāga com­mit an­other of­fense in the fu­ture, the king would cer­tainly not par­don him. The nāga said, “Be­cause of my evil karma done in the past I am now a nāga. As a nāga is vi­ol­ent by nature, I am un­able to re­strain my­self and in a fit of an­ger I may for­get about the ob­lig­a­tion. If you build an­other mon­as­tery I will dare not des­troy it again. Please al­ways send a guard to watch the peak of the moun­tain. If a black cloud arises he should at once strike an in­stru­ment. When I hear the sound I shall quench my evil mind.” The king then con­struc­ted an­other mon­as­tery to­gether with a stupa, and a guard was sta­tioned to watch to see if any black cloud ap­peared. This is still done without in­ter­rup­tion. I heard some old people say that in­side the stupa there was pre­served about one sheng of bone and flesh rel­ics of the Tathāgata.

神變之事，難以詳述。一時中窣堵波內忽有煙起，少間便出猛焰，時人謂窣堵波已從火燼，瞻仰良久，火滅煙消，乃見舍利如白珠幡，循環表柱，宛轉而上，升高雲際，縈旋而下。

Mar­velous events are dif­fi­cult to re­late in de­tail. Once smoke sud­denly arose from in­side the stupa, and in a mo­ment ra­ging flames burst out of it. The people thought that the stupa must have been con­sumed by the fire, but after look­ing at it for a long time, when the smoke and flames had van­ished, they saw the rel­ics re­sem­bling a streamer of white pearls, wind­ing up­wards around an or­na­mental pil­lar, up to the clouds and whirl­ing down again.

[0875a14] 王城西北大河南岸舊王伽藍內，有釋迦菩薩弱齡齠齓，長餘一寸。其伽藍東南有一伽藍，亦名舊王，有如來頂骨一片，面廣寸餘，其色黃白，髮孔分明。又有如來髮，髮色青紺，螺旋右縈，引長尺餘，卷可半寸。凡此三事，每至六齋，王及大臣散花供養。

In Old Royal Mon­as­tery on the south­ern bank of the great river in the north­w­est of the royal city is a de­cidu­ous tooth of Śākyamuni Bod­hisat­tva about one inch long. To the south­east of this mon­as­tery there is an­other one, also called Old Royal Mon­as­tery, in which is pre­served a piece of the Tathāgata’s skull bone about one inch broad, yel­low­ish white in color, with dis­tinct­ive hair pores. There is also a hair of the Tathāgata’s head, dark purple in color, curled up right­ward about half an inch long, but when ex­ten­ded it meas­ures about one foot. These three ob­jects are wor­shiped with scat­ter­ing of flowers by the king and his min­is­ters on the six fast days of every month.

[0875a20] 頂骨伽藍西南有舊王妃伽藍，中有金銅窣堵波，高百餘尺。聞諸土俗曰：其窣堵波中有佛舍利升餘，每月十五日，其夜便放圓光，燭燿露盤，聯暉達曙，其光漸斂，入窣堵波。

To the south­w­est of this skull bone mon­as­tery is Old Queen’s Mon­as­tery, in which there is a gilt cop­per stupa more than one hun­dred feet in height. I heard some local people say that it con­tained over one sheng of the Buddha’s relic bones, from which on the night of the fif­teenth day of every month emits a round light shin­ing con­tinu­ously upon the dew basin of the stupa which gradu­ally fades into it at dawn.

[0875a24] 城西南有比羅娑洛山(唐言象堅)。山神作象形，故曰象堅也。昔如來在世，象堅神奉請世尊及千二百大阿羅漢，山巔有大盤石，如來即之，受神供養。其後無憂王即盤石上起窣堵波，高百餘尺，今人謂之象堅窣堵波也。亦云中有如來舍利，可一升餘。

To the south­w­est of the city is Pilusāra (“Strong Ele­phant”) Moun­tain. It is called Strong Ele­phant be­cause the tu­telary deity of the moun­tain as­sumed the form of an ele­phant. Formerly, when the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world, the deity of Strong Ele­phant Moun­tain once in­vited the World-honored One and his twelve hun­dred great ar­hats to the moun­tain. There was a large flat rock on the top of the moun­tain, where the Tathāgata took his seat and ac­cep­ted the alms offered by the deity. Af­ter­ward King Aśoka erec­ted a stupa more than one hun­dred feet high on the rock. This is what the people now call Strong Ele­phant Stupa, and it is also said that about one sheng of the Tathāgata’s relic bones is pre­served in it.

[0875b01] 象堅窣堵波北山巖下有一龍泉，是如來受神飯已，及阿羅漢於中漱口嚼楊枝，因即種根，今為茂林。後人於此建立伽藍，名鞞鐸佉(唐言嚼楊枝)。

Be­low the cliff to the north of Strong Ele­phant Stupa is a nāga spring, where the Tathāgata and ar­hats washed their mouths by chew­ing wil­low twigs after tak­ing the meal offered by the deity. They planted the twigs in the ground, where they took root and grew into the dense wood that it is now. Af­ter­ward, people built at this place a mon­as­tery called Pindaka (“Chew­ing Wil­low Twigs”) Mon­as­tery.

[0875b04] 自此東行六百餘里，山谷接連，峯巖峭峻，越黑嶺，入北印度境，至濫波國(北印度境)。

From here I traveled east for more than six hun­dred li through moun­tains and val­leys con­nec­ted with each other. The peaks and cliffs are steep and pre­cip­it­ous. After cross­ing the Black Range I entered the ter­rit­ory of North In­dia and reached the coun­try of Lampā (in the do­main of North In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第一

End of Fas­cicle I of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

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大唐西域記卷第二(三國)

Fas­cicle II: Three Coun­tries, from Lampā to Gand­hāra

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

濫波國

1. The Coun­try of Lampā

那揭羅曷國

2. The Coun­try of Nagarahāra

健馱邏國

3. The Coun­try of Gand­hāra

[0875b16] 詳夫天竺之稱，異議糺紛，舊云身毒，或曰賢豆，今從正音，宜云印度。印度之人，隨地稱國，殊方異俗，遙舉總名，語其所美，謂之印度。印度者，唐言月。月有多名，斯其一稱。言諸群生輪迴不息，無明長夜莫有司晨，其猶白日既隱，宵燭斯繼，雖有星光之照，豈如朗月之明。苟緣斯致，因而譬月。良以其土聖賢繼軌，導凡御物，如月照臨。由是義故，謂之印度。印度種姓族類群分，而婆羅門特為清貴，從其雅稱，傳以成俗，無云經界之別，總謂婆羅門國焉。

In a care­ful study we find that Tian­zhu is vari­antly des­ig­nated, caus­ing much con­fu­sion and per­plex­ity. Formerly it was called Shengdu, or Xi­andou, but now we should call it Indu (In­dia) ac­cord­ing to the right pro­nun­ci­ation. The people of In­dia use dif­fer­ent names for their re­spect­ive coun­tries, while people of dis­tant places with di­verse cus­toms gen­er­ally des­ig­nate the land that they ad­mire as In­dia. The word indu means “moon,” which has many names, and this is one of them. It means that liv­ing be­ings live and die in the wheel of trans­mi­gra­tion in the long night of ig­nor­ance cease­lessly, without a rooster to an­nounce the ad­vent of the dawn. When the sun has sunk candles con­tinue to give light in the night. Al­though the stars are shin­ing in the sky, how can they be as bril­liant as the clear moon? For this reason In­dia was com­pared to the moon. Be­cause saints and sages emerged one after an­other in that land to guide liv­ing be­ings and reg­u­late all af­fairs, just as the moon shines upon all tilings, it was called In­dia. In In­dia the people are di­vided into dif­fer­ent castes and clans, among whom the brah­mans are the noblest. Fol­low­ing their good name, tra­di­tion has des­ig­nated the whole land as the brahmanical coun­try, dis­reg­ard­ing the reg­u­lar lines of de­marc­a­tion.

[0875b27] 若其封疆之域，可得而言。五印度之境，周九萬餘里。三垂大海，北背雪山。北廣南狹，形如半月，畫野區分，七十餘國。時特暑熱，地多泉濕。北乃山阜隱軫，丘陵舃鹵；東則川野沃潤，疇壠膏腴；南方草木榮茂；西方土地磽确。斯大概也，可略言焉。

As re­gards the ter­rit­ory, we may say that the whole of In­dia, with its five parts, is over ninety thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with three sides fa­cing the sea and the Snow Moun­tains at its back in the north. It is wide in the north and nar­row in the south, in the shape of a cres­cent moon. The land is di­vided into more than sev­enty coun­tries. The cli­mate is par­tic­u­larly hot and the soil is mostly moist, with many springs. In the north there are many moun­tains and the hills are of sa­line-al­kaline soil. In the east the plain is rich and moist, and the cul­tiv­ated fields are pro­duct­ive. In the south ve­get­a­tion is lux­uri­ant, while in the west the soil is hard and bar­ren. Such is the gen­eral con­di­tion [of this vast coun­try] told in brief.

[0875c04] 夫數量之稱，謂踰繕那(舊曰由旬。又曰踰闍那，又曰由延，皆訛略也)。踰繕那者，自古聖王一日軍行也。舊傳一踰繕那四十里矣；印度國俗乃三十里；聖教所載唯十六里。窮微之數，分一踰繕那為八拘盧舍。拘盧舍者，謂大牛鳴聲所極聞，稱拘盧舍。分一拘盧舍為五百弓，分一弓為四肘，分一肘為二十四指，分一指節為七宿麥，乃至蝨、蟣、隙塵、牛毛、羊毛兔毫、金、水，次第七分，以至細塵，細塵七分，為極細塵。極細塵者，不可復析，析即歸空，故曰極微也。

For the meas­ure­ment of space there is the yojana. (In olden times it was called yonxim, yuzhena, or youyan, all in­cor­rect.) One yojana is the dis­tance covered by the an­cient royal army in one day’s time. Formerly it was said to be forty li, or thirty li ac­cord­ing to In­dian us­age, while in Buddhist texts it was coun­ted as only six­teen li. To di­vide it down to the in­fin­ites­imal, one yojana is di­vided into eight krośas, one krośa be­ing the dis­tance within which the moo­ing of a bull can be heard, one krośa into five hun­dred bows, one bow into four cu­bits, one cu­bit into twenty-four fin­gers, and one fin­ger joint into seven grains of winter wheat. Then the di­vi­sion goes on by sev­ens through the louse, the nit, the crevice dust, the ox hair, the sheep wool, the hare hair, the cop­per dust [particle], the wa­ter dust, down to the fine dust, and one fine dust [particle] is di­vided into seven ex­tremely fine dust [particles]. The ex­tremely fine dust is in­di­vis­ible; if di­vided it be­comes empti­ness. This is why it is called ex­tremely fine dust.

[0875c15] 若乃陰陽曆運，日月次舍，稱謂雖殊，時候無異，隨其星建，以標月名。時極短者，謂剎那也。百二十剎那為一呾剎那，六十呾剎那為一臘縛，三十臘縛為一牟呼栗多，五牟呼栗多為一時，六時合成一日一夜(晝三夜三)。居俗日夜分為八時(晝四夜四，於一一時各有四分)。月盈至滿謂之白分，月虧至晦謂之黑分，黑分或十四日、十五日，月有小大故也。黑前白後，合為一月。六月合為一行。日遊在內，北行也；日遊在外，南行也。總此二行，合為一歲。又分一歲以為六時：正月十六日至三月十五日，漸熱也；三月十六日至五月十五日，盛熱也；五月十六日至七月十五日，雨時也；七月十六日至九月十五日，茂時也；九月十六日至十一月十五日，漸寒也；十一月十六日至正月十五日，盛寒也。

Al­though the names of the al­tern­at­ing [peri­ods of] day and night and the emer­gence and dis­ap­pear­ance of the sun and moon are dif­fer­ent [from those used in China], there is no dif­fer­ence in the meas­ure­ment of time and sea­son. The months are named ac­cord­ing to the po­s­i­tion of the Big Dip­per. The briefest unit of time is called a kṣaṇa; one hun­dred twenty kṣaṇas make one tatkṣaṇa; sixty tatkṣaṇas make one lava; thirty lavas make one muhūrta; five muhūrtas make one kāla; and six kālas make one day and one night (three kālas in the day­time and three in the night). Sec­u­lar people di­vide one day and one night into eight kālas (four kālas in the day­time and four in the night, each be­ing sub­divided into four di­vi­sions). From the wax­ing moon to the full moon is known as the white di­vi­sion, and from the wan­ing moon to the last day of the month is called the black di­vi­sion. The black di­vi­sion has four­teen or fif­teen days, as the month may be “small” or “big.” The an­terior black di­vi­sion and the pos­terior white di­vi­sion con­sti­tute one month and six months make one year. When the sun moves in­side the ce­les­tial equator, it is the north­ern re­volu­tion, and when it moves out­side the ce­les­tial equator, it is the south­ern re­volu­tion. These two re­volu­tions con­sti­tute one year. The year is also di­vided into six sea­sons, namely, from the six­teenth day of the first month to the fif­teenth day of the third month is the sea­son of gradual heat; from the six­teenth day of the third month to the fif­teenth day of the fifth month is the sea­son of in­tense heat; from the six­teenth day of the fifth month to the fif­teenth day of the sev­enth month is the rainy sea­son; from the six­teenth day of the sev­enth month to the fif­teenth day of the ninth month is the sea­son of ex­uber­ance; from the six­teenth day of the ninth month to the fif­teenth day of the el­ev­enth month is the sea­son of gradual cold; and from the six­teenth day of the el­ev­enth month to the fif­teenth day of the first month is the sea­son of severe cold.

如來聖教歲為三時：正月十六日至五月十五日，熱時也；五月十六日至九月十五日，雨時也；九月十六日至正月十五日，寒時也。或為四時，春、夏、秋、冬也。春三月謂制呾羅月、吠舍佉月、逝瑟吒月，當此從正月十六日至四月十五日。夏三月謂頞沙荼月、室羅伐拏月、婆羅鉢陀月，當此從四月十六日至七月十五日。秋三月謂頞濕縛庾闍月、迦剌底迦月、末伽始羅月，當此從七月十六日至十月十五日。冬三月謂報沙月、磨袪月、頗勒窶拏月，當此從十月十六日至正月十五日。

Ac­cord­ing to the holy teach­ings of the Tathāgata, a year is di­vided into three sea­sons, namely, from the six­teenth day of the first month to the fif­teenth day of the fifth month is the hot sea­son; from the six­teenth day of the fifth month to the fif­teenth day of the ninth month is the rainy sea­son; and from the six­teenth day of the ninth month to the fif­teenth day of the first month is the cold sea­son. Or it is di­vided into four sea­sons, namely, spring, sum­mer, au­tumn, and winter. The three months of spring are called Caitra, Vaiśākha, and Jyeṣṭha, cor­res­pond­ing to the period from the six­teenth day of the first month to the fif­teenth day of the fourth month in China. The three months of sum­mer are called Āṣādha, Śravaṇa, and Bhādrapada, cor­res­pond­ing to the period from the six­teenth day of the fourth month to the fif­teenth day of the sev­enth month in China. The three months of au­tumn are known as Āśvay­uja, Kārt­tika, and Mār­gaśīrṣa, cor­res­pond­ing to the period from the six­teenth day of the sev­enth month to the fif­teenth day of the tenth month in China. The three months of winter are named Pauṣa, Māgha, and Phāl­guna, cor­res­pond­ing to the period from the six­teenth day of the tenth month to the fif­teenth day of the first month in China.

故印度僧徒依佛聖教坐兩安居，或前三月，或後三月。前三月當此從五月十六日至八月十五日，後三月當此從六月十六日至九月十五日。前代譯經律者，或云坐夏，或云坐臘，斯皆邊裔殊俗，不達中國正音，或方言未融，而傳譯有謬。又推如來入胎、初生、出家、成佛、涅槃日月，皆有參差，語在後記。

Thus, ac­cord­ing to the holy teach­ings of the Buddha, the monks of In­dia ob­serve the sum­mer re­treat dur­ing the rainy sea­son, either in the earlier three months or in the later three months. The earlier three months cor­res­pond to the period from the six­teenth day of the fifth month to the fif­teenth day of the eighth month in China, and the later three months cor­res­pond to the period from the six­teenth day of the sixth month to the fif­teenth day of the ninth month in China. Former trans­lat­ors of scrip­tures and Vinaya texts used the terms zuoxia or zuola (“to sit for the sum­mer or the an­nual re­treat”). This was be­cause they were out­land­ish people who did not un­der­stand the Chinese lan­guage cor­rectly or were not con­vers­ant with the dia­lects, and so they com­mit­ted mis­takes in their trans­la­tions. Moreover, there are di­ver­gences in the cal­cu­la­tion of the dates of the Buddha’s entry into his mother’s womb, birth, re­nun­ci­ation, en­light­en­ment, and nir­vana; this point will be dis­cussed later.

[0876a21] 若夫邑里閭閻，方城廣峙；街衢巷陌，曲徑盤迂，闤闠當塗，旗亭夾路。屠、釣、倡、優、魁膾、除糞，旌厥宅居，斥之邑外，行里往來，僻於路左。至於宅居之製，垣郭之作，地勢卑濕，城多壘塼，暨諸牆壁，或編竹木，室宇臺觀，板屋平頭，泥以石灰，覆以甎墼。諸異崇構，製同中夏。苫茅苫草，或塼或板，壁以石灰為飾，地塗牛糞為淨，時花散布，斯其異也。

As re­gards the towns and cit­ies, they have square city walls, which are broad and tall. The streets and lanes are nar­row and wind­ing, with stores fa­cing the roads and wine shops stand­ing be­side the streets. Butchers, fish­er­men, har­lots, act­ors, ex­e­cu­tion­ers, and scav­engers mark their houses with ban­ners and are not al­lowed to live in­side the cit­ies. When they come to town they have to sneak up and down along the left side of the road. Con­cern­ing the build­ing of res­id­en­tial houses and the con­struc­tion of the city walls, they are mostly built with bricks, as the ter­rain is low and hu­mid, while the walls of houses may be made of wattled bam­boo or wood. The roofs of houses, ter­races, and pa­vil­ions are made of planks, plastered with lime­stone and covered with bricks or adobe. Some of the lofty build­ings are sim­ilar in style to those in China. Cot­tages thatched with cogon grass or or­din­ary straw are built with bricks or planks and the walls are ad­orned with lime­stone. The floor is pur­i­fied by smear­ing it with cow dung and sea­sonal flowers are scattered over it. In this mat­ter they dif­fer [from Chinese cus­tom].

諸僧伽藍，頗極奇製。隅樓四起，重閣三層，榱梠棟梁，奇形彫鏤，戶牖垣牆，圖畫眾綵。黎庶之居，內侈外儉。

The mon­as­ter­ies are con­struc­ted in an ex­tremely splen­did man­ner. They have four corner towers and the halls have three tiers. The rafters, eaves, ridge­poles, and roof beams are carved with strange fig­ures. The doors, win­dows, and walls are painted with colored pic­tures. The houses of the com­mon people are os­ten­ta­tious in­side but plain and simple out­side.

隩室中堂，高廣有異，層臺重閣，形製不拘。門闢東戶，朝座東面。至於坐止，咸用繩床。王族、大人、士、庶、豪右，莊飾有殊，規矩無異。君王朝座，彌復高廣，珠璣間錯，謂師子床，敷以細[疊*毛]，蹈以寶机。凡百庶僚，隨其所好，刻彫異類，瑩飾奇珍。衣裳服玩，無所裁製，貴鮮白，輕雜綵。男則繞腰絡腋，橫巾右袒，女乃襜衣下垂，通肩總覆。頂為小髻，餘髮垂下。或有剪髭，別為詭俗。首冠花鬘，身佩瓔珞。其所服者，謂憍奢耶衣及[疊*毛]布等。憍奢耶者，野蠶絲也；叢摩衣，麻之類也；頷(?嚴反)鉢羅衣，織細羊毛也；褐剌縭衣，織野獸毛也。獸毛細耎，可得緝績，故以見珍，而充服用。

The in­ner cham­bers and main halls vary in their di­men­sions and the struc­tures of the tiered ter­races and multistor­ied pa­vil­ions have no fixed style, but the doors open to the east and the throne also faces east. For a seat on which to rest a rope bed (char­poy) is used. The royal fam­ily, great per­son­ages, of­fi­cials, com­mon­ers, and mag­nates ad­orn their seats in dif­fer­ent ways, but the struc­ture is the same in style. The sov­er­eign’s throne is ex­ceed­ingly high and wide and dec­or­ated with pearls. Called the lion seat, it is covered with fine cot­ton cloth and is moun­ted by means of a jeweled foot­stool. The or­din­ary of­fi­cials carve their seats in dif­fer­ent dec­or­at­ive pat­terns ac­cord­ing to their fancy and they or­na­ment them with rare gems. Both the up­per [clothes] and un­der­gar­ments, as well as or­na­mental garb, need no tail­or­ing. Pure white is the pre­ferred color, while mot­ley is held in no ac­count. The men wind a piece of cloth around the waist un­der the armpits and leave the right shoulder un­covered. The wo­men wear a cape that cov­ers both shoulders and hangs down loose. The hair on the top is combed into a small top­knot with the rest of the hair fall­ing down. Some men clip their mus­taches and have other strange fash­ions, such as wear­ing a gar­land on the head or a neck­lace on the body. For cloth­ing they use kauśeya and cot­ton cloth, kauśeya be­ing silk spun by wild silk­worms. The kṣauma (linen) cloth is made of hemp or sim­ilar fibers. The kam­bala is woven with fine sheep wool, while the hela cape (a sort of rain­coat?) is woven with the wool of a wild an­imal. As this wool is fine and soft and can be spun and woven, it is val­ued for mak­ing gar­ments.

其北印度，風土寒烈，短製褊衣，頗同胡服。外道服飾，紛雜異製，或衣孔雀羽尾，或飾髑髏瓔珞，或無服露形，或草板掩體，或拔髮斷髭，或蓬鬢椎髻，裳衣無定，赤白不恒。

In North In­dia, where the cli­mate is bit­terly cold, the people wear tight- fit­ting short jack­ets, quite sim­ilar to those of the Hu people. The cos­tumes of the heretics vary in style and are strangely made. They dress in pea­cock tails, or wear neck­laces of skulls, or go na­ked, or cover their bod­ies with grass or boards, or pluck their hair and clip their mus­taches, or have disheveled hair with a small top­knot. Their up­per [clothes] and un­der­gar­ments have no fixed style and the color may be red or white; there is no def­in­ite rule.

沙門法服，唯有三衣及僧却崎，泥縛些(桑箇反)那。三衣裁製，部執不同，或緣有寬狹，或葉有小大。僧却崎(唐言掩腋。舊曰僧祇支，訛也)，覆左肩，掩兩腋，左開右合，長裁過腰。泥縛些那(唐言裙。舊曰涅槃僧，訛也)，既無帶襻，其將服也，集衣為襵，束帶以縚，襵則諸部各異，色乃黃赤不同。剎帝利、婆羅門清素居簡，潔白儉約。國王、大臣服玩良異，花鬘寶冠以為首飾，環釧瓔珞而作身佩。其有富商、大賈，唯釧而已。人多徒跣，少有所履。染其牙齒，或赤或黑，齊髮穿耳，脩鼻大眼，斯其貌也。

The monks have only the three reg­u­lar robes, [the samghāti,] the samkakṣikā, and the nivāsana robes as their re­li­gious gar­ments. The dif­fer­ent sects have dif­fer­ent ways of mak­ing the three robes, of which the fringes may be broad or nar­row and the folds may be small or large. The samkakṣikā (known in Chinese as ‘‘armpit cover” and formerly tran­scribed as sen­gq­izhi in­cor­rectly) cov­ers the left shoulder and veils both armpits. It is open on the left and closed on the right side, reach­ing be­low the waist. Since the nivāsana (known in Chinese as “skirt” and formerly tran­scribed as niepanseng in­cor­rectly) has no strings for fasten­ing; it is worn by gath­er­ing it into pleats, which are tightened with a braid. The pleats are fol­ded in dif­fer­ent ways by dif­fer­ent sects and the color also dif­fers, either yel­low or red. People of the kṣat­riya (mil­it­ary and rul­ing class) and the brah­man (priestly class) castes are pure and simple in lodging and clean and frugal. The dress and or­na­ments of the kings and min­is­ters are very os­ten­ta­tious. Gar­lands and cor­on­ets stud­ded with gems are their he­ad­dresses, and rings, brace­lets, and neck­laces are their bod­ily or­na­ments. The wealthy mer­chants use only brace­lets. Most people go bare­foot; few wear shoes. They stain their teeth red or black, have closely cropped hair, pierce their ear­lobes, and have long noses and large eyes. Such are their out­ward fea­tures.

[0876c02] 夫其潔清自守，非矯其志。凡有饌食，必先盥洗，殘宿不再，食器不傳；瓦木之器，經用必棄；金、銀、銅、鐵，每加摩瑩。饌食既訖，嚼楊枝而為淨。澡漱未終，無相執觸。每有溲溺，必事澡灌。身塗諸香，所謂栴檀、欝金也。君王將浴，鼓奏絃歌。祭祀拜祠，沐浴盥洗。

They vol­un­tar­ily keep them­selves pure and clean, not by com­pul­sion. Be­fore tak­ing a meal they must wash their hands. Rem­nants and leftovers are not to be served again and food ves­sels are not passed from one per­son to an­other. Earth­en­ware and wooden utensils must be dis­carded after use, and golden, sil­ver, cop­per, or iron ves­sels are pol­ished each time after use. When the meal is over they chew wil­low twigs to cleanse [their mouths], and be­fore wash­ing and rins­ing their mouths they do not come into con­tact with one an­other. Each time after go­ing to de­fec­ate or ur­in­ate they must wash them­selves and daub their bod­ies with a fra­grant sub­stance, such as san­dal­wood or tur­meric. When the mon­arch is go­ing to take a bath mu­sic made by beat­ing drums and play­ing stringed in­stru­ments is per­formed, along with singing. Be­fore of­fer­ing sac­ri­fices to gods and wor­ship­ing at temples they take baths and wash them­selves.

[0876c09] 詳其文字，梵天所製，原始垂則，四十七言也。寓物合成，隨事轉用。流演枝派，其源浸廣，因地隨人，微有改變，語其大較，未異本源。而中印度特為詳正，辭調和雅，與天同音，氣韻清亮，為人軌則。隣境異國，習謬成訓，競趨澆俗，莫守淳風。

It is known that their writ­ing, com­posed of forty-seven let­ters, was in­ven­ted by the deva Brahma as an ori­ginal stand­ard for pos­ter­ity. These let­ters are com­bined to in­dic­ate ob­jects and used as ex­pres­sions for events. The ori­ginal [lan­guage] branched as it gradu­ally be­came widely used, and there are slight modi­fic­a­tions of it ac­cord­ing to place and people. As a lan­guage in gen­eral, it did not de­vi­ate from the ori­ginal source. The people of Cent­ral In­dia are par­tic­u­larly ac­cur­ate and cor­rect in speech, and their ex­pres­sions and tones are har­mo­ni­ous and el­eg­ant like the lan­guage of the devas. They speak ac­cur­ately in a clear voice and serve as a stand­ard for other people. The people of neigh­bor­ing lands and for­eign coun­tries be­came ac­cus­tomed to speak­ing in er­ro­neous ways un­til their mis­takes be­came ac­cep­ted as cor­rect, and they vied with one an­other in emu­lat­ing vul­gar­it­ies, not stick­ing to the pure and simple style.

[0876c14] 至於記言書事，各有司存。史誥總稱，謂尼羅蔽荼(唐言清藏)，善惡具舉，災祥備著。[0876c16] 而開蒙誘進，先導十二章。七歲之後，漸授五明大論：一曰聲明，釋詁訓字，詮目疏別。二工巧明，伎術機關，陰陽曆數。三醫方明，禁呪閑邪，藥石針艾。四謂因明，考定正邪，研覈真偽。五曰內明，究暢五乘因果妙理。

As re­gards their re­cords of say­ings and events, there are sep­ar­ate de­part­ments in charge of them. The an­nals and royal edicts are col­lect­ively called Nīlap­iṭa (Blue Col­lec­tion), in which good and bad events are re­cor­ded, and calam­it­ies as well as aus­pi­cious signs are noted down in de­tail. To be­gin the edu­ca­tion of their chil­dren and in­duce them to make pro­gress, they first guide them to learn the Book of Twelve Chapters; and when the chil­dren reach the age of seven, the great treat­ises of the five know­ledges are gradu­ally im­par­ted to them. The first is the know­ledge of gram­mar, which ex­plains the mean­ings of words and clas­si­fies them into dif­fer­ent groups. The second is the know­ledge of tech­nical skills, which teaches arts and mech­an­ics, the prin­ciples of yin and yang (neg­at­iv­ity and pos­it­iv­ity), and calendrical com­pu­ta­tion. The third is the know­ledge of medi­cine, in­clud­ing the ap­plic­a­tion of in­cant­a­tion, ex­or­cism, drugs, stone needles, and moxi­bus­tion. The fourth is the know­ledge of lo­gic, by which or­tho­dox and het­ero­dox are as­cer­tained and truth is dif­fer­en­ti­ated from false­hood. The fifth is the in­ner know­ledge, which thor­oughly in­vest­ig­ates the teach­ings of the five vehicles and the subtle the­ory of cause and ef­fect.

[0876c21] 其婆羅門學四吠陀論：(舊曰毘陀，訛也)。一曰壽，謂養生繕性。二曰祠，謂享祭祈禱。三曰平，謂禮儀、占卜、兵法、軍陣。四曰術，謂異能、伎數、禁呪、醫方。

The brah­mans study the Four Ve­das (formerly tran­scribed as Pituo in­cor­rectly). The first treat­ise is on longev­ity, deal­ing with the pre­ser­va­tion of good health and the re­ad­just­ment of men­tal­ity. The second is on wor­ship, that is, of­fer­ing sac­ri­fices and say­ing pray­ers. The third is on equity, con­cern­ing ce­re­mo­nial rituals, divin­a­tion, mil­it­ary tac­tics, and battle form­a­tion. The fourth is on prac­tical arts, which teaches un­usual abil­it­ies, crafts and nu­mer­a­tion, in­cant­a­tion, and med­ical pre­scrip­tions.

[0876c24] 師必博究精微，貫窮玄奧，示之大義，導以微言，提撕善誘，彫朽°勵薄。若乃識量通敏，志懷逋逸，則拘縶反開，業成後已。年方三十，志立學成，既居祿位，先酬師德。

The teach­ers must be learned in the es­sence [of these treat­ises] and thor­oughly mas­ter the pro­found mys­ter­ies. They ex­pound the car­dinal prin­ciples [to the pu­pils] and teach them with suc­cinct but pen­et­rat­ing ex­pres­sions. The teach­ers sum­mon up their pu­pils’ en­ergy to study and tact­fully in­duce them to pro­gress. They in­struct the dull and en­cour­age the less tal­en­ted. Those dis­ciples who are in­tel­li­gent and acute by nature and have sens­ible views, in­tend­ing to live in se­clu­sion, con­fine them­selves, and lock the door against the out­side un­til they com­plete their stud­ies. On reach­ing the age of thirty, they have fixed their minds and gained achieve­ments in learn­ing. After hav­ing been ap­poin­ted to of­fi­cial posts, the first thing they do is to re­pay the kind­ness of their teach­ers.

其有博古好雅，肥遁居貞、沈浮物外，逍遙事表，寵辱不驚，聲問以遠，君王雅尚，莫能屈迹。然而國重聰叡，俗貴高明，褒贊既隆，禮命亦重。故能強志篤學，忘疲遊藝，訪道依仁，不遠千里。家雖豪富，志均羈旅，口腹之資，巡匃以濟，有貴知道，無恥匱財。娛遊、惰業、媮食、靡衣，既無令德，又非時習，恥辱俱至，醜聲載揚。

There are some people who are con­vers­ant with an­cient lore and fond of clas­sic el­eg­ance, liv­ing in se­clu­sion to pre­serve their up­right­ness. They drift along the course of life without worldly in­volve­ment and re­main free and un­fettered, above hu­man af­fairs. They are in­dif­fer­ent to honor and hu­mi­li­ation and their renown spreads far. The rulers, even while treat­ing such people with cour­tesy, can­not win them over to serve at court. But the state hon­ors wise and learned people and the [com­mon] people re­spect those who are noble and in­tel­li­gent, ac­cord­ing them high praise and treat­ing them with per­fect etiquette. There­fore people can de­vote their at­ten­tion to learn­ing without feel­ing fa­tigue and they travel about seek­ing know­ledge and vis­it­ing mas­ters of the Way in or­der to rely on the vir­tu­ous ones, not count­ing a thou­sand li as a long jour­ney Al­though their fam­il­ies may be rich, such people make up their minds to live wan­der­ing about the world, beg­ging for their food wherever they go. They value the ac­quis­i­tion of truth and do not deem poverty a dis­grace. Those people who lead a life of amuse­ment and dis­sip­a­tion, eat­ing de­li­cious food and wear­ing ex­pens­ive gar­ments, neither have vir­tue nor study con­stantly; they in­cur shame and dis­grace upon them­selves and their ill re­pute spreads far and wide.

[0877a13] 如來理教，隨類得解，去聖悠遠，正法醇醨，任其見解之心，俱獲聞智之悟。部執峯峙，諍論波濤，異學專門，殊途同致。十有八部，各擅鋒銳；大小二乘，居止區別。其有宴默思惟，經行住立，定慧悠隔，諠靜良殊，隨其眾居，各製科防。無云律、論，經是佛經，講宣一部，乃免僧知事；二部，加上房資具；三部，差侍者祇承；四部，給淨人役使；五部，則行乘象輿；六部，又導從周衛。

The Tathāgata’s teach­ings may be com­pre­hen­ded by each listener ac­cord­ing to his own type of men­tal­ity, and as we are now far away from the time of the holy Buddha some of his right Dharma is still pure and some has be­come de­filed. With the fac­ulty of un­der­stand­ing all people can ac­quire the en­light­en­ment of wis­dom. There are dif­fer­ent sects, like peaks, stand­ing against each other and de­bat­ing vari­ous view­points, as vehe­mently as crash­ing waves. They study di­ver­gent spe­cific sub­jects but they all lead to the same goal. Each of the eight­een sects is ex­pert in ar­gu­ment­a­tion, us­ing sharp and in­cis­ive words. The man­ner of liv­ing of the Ma­hay­ana (Great Vehicle) fol­low­ers and that of the Hinay­ana (Small Vehicle) fol­low­ers dif­fer from each other. They en­gage them­selves in si­lent med­it­a­tion, or in walk­ing to and fro, or in stand­ing still. Samādhi (in­tense men­tal con­cen­tra­tion) and pra­jñā (wis­dom) are far apart and nois­i­ness and calmness are quite dif­fer­ent. Each com­munity of monks has laid down its own re­strict­ive rules and reg­u­la­tions. All texts, whether be­long­ing to the Vinaya (dis­cip­lin­ary rules), the Ab­hid­harma (treat­ises), or the Sut­ras (dis­courses), are scrip­tures of the Buddha. A monk who can ex­pound one text is ex­emp­ted from routine mon­astic du­ties. One who can ex­pound two texts is sup­plied with ad­di­tional good rooms and daily re­quis­ites. One who can ex­pound three texts is to be served by at­tend­ants. One who can ex­pound four texts is provided with lay ser­vants at his ser­vice. One who can ex­pound five texts is en­titled to ride an ele­phant when go­ing out. One who can ex­pound six texts has a ret­inue pro­tect­ing him.

道德既高，旌命亦異。時集講論，考其優劣，彰別善惡，黜陟幽明。其有商搉微言，抑揚妙理，雅辭贍美，妙辯敏捷，於是馭乘寶象，導從如林。至乃義門虛闢，辭鋒挫銳，理寡而辭繁，義乖而言順，遂即面塗赭堊，身坌塵土，斥於曠野，棄之溝壑。既旌淑慝，亦表賢愚。人知樂道，家勤志學。出家歸俗，從其所好。罹咎犯律，僧中科罰，輕則眾命訶責，次又眾不與語，重乃眾不共住。不共住者，斥擯不齒，出一住處，措身無所，羈旅艱辛，或返初服。

The honor given to those who have high mor­al­ity is also ex­traordin­ary. As­sem­blies for dis­cus­sion are of­ten held to test the in­tel­lec­tual ca­pa­city of the monks, in or­der to dis­tin­guish su­per­ior from in­ferior, and to re­ject the dull and pro­mote the bright. Those who can de­lib­er­ate on the subtle say­ings and glor­ify the won­der­ful the­or­ies with re­fined dic­tion and quick elo­quence may ride richly ca­par­isoned ele­phants, with hosts of at­tend­ants pre­ced­ing and fol­low­ing be­hind them. But those to whom the the­or­ies are taught in vain, or who have been de­feated in a de­bate, ex­plain­ing few prin­ciples in a verb­ose way or dis­tort­ing the teach­ings with lan­guage that is merely pleas­ant to the ear, are daubed with ocher or chalk on the face while dust is scattered over the body, and they are ex­iled to the wil­der­ness or dis­carded in ditches. In this way the good and the evil are dis­tin­guished and the wise and the ig­nor­ant dis­closed. Thus people may take de­light in the Way and study di­li­gently at home. They may either for­sake their homes or re­turn to sec­u­lar life, as they please. To those who com­mit faults or vi­ol­ate the dis­cip­lin­ary rules, the com­munity of monks may mete out pun­ish­ments. A light of­fense in­curs pub­lic rep­rim­and, and the pen­alty for the next gravest of­fense is that the monks do not speak to the of­fender. One who has com­mit­ted a grave of­fense is ex­com­mu­nic­ated; that is, he is ex­pelled con­temp­tu­ously by the com­munity of monks. Once ex­pelled the of­fender will have nowhere to take shel­ter and will suf­fer the hard­ships of a vag­a­bond life, or he may re­turn to his former life as a layper­son.

[0877b03] 若夫族姓殊者，有四流焉：一曰婆羅門，淨行也。守道居貞，潔白其操。二曰剎帝利，王種也(舊曰剎利，略也)。奕世君臨，仁恕為志。三曰吠奢(舊曰毘舍，訛也)，商賈也。貿遷有無，逐利遠近。四曰戍陀羅(舊曰首陀，訛也)，農人也。肆力疇壠，勤身稼穡。凡茲四姓，清濁殊流，婚娶通親，飛伏異路，內外宗枝，姻媾不雜。婦人一嫁，終無再醮。自餘雜姓，寔繁種族，各隨類聚，難以詳載。

As far as the dif­fer­ent clans are con­cerned, there are four castes among the people. The first caste is that of the brah­mans, who are pure in con­duct, ad­here to their doc­trines, live in chastity, and pre­serve their vir­tue in pur­ity. The second is the caste of ksat­riyas (formerly tran­scribed in­cor­rectly as chali), who are royal des­cend­ants and rule the coun­try, tak­ing be­ne­vol­ence and hu­man­ity as their ob­jects in life. The third is the caste of vaiśyas (formerly tran­scribed in­cor­rectly aspishe), who are mer­chants and traders, ex­chan­ging goods to meet the needs of one an­other and gain­ing profit far and near. The fourth caste is the śūdras, farm­ers who labor in the fields and toil at sow­ing and reap­ing. These four castes are dif­fer­en­ti­ated by their hered­it­ary pur­ity or de­file­ment. People of a given caste marry within the caste and the con­spicu­ous and the humble do not marry each other. Re­l­at­ives, either on the father’s or the mother’s side, do not in­ter­marry. A wo­man can marry only once and can never re­marry. There are nu­mer­ous mis­cel­laneous clans grouped to­gether ac­cord­ing to their [pro­fes­sional] cat­egor­ies, and it is dif­fi­cult to give a de­tailed ac­count.

[0877b11] 君王奕世，唯剎帝利。篡弑時起，異姓稱尊。國之戰士，驍雄畢選，子父傳業，遂窮兵術。居則宮廬周衛，征則奮旅前鋒。凡有四兵：步、馬、車、象。象則被以堅甲，牙施利距，一將安乘，授其節度，兩卒左右，為之駕馭。車乃駕以駟馬，兵帥居其乘，列卒周衛，扶輪挾轂。馬軍散禦，逐北奔命。步軍輕捍，敢勇充選，負大樐，執長戟，或持刀劍，前奮行陣。凡諸戎器，莫不鋒銳，所謂矛、楯、弓、矢、刀、劍、鉞、斧、戈、殳、長矟、輪索之屬，皆世習矣。

The mon­archs and kings of suc­cess­ive gen­er­a­tions have al­ways been kṣat­riyas. When usurp­a­tion and re­gi­cide oc­ca­sion­ally happened, other fam­il­ies as­sumed su­preme power. The war­ri­ors of the na­tion are well-chosen men of ex­traordin­ary bravery and, as the oc­cu­pa­tion is hered­it­ary, they be­come ex­per­i­enced in the art of war. In peace­time they guard the palace build­ings and in times of war they cour­ageously forge ahead as the van­guard. The army is com­posed of four types of troops, namely, in­fantry, cav­alry, chari­oteers, and ele­phant-moun­ted sol­diers. The war ele­phant is covered with strong ar­mor and its tusks are armed with sharp barbs. The gen­eral who con­trols the armed forces rides on it, with two sol­diers walk­ing on each side to man­age the an­imal. The chariot car­ry­ing the com­mander-in-chief is drawn by four horses and ar­rays of sol­diers march be­side the wheels to pro­tect him. The cav­alry­men spread open to draw up a de­fens­ive form­a­tion or gal­lop ahead to pur­sue the de­feated en­emy. The in­fantry, dar­ing men chosen for their bold­ness, go lightly into battle, car­ry­ing large shields and long spears, sabers, or swords and dash­ing to the front of the battle ar­ray. All their weapons are sharp and keen and they have been trained in such weaponry as the spear, shield, bow and ar­row, saber, sword, battle axe, hatchet, dag­ger axe, long pole, long spear, dis­cus, rope, and the like, with which they prac­tice gen­er­a­tion after gen­er­a­tion.

[0877b20] 夫其俗也，性雖狷急，志甚貞質，於財無苟得，於義有餘讓，懼冥運之罪，輕生事之業，詭譎不行，盟誓為信，

Al­though the people are vi­ol­ent and im­petu­ous by tem­pera­ment they are plain and hon­est in nature. They never ac­cept any wealth without con­sid­er­ing the pro­pri­ety of the ac­tion but give oth­ers more than what is re­quired by right­eous­ness. They fear re­tri­bu­tion for sins in fu­ture lives and make light of the be­ne­fits they en­joy in the present. They do not en­gage in treach­ery and are cred­it­able in keep­ing their prom­ises.

政教尚質，風俗猶和。凶悖群小，時虧國憲，謀危君上，事迹彰明，則常幽囹圄，無所刑戮，任其生死，不齒人倫。犯傷禮義，悖逆忠孝，則劓鼻，截耳，斷手，刖足，或驅出國，或放荒裔。自餘咎犯，輸財贖罪。

Gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion em­phas­izes sim­pli­city and hon­esty and the people are am­ic­able by so­cial cus­tom. There are oc­ca­sion­ally crim­in­als and scoun­drels who vi­ol­ate the na­tional law or scheme to en­danger the sov­er­eign. When the facts are dis­covered these crim­in­als are of­ten cast into jail, where they are left to live or die; they are not sen­tenced to death but are no longer re­garded as mem­bers of hu­man so­ci­ety. The pun­ish­ment for those who in­fringe the eth­ical code or be­have against the prin­ciples of loy­alty and fi­lial piety is to cut off the nose, ex­cise an ear, mu­til­ate a hand, or am­pu­tate a foot, or the of­fender may be ban­ished to an­other coun­try or into the wil­der­ness. Other of­fenses can be ex­pi­ated by a cash pay­ment.

理獄占辭，不加刑扑°，隨問欵對，據事平科。拒違所犯，恥過飾非，欲究情實，事須案者，凡有四條：水、火、稱、毒。水則罪人與石，盛以連囊，沈之深流，校其真偽；人沈石浮則有犯，人浮石沈則無隱。火乃燒鐵，罪人踞上，復使足蹈，既遣掌案，又令舌舐；虛無所損，實有所傷。懦弱之人不堪炎熾，捧未開花，散之向焰；虛則花發，實則花焦。稱則人石平衡，輕重取驗；虛則人低石舉，實則石重人輕。毒則以一羖羊，剖其右髀，隨被訟人所食之分，雜諸毒藥置右髀中；實則毒發而死，虛則毒歇而穌。舉四條之例，防百非之路。

When a judge hears a case no tor­ture is in­flic­ted upon the ac­cused to ex­tort a con­fes­sion. The ac­cused an­swers whatever ques­tions are put to him and then a sen­tence is fairly passed, ac­cord­ing to the facts. There are some who re­fuse to ad­mit their un­law­ful activ­it­ies, ashamed of their faults, or who try to cover up their mis­takes. In or­der to as­cer­tain the ac­tual facts of a case or­deals are re­quired to jus­tify a fi­nal judg­ment. There are four ways, namely, or­deals by wa­ter, fire, weigh­ing, and poison. In the or­deal by wa­ter the ac­cused per­son is put into a sack and a stone is put into an­other sack; the two sacks are con­nec­ted to­gether and thrown into a deep river to dis­crim­in­ate the real crim­inal from the sus­pect. If the per­son sinks and the stone floats his guilt is proven, but if the per­son floats and the stone sinks he is then judged as hav­ing con­cealed noth­ing. In the or­deal by fire the ac­cused is forced to crouch on a piece of hot iron and re­quired to stamp on it with his feet, to touch it with his hands, and to lick it with his tongue. If the charge against him is false he will not be harmed, but if he is burned he is judged to be the real cul­prit. If a weak and feeble per­son can­not stand the heat of the scorch­ing iron, he is asked to scat­ter some flower buds over the hot iron. If he is falsely charged the buds open into flowers, but if he is truly a crim­inal the buds are burned. In the or­deal by weigh­ing the ac­cused is weighed on a bal­ance against a stone to de­term­ine which is heav­ier. If the charge is false the per­son goes down, while the stone goes up; if the charge is true the stone is weight­ier than the per­son. In the or­deal by poison the right hind leg of a black ram is cut and poison is put into it as a por­tion for the ac­cused to eat. If the charge is true the per­son dies from the poison, but if the charge is false the poison is coun­ter­ac­ted and the ac­cused may sur­vive. These four or­deals are the meth­ods for the pre­ven­tion of a hun­dred mis­deeds.

[0877c12] 致敬之式，其儀九等：一發言慰問，二俯首示敬，三舉手高揖，四合掌平拱，五屈膝，六長踞，七手膝踞地，八五輪俱屈，九五體投地。凡斯九等，極唯一拜。跪而讚德，謂之盡敬。遠則稽顙拜手，近則嗚足摩踵。凡其致辭受命，褰裳長跪。尊賢受拜，必有慰辭，或摩其頂，或拊其背，善言誨導，以示親厚。出家沙門，既受敬禮，唯加善願，無止跪拜。隨所宗事，多有旋繞，或唯一周，或復三匝，宿心別請，數則從欲。

There are nine grades in the man­ner of pay­ing homage. They are (1) in­quir­ing after one’s health, (2) bow­ing down three times to show re­spect, (3) bow­ing with hands raised high, (4) bow­ing with hands fol­ded be­fore the chest, (5) kneel­ing on one knee, (6) kneel­ing on both knees, (7) crouch­ing with hands and knees on the ground, (8) bow­ing down with hands, el­bows, and head to the ground, and (9) pros­trat­ing one­self with hands, el­bows, and head touch­ing the ground. In all these nine grades the ut­most ven­er­a­tion is ex­pressed by do­ing only one obeis­ance. To kneel down and praise the other’s vir­tue is the per­fect form of ven­er­a­tion. If one is at a dis­tance [from the ven­er­ated per­son], one just pros­trates with fol­ded hands. If a ven­er­ated per­son is nearby, one kisses their feet and rubs their heels. When one is de­liv­er­ing mes­sages or re­ceiv­ing or­ders, he must hold up his robe and kneel. The honored per­son who re­ceives ven­er­a­tion must say some kind words in re­turn, or stroke the head or pat the back of the wor­shiper, giv­ing him good words of ad­mon­i­tion to show his af­fec­tion and kind­ness. When a home­less monk re­ceives sa­luta­tion he ex­presses only his good wishes in re­turn and never stops the wor­shiper from pay­ing homage to him. One of­ten pays rev­er­ence to a great re­spec­ted mas­ter by cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing him once, thrice, or as many times as one wishes if one has a spe­cial re­quest in mind.

[0877c22] 凡遭疾病，絕粒七日。期限之中，多有痊愈；必未瘳差，方乃餌藥。藥之性類，名種不同；醫之工伎，占候有異。

When a per­son is sick he re­frains from eat­ing food for seven days, and dur­ing this period he may of­ten re­cover his health. If he is not cured then he takes medi­cine. Medi­cines are of vari­ous prop­er­ties and have dif­fer­ent names, and phys­i­cians dif­fer in med­ical tech­nique and meth­ods of dia­gnosis.

[0877c24] 終沒臨喪，哀號相泣，裂裳、拔髮、拍額、椎胸。服制無間。喪期無數。送終殯葬，其儀有三：一曰火葬，積薪焚燎。二曰水葬，沈流漂散。三曰野葬，棄林飼獸。

At a fu­neral ce­re­mony the re­l­at­ives of the de­par­ted one wail and weep, rend their clothes and tear their hair, strike their fore­heads, and beat their chests. They do not wear mourn­ing clothes and have no fixed period of mourn­ing. There are three kinds of burial ser­vice. The first is crema­tion, in which a pyre is built and the body is burned. The second is wa­ter burial, in which the corpse is put into a stream to be car­ried away. The third is wil­der­ness burial, in which the body is dis­carded in a forest to feed wild an­im­als.

國王殂落，先立嗣君，以主喪祭，以定上下。生立德號，死無議諡。喪禍之家，人莫就食；殯葬之後，復常無諱。諸有送死，以為不潔，咸於郭外，浴而後入。

After the de­mise of a king, the first func­tion is to en­throne the crown prince so that he may preside over the fu­neral ce­re­mony and fix the po­s­i­tions of su­peri­or­ity and in­feri­or­ity. Mer­it­ori­ous titles are con­ferred on a king while he is liv­ing and no posthum­ous ap­pel­la­tions are given after his death. No one goes to take a meal at a house where the people are suf­fer­ing the pain of be­reave­ment, but when the fu­neral ser­vice is over things go back to nor­mal and there are no ta­boos. Those who have taken part in a fu­neral pro­ces­sion are con­sidered un­clean and they must all bathe them­selves out­side the city be­fore reen­ter­ing the city walls.

至於年耆壽耄，死期將至，嬰累沈痾，生涯恐極，厭離塵俗，願棄人間，輕鄙生死，希遠世路。於是親故知友，奏樂餞會，泛舟鼓棹，濟殑伽河，中流自溺，謂得生天。十有其一，未盡鄙見。

As re­gards those who are get­ting very old, ap­proach­ing the time of death, suf­fer­ing from in­cur­able dis­ease, or fear­ing that life is draw­ing to an end, they be­come dis­gus­ted with this world, de­sire to cast off hu­man life, des­pise mor­tal ex­ist­ence, and wish to get rid of the ways of the world. Their re­l­at­ives and friends then play mu­sic to hold a farewell party, put them in a boat, and row them to the middle of the Ganges River so that they may drown them­selves in the river. It is said that they will thus be re­born in the heav­ens. Out of ten people only one cher­ishes such ideas, and so far I have not seen this with my own eyes.

出家僧眾，制無號哭，父母亡喪，誦念酬恩，追遠慎終，寔資冥福。

Ac­cord­ing to mon­astic reg­u­la­tions, home­less monks should not lament over the deaths of their par­ents but should re­cite and chant scrip­tures in memory of their kind­ness, so as to be in keep­ing with the fu­neral rites and im­part hap­pi­ness to the de­par­ted souls.

[0878a09] 政教既寬，機務亦簡，戶不籍書，人無傜課。王田之內，大分為四：一充國用，祭祀粢盛；二以封建輔佐宰臣；三賞聰叡碩學高才；四樹福田，給諸異道。所以賦斂輕薄，傜稅儉省，各安世業，俱佃口分。假種王田，六稅其一。商賈逐利，來往貨遷，津路關防，輕稅後過。國家營建，不虛勞役，據其成功，酬之價直。鎮戍征行，宮廬營衛，量事招募，懸賞待人。宰牧、輔臣、庶官、僚佐，各有分地，自食封邑。

As the gov­ern­ment is lib­eral of­fi­cial du­ties are few. There is no census re­gis­tra­tion and no corvee labor is im­posed upon the people. Royal lands are roughly di­vided into four di­vi­sions. The first di­vi­sion is used by the state to de­fray the ex­pense of of­fer­ing sac­ri­fices to gods and an­cest­ors, the second di­vi­sion is used for be­stow­ing fiefs to the king’s as­sist­ants and min­is­ters, the third di­vi­sion is for giv­ing re­wards to prom­in­ent and in­tel­li­gent schol­ars of high tal­ent, and the fourth di­vi­sion is for mak­ing mer­it­ori­ous dona­tions to vari­ous het­ero­dox es­tab­lish­ments. There­fore tax­a­tion is light and forced labor rarely levied. Every­one keeps to his hered­it­ary oc­cu­pa­tion and all people cul­tiv­ate the por­tions of land al­lot­ted to them per cap­ita. Those who till the king’s fields pay one-sixth of their crops as rent. Also, in or­der to gain profits mer­chants and traders travel about ex­chan­ging com­mod­it­ies and they pay light du­ties at fer­ries and bar­ri­ers to pass through. For pub­lic con­struc­tion no forced labor is en­lis­ted; laborers are paid ac­cord­ing to the work they have done. Sol­diers are dis­patched to gar­rison out­posts and palace guards are con­scrip­ted ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances, and re­wards are an­nounced in or­der to ob­tain ap­plic­ants. Ma­gis­trates and min­is­ters, as well as com­mon gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and as­sist­ants, all have their por­tions of land so that they may sus­tain them­selves by the fief they have been gran­ted.

[0878a18] 風壤既別，地利亦殊，花草果木，雜種異名。所謂菴沒羅果、菴弭羅果、末杜迦果、跋達羅果、劫比他果、阿末羅果、鎮杜迦果、烏曇跋羅果、茂遮果、那利葪°羅果、般[木*(玄/衣)]娑果，凡厥此類，難以備載，見珍人世者，略舉言焉。至於棗、栗、椑、柿°，印度無聞；梨、柰、桃、杏、蒲萄等果，迦濕彌羅國已來，往往間植；石榴、甘橘，諸國皆樹。

As the cli­mate and soil vary in dif­fer­ent places, the nat­ural products also dif­fer in vari­ous dis­tricts. There are di­verse de­scrip­tions of flowers, herbs, fruit, and trees with dif­fer­ent names, such as āmra (mango), āmla (tam­ar­ind), mad­hūka (licorice), badara (jujube), kapit­tha (wood apple), āmalaka (myrobalan), tin­duka (Diospyros), udum­bara (Ficus glom­erata), moca (plantain), nārikera (coconut), andpanasa (jack­fruit). It is dif­fi­cult to give a full list of such fruit [trees], and here I just men­tion a few of them that are val­ued by the people. Dates, chest­nuts, and green and red per­sim­mons are un­known in In­dia. Pears, cra­bapples, peaches, apricots, and grapes are of­ten al­tern­ately grown in Kaśmīra and else­where, while pomegranates and sweet or­anges are planted in all coun­tries.

[0878a25] 墾田農務，稼穡耕耘，播植隨時，各從勞逸。土宜所出，稻麥尤多。[0878a26] 蔬菜則有薑、芥、瓜、瓠、葷陀菜等；[葸‒十+夕]、蒜雖少，噉食亦希，家有食者，驅令出郭。

In the cul­tiv­a­tion of fields, such farm work as sow­ing and reap­ing, plough­ing and weed­ing, and seed­ing and plant­ing are done ac­cord­ing to the sea­sons, either la­bor­i­ously or with ease. Among the nat­ive products, rice and wheat are par­tic­u­larly abund­ant. As for ve­get­ables, there are ginger, mus­tard, melon, cala­bash, and kanda (beet). Onion and gar­lic are scarce and few people eat them. Those who eat them are driven out of the city.

[0878a28] 至於乳、酪、膏、酥、粆糖、石蜜、芥子油、諸餅麨，常所膳也。魚、羊、麞、鹿，時廌肴胾。牛、驢、象、馬、豕、犬、狐、狼、師子、猴、猨，凡此毛群，例無味噉，噉者鄙恥，眾所穢惡，屏居郭外，希迹人間。

Milk, ghee, oil, but­ter, gran­u­lated sugar, rock candy, mus­tard-seed oil, and vari­ous kinds of cakes and parched grainse are used as com­mon food, and fish, mut­ton, and ven­ison are oc­ca­sion­ally served as del­ic­acies. The meat of such an­im­als as oxen, don­keys, ele­phants, horses, pigs, dogs, foxes, wolves, lions, mon­keys, and apes is not to be eaten, as a rule. Those who eat the meat of such an­im­als are des­pised and de­tested by the gen­eral pub­lic and the of­fend­ers are ex­pelled to the out­skirts of the city; they rarely show them­selves among the people.

[0878b03] 若其酒醴之差，滋味流別：蒲萄、甘蔗，剎帝利飲也；麴糱醇醪，吠奢等飲也；沙門、婆羅門飲蒲萄、甘蔗漿，非酒醴之謂也。雜姓卑族，無所流別。

As re­gards dif­fer­ent spir­its and sweet wines of di­verse tastes, drinks made from grapes and sug­ar­cane are for the kṣat­riyas and fer­men­ted spir­its and un­filtered wines are for the vaiśyas to drink. The śramaṇas and brah­mans drink grape and sug­ar­cane juice, as they re­frain from tak­ing al­co­holic bever­ages. For the low and mixed castes there are no spe­cific drinks.

[0878b06] 然其資用之器，巧°質有殊；什物之具，隨時無闕。雖釜鑊斯用，而炊甑莫知。多器坯土，少用赤銅。食以一器，眾味相調，手指斟酌，略無匙箸，至於老病，乃用銅匙。

As to house­hold im­ple­ments, there are dif­fer­ent art­icles made of vari­ous ma­ter­i­als for vari­ous pur­poses. Mis­cel­laneous ne­ces­sit­ies are al­ways suf­fi­ciently at hand. Al­though cauldrons and big pots are used for cook­ing the rice steamer is un­known. Cook­ing utensils are mostly made of earth­en­ware, with a few made of brass. When tak­ing a meal a per­son eats from one ves­sel in which all the in­gredi­ents are mixed to­gether. He takes the food with his fin­gers, never us­ing spoons or chop­sticks; the aged and the sick use cop­per spoons for eat­ing food.

[0878b11] 若其金、銀、鍮石、白玉、火珠，風土所產，彌復盈積。奇珍雜寶，異類殊名，出自海隅，易以求貿。然其貨用，交遷有無，金錢、銀錢、貝珠、小珠。

Gold, sil­ver, brass, white jade, and crys­tal are local products, which are amassed in large quant­it­ies. Pre­cious sub­stances and rare treas­ures of dif­fer­ent de­scrip­tions, pro­cured from over­seas, are com­mod­it­ies for trad­ing. For the ex­change of goods, gold and sil­ver coins, cowries, and small pearls are used as the me­dia of ex­change.

[0878b14] 印度之境，疆界具舉，風壤之差，大略斯在，同條共貫，粗陳梗概，異政殊俗，據國而敘。

The ter­rit­or­ies and bound­ar­ies of In­dia have been de­scribed above and dif­fer­ent local con­di­tions have been briefly re­lated here. I have made only a rough state­ment of what is com­mon in all the re­gions of the coun­try in a gen­er­al­ized man­ner. As re­gards the par­tic­u­lar polit­ical ad­min­is­tra­tions and so­cial cus­toms of dif­fer­ent re­gions, I shall ex­plain them sep­ar­ately un­der the head­ing of each coun­try, as fol­lows.

[0878b17] 濫波國，周千餘里，北背雪山，三垂黑嶺。國大都城周十餘里。自數百年，王族絕嗣，豪傑力競，無大君長，近始附屬迦畢試國。宜粳稻，多甘蔗，林樹雖眾，果實乃少。氣序漸溫，微霜無雪。國俗豐樂，人尚歌詠，志性怯弱，情懷詭詐，更相欺誚，未有推先。體貌卑小，動止輕躁。多衣白[疊*毛]，所服鮮飾。伽藍十餘所，僧徒寡少，並多習學大乘法教。天祠數十，異道甚多。

The coun­try of Lampā is over one thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with the Snow Moun­tains at its back in the north and the Black Range on the other three sides. The cap­ital city is more than ten li in cir­cuit. Sev­eral hun­dred years ago the royal fam­ily of this coun­try ceased to ex­ist and since then power­ful fam­il­ies have com­peted with each other for su­peri­or­ity in the ab­sence of a great mon­arch. It has re­cently be­come a de­pend­ency of Kāpiśī. The coun­try pro­duces non- glu­tin­ous rice and much sug­ar­cane. There are many trees but little fruit. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate; there is little frost and no snow. The coun­try is a rich and happy land and the people are fond of singing and chant­ing, but they are timid and de­ceit­ful by nature. They cheat and do not re­spect one an­other. They are ugly and short in stature and are frivol­ous and im­petu­ous in be­ha­vior. They mostly wear white cot­ton and are nicely dressed. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with a few monks, most of whom are stu­dents of the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. There are sev­eral tens of deva temples with many heretics.

[0878b25] 從此東南行百餘里，踰大嶺，濟大河，至那揭羅曷國(北印度境)。[0878b27] 那揭羅曷國，東西六百餘里，南北二百五六十里。山周四境，懸°隔危險。國大都城周二十餘里。無大君長，主令役屬迦畢試國。豐穀稼，多花果，氣序溫暑，風俗淳質，猛銳驍雄，輕財好學。崇敬佛法，少信異道。伽藍雖多，僧徒寡少，諸窣堵波荒蕪圮°壞。天祠五所，異道百餘人。

From here go­ing south­east for over one hun­dred li, I crossed a high moun­tain and a large river and then ar­rived in the coun­try of Nagarahāra (in North In­dia). This coun­try is over six hun­dred li from east to west and two hun­dred fifty or sixty li from south to north. It is sur­roun­ded by steep and dan­ger­ous pre­cip­ices on all sides. The cap­ital city is more than twenty li in cir­cuit. There is no sov­er­eign king to rule over the coun­try and it be­longs to Kāpiśī as a vas­sal state. Grain and fruit are pro­duced in abund­ance and the cli­mate is mod­er­ately warm. The people are simple and hon­est, as well as cour­ageous and vali­ant. They do not value wealth but es­teem learn­ing and they ven­er­ate the buddha-dharma, though a few have faith in heretical re­li­gions. There are many mon­as­ter­ies but few monks. All the stu­pas are deser­ted and in dilap­id­ated con­di­tion. There are five deva temples with over a hun­dred heretics.

[0878c05] 城東二里有窣堵波，高三百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。編石特起，刻雕奇製，釋迦菩薩值然燈佛，敷鹿皮衣，布髮掩泥，得受記處。時經劫壞，斯迹無泯。或有齋日，天雨眾花，群黎心競，式修供養。其西伽藍，少有僧徒。次南小窣堵波，是昔掩埿之地，無憂王避大路，遂僻建焉。

Two li to the east of the cap­ital city there is a stupa built by King Aśoka that is over three hun­dred feet high with piled-up stones, on which there are mar­velous sculp­tures. This was the place where [in a former life] Śākya Bod­hisat­tva once met Dīpamkara Buddha and spread a piece of deer­skin and his own hair to cover the muddy ground [for Dīpamkara to tread on], and re­ceived a pre­dic­tion of buddha­hood from him. Al­though it has passed through a kalpa of de­struc­tion the an­cient trace re­mains in­tact. On fast days vari­ous kinds of flowers des­cend on the spot and mul­ti­tudes of the com­mon people vie with one an­other in mak­ing of­fer­ings [to the stupa]. In a mon­as­tery to the west of the stupa there are a few monks. Fur­ther to the south, a small stupa marks the spot where the Bod­hisat­tva covered up the muddy ground in a former life. It was erec­ted by King Aśoka at a se­cluded place to avoid the high­way.

[0878c12] 城內有大窣堵波故基。聞諸先志曰：昔有佛齒，高廣嚴麗。今既無齒，唯餘故基。其側有窣堵波，高三十餘尺。彼俗相傳，不知源起，云從空下，峙基於此。既非人工，寔多靈瑞。

In­side the cap­ital city there are the old found­a­tions of a great stupa. I heard the local people say that it had formerly con­tained a tooth relic of the Buddha and that it was ori­gin­ally a tall and mag­ni­fi­cent struc­ture. Now there is no more tooth relic and only the old found­a­tions re­main there. Be­side them there is a stupa more than thirty feet high whose ori­gin is un­known, ac­cord­ing to local tra­di­tion. The people said that it dropped down from the air and took root at the spot. It was not built by hu­man be­ings and it mani­fes­ted many spir­itual signs.

[0878c17] 城西南十餘里有窣堵波，是如來自中印度凌虛遊化，降迹於此，國人感慕，建此靈基。其東不遠有窣堵波，是釋迦菩薩昔值然燈佛，於此買華。

Over ten li to the south­w­est of the cap­ital city there is a stupa that marks the spot where the Tathāgata once alighted dur­ing his flight from Cent­ral In­dia on his travels to seek edi­fic­a­tion. Moved by the event, the people of the coun­try built the base of this spir­itual stupa out of ad­mir­a­tion. Not far away to the east there is a stupa mark­ing the place where Śākya Bod­hisat­tva met Dīpamkara Buddha in a former life and pur­chased some flowers [to of­fer to the buddha].

[0878c21] 城西南二十餘里至小石嶺，有伽藍，高堂重閣，積石所成。庭宇寂寥，絕無僧侶。中有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。

More than twenty li to the south­w­est of the cap­ital city one reaches a small range of rocky hills where there is a mon­as­tery with lofty halls and multistor­ied pa­vil­ions, all con­struc­ted out of rocks. The build­ings were all quiet and si­lent and not a single monk was to be found. Within the com­pound of the mon­as­tery there was a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high, built by King Aśoka.

[0878c24] 伽藍西南，深澗陗絕，瀑布飛流，懸°崖壁立。東崖石壁有大洞穴，瞿波羅龍之所居也。門徑狹小，窟穴冥闇，崖石津滴，磎徑餘流。昔有佛影，煥若真容，相好具足，儼然如在。近代已來，人不遍覩，縱有所見，髣髴而已。至誠祈請，有冥感者，乃暫明視，尚不能久。

To the south­w­est of the mon­as­tery is a deep gully with over­hanging rocks [on each side], from which wa­ter falls down the wall-like pre­cip­ices. On the rocky wall at the east pre­cip­ice is a large cave that was the dwell­ing place of the nāga Gopāla. The en­trance is small and nar­row and it is dark in­side the cave; wa­ter drips from the rocks down to the moun­tain path. Formerly there was a shad­owy im­age of the Buddha, re­sem­bling his true fea­tures with all the good phys­ical marks, just as if he were alive. But in re­cent years it is not vis­ible to every­one and even those who see it can only per­ceive an in­dis­tinct out­line. Those who pray with ut­most sin­cer­ity may get a spir­itual re­sponse and see a clear pic­ture, but only for a brief in­stant.

昔如來在世之時，此龍為牧牛之士，供王乳酪，進奉失宜；既獲譴責，心懷恚恨，即以金錢買華，供養受記窣堵波，願為惡龍，破國害王。即趣石壁，投身而死；遂居此窟，為大龍王，便欲出穴，成本惡願。適起此心，如來已鑒，愍此國人為龍所害，運神通力，自中印度至。龍見如來，毒心遂止，受不殺戒，願護正法。因請如來：「常居此窟，諸聖弟子，恒受我供。」如來告曰：「吾將寂滅，為汝留影，遣五羅漢常受汝供。正法隱沒，其事無替。汝若毒心奮怒，當觀吾留影，以慈善故，毒心當止。此賢劫中，當來世尊，亦悲愍汝，皆留影像。」

When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world the nāga was a cowherd whose duty was to sup­ply the king with milk and cream. Once he failed to ful­fill his task prop­erly and was rep­rim­anded by the king. With a feel­ing of hatred and malice, he pur­chased some flowers to of­fer to the stupa of pre­dic­tion, in the hope that he might be re­born as an evil nāga to dev­ast­ate the coun­try and do harm to the king. Then he went up to the rocky pre­cip­ice and jumped down to kill him­self. Thus he be­came a nāga king and lived in this cave. The mo­ment he de­sired to go out of the cave to carry out his evil wishes, the Tathāgata, with a mind of com­pas­sion for the people of the coun­try, who would suf­fer havoc caused by the nāga, ar­rived from Cent­ral In­dia, fly­ing through his su­per­nat­ural power. At the sight of the Tathāgata the nāga’s ma­lig­nant mind ceased. He ac­cep­ted the rule of non-killing and wished to pro­tect the right Dharma. So he re­ques­ted that the Tathāgata dwell in the cave per­man­ently and [prom­ised] to al­ways of­fer alms to all his saintly dis­ciples. The Tathāgata said to him, “I shall enter nir­vana but I will leave my shadow be­hind for you, and I will send five ar­hats to al­ways re­ceive your of­fer­ings. Even when the right Dharma has dis­ap­peared into ob­li­vion this ar­range­ment will not be altered. If your ma­lig­nant mind be­comes agit­ated you should look at my shadow and, on ac­count of your com­pas­sion and be­ne­vol­ence, your ma­lig­nant mind will come to an end. Dur­ing this bhadra-kalpa (“good eon”) all the fu­ture World-honored Ones will have com­pas­sion for you and leave their shad­ows be­hind.”

[0879a18] 影窟門外有二方石，其一石上有如來足蹈之迹，輪相微現，光明時燭。影窟左右多諸石室，皆是如來諸聖弟子入定之處。影窟西北隅有窣堵波，是如來經行之處。其側窣堵波有如來髮、爪。隣此不遠有窣堵波，是如來顯暢真宗，說蘊界處之所也。影窟西有大盤石，如來甞於其上濯浣袈裟，文影微現。

Out­side the door of Shadow Cave there are two square rocks. On one of the rocks is the trace of the Tathāgata’s foot­print with the wheel sign dimly vis­ible and it some­times emits a light. On either side of Shadow Cave there are many other caves, which are the places where the saintly dis­ciples of the Tathāgata used to sit in med­it­a­tion. On a corner to the north­w­est of the Shadow Cave there is a stupa that marks the place where the Tathāgata once took a walk. Be­side it is an­other stupa, in which are stored the rel­ics of the Tathāgata’s hair and nail par­ings. Not far from here an­other stupa marks the spot where the Tathāgata preached on the true doc­trine of the skand­has (five at­trib­utes of be­ing), the āyatanas (twelve sense fields), and the dhātus (eight­een spheres, con­sist­ing of the six sense or­gans, the six sense ob­jects, and the six con­scious­nesses). To the west of Shadow Cave there is a large flat rock on which the Tathāgata once washed his robe; the traces of the robe left on the rock are still dimly vis­ible.

[0879a26] 城東南三十餘里至醯羅城。周四五里，竪峻險固，花林池沼，光鮮澄鏡。城中居人，淳質正信。復有重閣，畫棟丹楹。第二閣中有七寶小窣堵波，置如來頂骨。骨周一尺二寸，髮孔分明，其色黃白，盛以寶函，置窣堵波中。欲知善惡相者，香末和埿，以印頂骨，隨其福感，其文煥然。又有七寶小窣堵波，以貯如來髑髏骨，狀若荷葉，色同頂骨，亦以寶函緘絡而置。又有七寶小窣堵波，有如來眼睛，睛大如[木*奈]，光明清徹，曒映中外，又以寶函緘封而置。如來僧伽胝袈裟，細[疊*毛]所作，其色黃赤，置寶函中，歲月既遠，微有損壞。如來錫杖，白鐵作鐶，栴檀為笴，寶筒盛之。

At more than thirty li to the south­east of the city one reaches the city of Hilo, which is four or five li in cir­cuit; [its city wall] is high, pre­cip­it­ous, and im­preg­nable. There are flowers, trees, and pools with pure wa­ter as bright as a mir­ror. The in­hab­it­ants of the city are simple and hon­est and they be­lieve in the right Dharma. There is a multistor­ied pa­vil­ion with col­or­fully painted beams and pil­lars. On the second story is a small stupa made of the seven pre­cious sub­stances, in which is pre­served a piece of the Tathāgata’s skull bone, twelve inches in cir­cum­fer­ence with dis­tinct hair pores, yel­low­ish- white in color, which is con­tained in a pre­cious cas­ket that has been placed in­side the stupa. Those who wish to tell their for­tunes may pre­pare some fra­grant plaster to make an im­pres­sion of the skull bone and then read a clear writ­ten pre­dic­tion ac­cord­ing to the ef­fects of their blessed­ness. There is an­other small stupa made of the seven pre­cious sub­stances in which is stored the Tathāgata’s cra­nial bone, which has the shape of a lo­tus leaf and is of the same color as the skull bone. It is also con­tained in a pre­cious cas­ket that has been sealed up and placed [in the stupa]. There is an­other small stupa made of the seven pre­cious sub­stances, in which is pre­served an eye­ball of the Tathāgata, as large as a cra­bapple, bril­liant and trans­par­ent through­out. It is also con­tained in a pre­cious cas­ket that has been sealed up and placed [in the stupa]. The Tathāgata’s up­per robe, made of fine cot­ton in a yel­low­ish-red color, is placed in a pre­cious cas­ket. It has las­ted a long time and is slightly dam­aged. The Tathāgata’s pew­ter staff, with rings made of pew­ter and a san­dal­wood handle, is stored in a pre­cious tube.

近有國王聞此諸物竝是如來昔親服用，恃其威力，迫脇而歸；既至本國，置所居宮，曾未浹辰，求之已失，爰更尋訪，已還本處。

Re­cently a king heard that these rel­ics be­longed to the Tathāgata and he cap­tured them by force. After re­turn­ing to his own coun­try the king kept the rel­ics in his palace but less than twelve days later the rel­ics were lost. When he searched for them he found that they had re­turned to their ori­ginal loc­a­tion.

斯五聖迹，多有靈異，迦畢試王令五淨行給侍香花。觀禮之徒，相繼不絕。諸淨行等欲從虛寂，以為財用人之所重，權立科條，以止諠雜。其大略曰：諸欲見如來頂骨者，稅一金錢；若取印者，稅五金錢；自餘節級，以次科條。科條雖重，觀禮彌眾。

These five holy ob­jects have shown many spir­itual signs. The king of Kāpiśī ordered five at­tend­ants to take care of the rel­ics by of­fer­ing in­cense and flowers, and wor­shipers came to pay rev­er­ence to them without cease. The at­tend­ants, wish­ing to spend their time in quiet­ude and think­ing that people would value money more than any­thing else, in or­der to stop the hub­bub caused by vis­it­ors, made a rule to the ef­fect that one gold coin would be charged to see the skull bone and five gold coins would be charged for mak­ing an im­pres­sion. This rule was also ap­plic­able in dif­fer­ent grades to the other rel­ics. Even with these steep fees the num­ber of wor­shipers in­creased.

重閣西北有窣堵波，亦甚高大，而多靈異，人以指觸，便即搖震，連基傾動，鈴鐸和鳴。

To the north­w­est of the stor­ied pa­vil­ion there is a stupa that is also very lofty and has shown many mar­velous signs. When it is touched with a fin­ger it shakes down to the base­ment and its bells ring har­mo­ni­ously.

從此東南山谷中行五百餘里，至健馱邏國(舊曰乾陀衛，訛也。北印度境)。[0879b23] 健馱邏國，東西千餘里，南北八百餘里。東臨信度河。國大都城號布路沙布邏，周四十餘里。王族絕嗣，役屬迦畢試國。邑里空荒，居人稀少，宮城一隅有千餘戶。穀稼殷盛，花果繁茂，多甘蔗，出石蜜。氣序溫暑，略無霜雪。人性恇怯，好習典藝，多敬異道，少信正法。

From here go­ing to­ward the south­east among moun­tains and val­leys for over five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Gand­hāra (at former times in­cor­rectly tran­scribed as Qi­an­tuo­wei, in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Gand­hāra is more than one thou­sand li from east to west and over eight hun­dred li from south to north, with the In­dus on the east. The cap­ital city, called Pur­uṣapura, is more than forty li in cir­cuit. The royal fam­ily is ex­tinct and the coun­try is now un­der the dom­in­a­tion of Kāpiśī. The towns and vil­lages are des­ol­ate and have few in­hab­it­ants. In one corner of the palace city there are over one thou­sand fam­il­ies. They pro­duce abund­ant cer­eals and have flowers and fruit in pro­fu­sion. The coun­try grows much sug­ar­cane and pro­duces sugar candy. The cli­mate is mild and there is scarcely any frost or snow. The people are shy and timid by nature and are fond of lit­er­at­ure and the arts. Most of them re­spect heretical re­li­gions; only a few be­lieve in the right Dharma.

自古已來，印度之境作論諸師，則有那羅延天、無著菩薩、世親菩薩、法救、如意、脇尊者等本生處也。僧伽藍千餘所，摧殘荒廢，蕪漫蕭條，諸窣堵波頗多頹圮°。天祠百數，異道雜居。

Since an­cient times mas­ters who wrote com­ment­ar­ies and the­or­et­ical treat­ises in In­dia, such as Nārāy­aṇadeva, As­aṅga, Vas­ub­andhu, Dharmatrāta, Man­oratha, Pārśva, and so on, have been born in this coun­try. There were more than a thou­sand mon­as­ter­ies but they are now dilap­id­ated and deser­ted, in des­ol­ate con­di­tion. Most of the stu­pas are also in mins. There are about a hun­dred deva temples in­hab­ited by vari­ous heretics.

[0879c05] 王城內東北有一故基，昔佛鉢之寶臺也。如來涅槃之後，鉢流此國，經數百年，式遵供養，流轉諸國，在波剌°斯。[0879c07] 城外東南八九里有卑鉢羅樹，高百餘尺，枝葉扶疎，蔭影蒙密。過去四佛已坐其下，今猶現有四佛坐像。賢劫之中，九百九十六佛皆當坐焉。冥祇警衛，靈鑒潛被。釋迦如來於此樹下南面而坐，告阿難曰：「我去世後，當四百年，有王命世，號迦膩色迦，此南不遠起窣堵波，吾身所有骨、肉舍利，多集此中。」

To the north­east in­side the royal city there are the re­mains of the found­a­tion of a pre­cious ter­race on which the Buddha’s alms­bowl was once placed. After the Tathāgata’s de­mise the bowl was brought to this coun­try, where it was ven­er­ated with formal rituals for sev­eral hun­dred years, and then it was brought to vari­ous coun­tries. It is now in Per­sia. At a dis­tance of eight or nine li to the south­east out­side the city, there is a pipal tree more than one hun­dred feet tall with pro­fuse branches and leaves that cast a dense shade on the ground. The four past buddhas sat un­der this tree and now statues of the four buddhas are still to be seen there. The re­main­ing nine hun­dred and ninety-six buddhas of the bhad­rakalpa will also sit un­der it, di­vinely guarded and pro­tec­ted by gods and deit­ies. Once, when Sākya Tathāgata was sit­ting un­der this tree, fa­cing south, he told Ān­anda, “Four hun­dred years after my de­mise there will be a king named Kan­iṣka, who will erect a stupa not far south of here. Most of my bod­ily re­mains will be col­lec­ted in it.”

[0879c15] 卑鉢羅樹南有窣堵波，迦膩色迦王之所建也。迦膩色迦王以如來涅槃之後第四百年，君臨膺運，統贍部洲，不信罪福，輕毀佛法。畋遊草澤，遇見白兔，王親奔逐，至此忽滅。見有牧牛小豎，於林樹間作小窣堵波，其高三尺。王曰：「汝何所為？」牧豎對曰：「昔釋迦佛聖智懸記：『當有國王於此勝地建窣堵波，吾身舍利多聚其內。』大王聖德宿殖，名符昔記，神功勝福，允屬斯辰，故我今者先相警發。」說此語已，忽然不現。

To the south of the pipal tree there is a stupa con­struc­ted by King Kan­iṣka. In the four hun­dredth year after the Tathāgata’s de­mise King Kan­iṣka as­cen­ded the throne and ruled over Jam­bud­vīpa. He did not [ori­gin­ally] be­lieve in the the­ory of re­tri­bu­tion for good and evil deeds and con­temp­tu­ously de­famed the buddha-dharma. Once he was hunt­ing in a marsh when a white hare ap­peared. The king chased after the hare and it sud­denly dis­ap­peared at this place. In the woods he saw a young cowherd build­ing a small stupa three feet high. The king asked the boy, “What are you do­ing?” The boy replied, “Formerly Sākya Buddha made a wise pre­dic­tion: ‘A king will build a stupa at this aus­pi­cious place and most of my bod­ily re­mains will be col­lec­ted in it.’ Your Majesty’s holy vir­tues were cul­tiv­ated in your pre­vi­ous lives and your name co­in­cides with the one men­tioned in the pre­dic­tion. Your di­vine mer­its and su­per­ior blessed­ness will be real­ized at this time. Thus I am here as a pre­lim­in­ary sign to re­mind you of the pre­dic­tion.” With these words, the cowherd van­ished.

王聞是說，嘉慶增懷，自負其名，大聖先記，因發正信，深敬佛法。周小窣堵波，更建石窣堵波，欲以功力彌覆其上。隨其數量，恒出三尺，若是增高，踰四百尺，基趾所峙，周一里半，層基五級，高一百五十尺，方乃得覆小窣堵波。王因嘉慶，復於其上更起二十五層金銅相輪，即以如來舍利一斛而置其中，式修供養。營建纔訖，見小窣堵波在大基東南隅下傍出其半。王心不平，便即擲棄，遂住窣堵波第二級下石基中半現，復於本處更出小窣堵波。王乃退而歎曰：「嗟夫，人事易迷，神功難掩，靈聖所扶，憤怒何及！」慚懼既已，謝咎而歸。

Upon hear­ing these words the king was over­joyed and was proud to know that his name had been pre­dicted by the Great Sage in his proph­ecy. There­after he pro­fessed the right faith and deeply be­lieved in the buddha-dharma. Around the small stupa he built a stone stupa, wish­ing to en­com­pass the smal­ler one, through the power of his merit. But no mat­ter how tall he built the stone stupa the smal­ler one was al­ways three feet higher, un­til the lar­ger stupa reached over four hun­dred feet in height, stand­ing on a base one and a half li in cir­cuit, with five flights of steps lead­ing up to a height of one hun­dred fifty feet, so that it then covered the small stupa. De­lighted, the king also had gil­ded cop­per disks ar­ranged in twenty-five tiers on the top. Then he placed one hit (hec­to­liter) of the Tathāgata’s relic bones in the stupa, to which he pi­ously made of­fer­ings. When con­struc­tion of the large stupa had just been com­pleted the king saw that the small stupa was pro­trud­ing, with half of its struc­ture side­ways at the south­east corner of the base [of the great stupa]. En­raged, the kinf threw the smal­ler stupa up­ward and it stayed there, half of it ap­pear­ing in the stone base un­der the second flight of steps of the stupa, but an­other small stupa emerged at the ori­ginal place. The king then gave up and re­marked with a sigh, “Hu­man af­fairs are be­wil­der­ing but the mer­its of deit­ies are in­sup­press­ible. What is the use of be­ing angry with it, if it is sup­por­ted by the gods?” Ashamed and fear­ful, the king apo­lo­gized and re­turned home.

其二窣堵波今猶現在，有嬰疾病欲祈康愈者，塗香散華，至誠歸命，多蒙瘳差。[0880a10] 大窣堵波東面石陛南鏤作二窣堵波，一高三尺，一高五尺，規摹形狀如大窣堵波。又作兩軀佛像，一高四尺，一高六尺，擬菩提樹下加趺坐像，日光照燭，金色晃曜，陰影漸移，石文青紺。聞諸耆舊曰：數百年前，石基之隙有金色蟻，大者如指，小者如麥，同類相從，齧其石壁，文若雕鏤，廁以金沙，作為此像，今猶現在。

These two stu­pas still stand. Those who are ill and wish to pray for re­cov­ery of­fer in­cense and flowers to the stu­pas with pi­ous minds, and in most cases they are cured. On the south­ern side of the flight of steps at the east of the great stupa there are two carved stu­pas, one three and the other five feet high, in the same style and shape as the great stupa. There are also two carved im­ages of the Buddha, one four and the other six feet in height, re­sem­bling the Buddha sit­ting cross-legged un­der the bodhi tree. In the sun­shine these im­ages are of a dazzling golden color, and when they are gradu­ally covered by shade the lines on the stone be­come blu­ish-vi­olet in color. Some local old people said that sev­eral hun­dred years ago there were golden-colored ants in the crevice of the stone; the big ones were the size of a fin­ger­nail and the small ones were the size of a grain of wheat. Fol­low­ing one an­other, they gnawed at the sur­face of the stone and the lines they made on the stone looked like in­cised grooves that were filled with golden sand to de­lin­eate the im­ages, which are still in ex­ist­ence.

[0880a18] 大窣堵波石陛南面有畫佛像，高一丈六尺，自胸已上，分現兩身，從胸已下，合為一體。聞諸先志曰：初，有貧士傭力自濟，得一金錢，願造佛像。至窣堵波所，謂畫工曰：「我今欲圖如來妙相，有一金錢，酬功尚少，宿心憂負，迫於貧乏。」時彼畫工鑒其至誠，無云價直，許為成功。復有一人，事同前迹，持一金錢，求畫佛像。畫工是時受二人錢，求妙丹青，共畫一像。二人同日俱來禮敬，畫工乃同指一像，示彼二人，而謂之曰：「此是汝所作之佛像也。」二人相視，若有所懷。畫工心知其疑也，謂二人曰：「何思慮之久乎？凡所受物，毫釐不虧。斯言不謬，像必神變。」言聲未靜，像現靈異，分身交影，光相照著。二人悅服，心信歡喜。

On the south side of the flight of steps lead­ing up to the great stupa there is a paint­ing of the Buddha six­teen feet in height, with two busts above the chest but only one body be­low it. Some old people said that there was formerly a poor man who sus­tained him­self by work­ing as a laborer. Once he earned a gold coin and wished to make an im­age of the Buddha. He came to the stupa and said to a painter, “I wish to make a por­trait of the Tathāgata’s ex­cel­lent fea­tures but I have only one gold coin, which is really in­suf­fi­cient for re­mu­ner­a­tion. This has been my long-cher­ished de­sire but I am poor and lack money.” In con­sid­er­a­tion of the poor man’s sin­cer­ity, the painter did not ar­gue about the pay­ment and prom­ised to ac­com­plish the job. An­other man un­der the same cir­cum­stances came with a gold coin to re­quest the painter to draw a por­trait of the Buddha. Thus the painter ac­cep­ted the money from both men and he asked an­other skill­ful painter to work to­gether with him in draw­ing a single por­trait. When the two men came on the same day to wor­ship the Buddha, the two paint­ers showed them the por­trait, point­ing at it and say­ing, “This is the por­trait you ordered.” The two men looked at each other, be­wildered. The paint­ers real­ized that they were doubt­ful about the mat­ter and said to them, “Why are you pon­der­ing the mat­ter for so long? Whatever ob­ject we un­der­take to pro­duce is done without the slight­est fault. If our words are not false the por­trait will show mir­acles.” As soon as they had uttered these words the por­trait mani­fes­ted a won­der: the body split into two busts, while the shad­ows in­ter­mingled into one, with the fea­tures shin­ing bril­liantly. The two men were hap­pily con­vinced and de­lightedly fostered faith.

[0880b04] 大窣堵波西南百餘步，有白石佛像，高一丈八尺，北面而立，多有靈相，數放光明。時有人見像出夜行，旋繞大窣堵波。近有群賊欲入行盜，像出迎賊，賊黨怖退，像歸本處，住立如故。群盜因此改過自新，遊行邑里，具告遠近。

More than a hun­dred paces to the south­w­est of the great stupa there is a stand­ing im­age of the Buddha made of white stone, eight­een feet high, fa­cing north. It of­ten worked mir­acles and fre­quently emit­ted light. Some­times people see it walk­ing at night and cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing the great stupa. Re­cently a band of rob­bers in­ten­ded to enter the stupa to steal the con­tents. The im­age came out to meet the rob­bers head-on and the rob­bers with­drew in fear. Then the im­age re­turned to its ori­ginal place and stood there as usual. There­after the rob­bers cor­rec­ted their er­ror and made a fresh start in life. They walked about in towns and vil­lages and re­lated the event to all people, far and near.

[0880b09] 大窣堵波左右，小窣堵波魚鱗百數。佛像莊嚴，務窮工思，殊香異音，時有聞聽，靈仙聖賢，或見旋繞。此窣堵波者，如來懸記，七燒七立，佛法方盡。先賢記曰：成壞已三。初至此國，適遭大火，當見營搆，尚未成功。

At the left and right sides of the great stupa there are hun­dreds of small stu­pas, ar­ranged as closely to­gether as the scales of a fish. The Buddha’s im­ages are mag­ni­fi­cent, hav­ing been made with per­fect crafts­man­ship. Un­usual fra­grances and strange sounds are some­times per­ceived and spir­its and genies, as well as holy ones, may be seen cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing the great stupa. The Tathāgata pre­dicted that when this stupa has burned down and been re­built seven times, the buddha-dharma will come to an end. Pre­vi­ous sages have re­cor­ded that it has been des­troyed and re­con­struc­ted three times. When I first came to this coun­try the stupa had just suffered the dis­aster of con­flag­ra­tion. It is now un­der re­pair and the struc­ture is not yet com­pleted.

[0880b15] 大窣堵波西有故伽藍，迦膩色迦王之所建也。重閣累榭，層臺洞戶，旌召高僧，式昭景福。雖則圮°毀，尚曰奇工。僧徒減少，並學小乘。自建伽藍，異人間出。諸作論師及證聖果，清風尚扇，至德無泯。

To the west of the great stupa there is an old mon­as­tery built by King Kan­iṣka. The multistor­ied pa­vil­ion and the houses built on ter­races were con­struc­ted so that em­in­ent monks could be in­vited in re­cog­ni­tion of their dis­tin­guished mer­its. Al­though the build­ings are dilap­id­ated they can still be re­garded as won­der­ful con­struc­tions. There are a few monks who study the Hinay­ana teach­ings. Since the mon­as­tery was con­struc­ted it has pro­duced ex­traordin­ary per­son­ages from time to time, who were either writers of treat­ises or people who real­ized saint­hood. The in­flu­ence of their pure con­duct and per­fect vir­tue is still func­tion­ing.

[0880b19] 第三重閣有波栗濕縛(唐言脇)尊者室，久已傾頓，尚立旌表。初，尊者之為梵志師也，年垂八十，捨家染衣。城中少年更誚之曰：「愚夫朽老，一何淺智！夫出家者，有二業焉，一則習定，二乃誦經。而今衰耄，無所進取，濫迹清流，徒知飽食。」

On the third story of the pa­vil­ion is the room used by Ven­er­able Pārśva (‘‘Ribs”). It has been in ru­ins for a long time but its loc­a­tion is in­dic­ated with a mark. The ven­er­able monk was a brahmanical teacher but he be­came a Buddhist monk at the age of eighty. Some young people in the city sneered at him, say­ing, “You stu­pid old man, why are you so ig­nor­ant? A Buddhist monk has two du­ties: first to prac­tice med­it­a­tion and second to re­cite scrip­tures. Now you are get­ting old and feeble and can­not make any more pro­gress. So you are try­ing to pass your­self off as a monk among the pure men­dic­ants but you do noth­ing but eat your fill.”

時脇尊者聞諸譏議，因謝時人而自誓曰：「我若不通三藏理，不斷三界欲，得六神通，具八解脫，終不以脇而至於席！」自爾之後，唯日不足，經行宴坐，住立思惟，晝則研習理教，夜乃靜慮凝神，綿歷三歲，學通三藏，斷三界欲，得三明智，時人敬仰，因號脇尊者焉。

Hav­ing heard this re­proach, Ven­er­able Pārśva apo­lo­gized to the people and made a vow, say­ing, “If I do not thor­oughly mas­ter the teach­ings of the Tripiṭaka and do not cut off all de­sires of the three realms of the world, so as to real­ize the six su­per­nat­ural powers and pos­sess the eight eman­cip­a­tions, I shall not lie down to sleep with my ribs touch­ing the mat.” He then worked hard and al­ways med­it­ated whether he was walk­ing, sit­ting, or stand­ing still. In the day­time he stud­ied the­or­ies and doc­trines and at night he sat quietly in med­it­a­tion with a con­cen­trated mind. In three years’ time he com­pletely mastered the Tripiṭaka, cut off the de­sires of the three realms of the world, and ob­tained the wis­dom of the three know­ledges. As the people re­spec­ted him, they called him Ven­er­able Ribs (Pārśva).

[0880c03] 脇尊者室東有故房，世親菩薩於此製《阿毘達磨俱舍論》，人而敬之，封以記焉。

To the east of Ven­er­able Pārśva’s cham­ber there is an old room in which Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva com­posed the Ab­hid­har­makośa-śāstra. Out of re­spect for him the people had the room sealed and in­dic­ated by a mark.

[0880c05] 世親室南五十餘步，第二重閣，末笯曷剌他(唐言如意)論師於此製《毘婆沙論》。論師以佛涅槃之後一千年中利見也。少好學，有才辯，聲問遐被，法俗歸心。時室羅伐悉底國毘訖羅摩阿迭多王(唐言超日)，威風遠洽，臣諸印度，日以五億金錢周給貧窶孤獨。主藏臣懼國用乏匱也，乃諷諫曰：「大王威被殊俗，澤及昆蟲，請增五億金錢，以賑四方°匱乏。府庫既空，更稅有土，重斂不已，怨聲載揚，則君上有周給之恩，臣下被不恭之責。」王曰：「聚有餘，給不足，非苟為身侈靡國用。」遂加五億，惠諸貧乏。

On the second story of the pa­vil­ion, at a place more than fifty paces to the south of Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva’s room, is the place where the śāstra mas­ter Man­oratha (“As You Wish”) com­posed the Vibhāṣā-śāstra. The śāstra mas­ter was born a thou­sand years after the nir­vana of the Buddha. When he was young he loved learn­ing and was elo­quent in speech. His fame spread far and both cler­ics and laypeople had faith in him. At that time the in­flu­ence of King Vikramāditya (“Valor Sun”) of Srāvastī reached far and he brought the vari­ous parts of In­dia un­der his dom­in­a­tion. Every day he dis­trib­uted five lakhs of gold coins as alms to pau­pers, orphans, and the sol­it­ary. The state treas­urer, fear­ing that the na­tional treas­ury would be ex­hausted, iron­ic­ally re­mon­strated with the king, say­ing, “Your Majesty’s strong in­flu­ence ex­tends to vari­ous peoples and your kind­ness be­ne­fits even in­sects. Pray spend five more lakhs of gold coins to re­lieve the poor and needy of the four quar­ters. When the treas­ury is ex­hausted we can levy more taxes and re­peated tax­a­tion will arouse the people’s re­sent­ment and griev­ance every­where, but the mon­arch above may show off his kind­ness in be­stow­ing char­ity upon the people and we sub­jects be­low will bear the blame of be­ing dis­respect­ful.” The king said, “We col­lect sur­plus money to give to those who are short of it, it is not for ourselves that we squander the na­tional wealth.” Thus five lakhs of gold coins were ad­ded to the sum of money given to the poor and needy.

其後畋遊，逐豕失蹤，有尋知迹者，賞一億金錢。如意論師一使人剃髮，輒賜一億金錢，其國史臣依即書記。王恥見高，心常怏怏，欲眾辱如意論師。乃招集異學德業高深者百人，而下令曰：「欲收視聽，遊諸真境，異道紛雜，歸心靡措，今考優劣，專精遵奉。」

Later, while out hunt­ing, the king lost the trace of a wild boar and a man who found the an­imal was gran­ted a re­ward of one lakh of gold coins. Now when the śāstra mas­ter Man­oratha once had his hair shaved, he paid the barber one lakh of gold coins and the state an­nal­ist ac­cord­ingly put the event on re­cord. The king was ashamed to have been sur­passed by a monk in lav­ish­ing money and in­ten­ded to in­sult the śāstra mas­ter Man­oratha in pub­lic. Thus he summoned a hun­dred heretical teach­ers of high vir­tue and deep learn­ing, to whom he is­sued an or­der, say­ing, “We wish to glean vari­ous views to find out the truth but dif­fer­ent schools have dif­fer­ent the­or­ies, so we do not know where to fix our mind. Now we wish to see which of your schools is su­per­ior and which is in­ferior, so that we may know which way we should fol­low ex­clus­ively.”

洎乎集論，重下令曰：「外道論師並英俊也，沙門法眾宜善宗義，勝則崇敬佛法，負則誅戮僧徒。」於是如意詰諸外道，九十九人已退飛矣。下席一人，視之蔑如也，因而劇談，論及火煙。王與外道咸諠言曰：「如意論師辭義有失！夫先煙而後及火，此事理之常也。」如意雖欲釋難，無聽覽者。恥見眾辱，齰斷其舌，乃書誡告門人世親曰：「黨援之眾，無競大義；群迷之中，無辯正論。」言畢而死。

At the time the dis­cus­sion was held the king is­sued an­other or­der, say­ing, “These heretical śāstra mas­ters are bril­liant and tal­en­ted schol­ars and the śramaṇas of the Dharma should mas­ter their own the­or­ies well. If they win in the de­bate we shall ven­er­ate the buddha-dharma; oth­er­wise we will slaughter the Buddhist monks.” Then Man­oratha de­bated with the heretics and de­feated ninety-nine of the op­pon­ents, who fled in re­treat. He slighted the last ant­ag­on­ist with con­tempt and talked with him flu­ently. When he came to the sub­ject of fire and smoke, the king and the heretic said aloud, “The śāstra mas­ter Man­oratha has made a faulty state­ment. It is com­mon sense that smoke pre­cedes fire.” Al­though Man­oratha wished to ex­plain his view­point no one would listen to his ar­gu­ment­a­tion. Ashamed of be­ing in­sul­ted in pub­lic, he bit off his tongue and wrote a let­ter to his dis­ciple Vas­ub­andhu, say­ing, “Among groups sup­por­ted by fac­tions one can­not hold a great prin­ciple in com­pet­i­tion, and in an as­sembly of ig­nor­ant people there is no way to ar­gue for the right the­ory.” He died after hav­ing writ­ten these words.

居未久，超日王失國，興王膺運，表式英賢。世親菩薩欲雪前恥，來白王曰：「大王以聖德君臨，為含識主命。先師如意學窮玄奧，前王宿憾，眾挫高名，我承導誘，欲復先怨。」

Not long af­ter­ward, King Vikramāditya lost his king­dom and was suc­ceeded by an­other king who ad­ored and re­spec­ted people of em­in­ence and wis­dom. Wish­ing to re­hab­il­it­ate his teacher’s good name, Vas­ub­andhu Bodhi- sat­tva came to the new king and said to him, “Your Majesty rules the king­dom with your saintly vir­tues and you render sup­port to all liv­ing be­ings. My late teacher Man­oratha was learned in ab­struse and pro­found the­or­ies but the pre­vi­ous king held a grudge against him and be­smirched his good name in pub­lic. As I have stud­ied un­der his in­struc­tion I wish to avenge the wrong done to my teacher.”

其王知如意哲人也，美世親雅操焉，乃召諸外道與如意論者。世親重述先旨，外道謝屈而退。

The king, know­ing that Man­oratha had been a wise man and ap­pre­ci­at­ing Vas­ub­andhu’s up­right char­ac­ter, summoned all the heretics who had de­bated with Man­oratha to a meet­ing. Vas­ub­andhu then re­it­er­ated what his teacher had ex­pounded and all the heretics were de­feated and with­drew.

[0881a09] 迦膩色迦王伽藍東北行五十餘里，渡大河，至布色羯邏伐底城。周十四五里。居人殷盛，閭閻洞連。城西門外有一天祠，天像威嚴，靈異相繼。[0881a13] 城東有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，即過去四佛說法之處。先古聖賢自中印度降神導物，斯地寔多。即伐蘇蜜呾羅(唐言世友。舊曰和須蜜多，訛也)論師於此製《眾事分阿毘達磨論》。

Go­ing to the north­east for more than fifty li from the mon­as­tery built by King Kan­iṣka, I crossed a large river and reached the city of Puṣkarāvatī, which is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit. It is well pop­u­lated and the lanes and al­leys are con­nec­ted with each other. Out­side the west gate of the city there is a deva temple, in which the deva im­age is aus­tere in ap­pear­ance and of­ten works mir­acles. To the east of the city there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. It marks the place where the four past buddhas preached the Dharma. An­cient saints and sages com­ing from Cent­ral In­dia to sub­due di­vine be­ings and teach hu­man mor­tals at this place were very nu­mer­ous. It was at this site that the śāstra mas­ter Vasum­itra (Shiyou in Chinese, formerly tran­scribed er­ro­neously as Hexu­miduo) com­posed the Ab­hid­harma-prakaraṇa-pāda-śāstra.

[0881a17] 城北四五里有故伽藍，庭宇荒涼，僧徒寡少，然皆遵習小乘法教。即達磨呾邏多(唐言法救。舊曰達磨多羅，訛也)論師於此製《雜阿毘達磨論》。[0881a20] 伽藍側有窣堵波，高數百尺，無憂王之所建也。雕木文石，頗異人工。是釋迦佛昔為國王，修菩薩行，從眾生欲，惠施不倦，喪身若遺，於此國土千生為王，即斯勝地千生捨眼。

Four or five li to the north of the city there is an old mon­as­tery whose build­ings are in des­ol­a­tion, with a few res­id­ent monks who are fol­low­ers of Hinay­ana teach­ings. This is the place where the śāstra mas­ter Dharmatrāta (known as Fajiu in Chinese and er­ro­neously tran­scribed as Damod­uoluo in olden times) com­posed the Ab­hid­harmatāb­hid­harma-hṛdaya-śāstra. Be­side the mon­as­tery there is a stupa sev­eral hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. The wood carvings and stone sculp­tures are quite dif­fer­ent from work done by hu­man ar­tis­ans. Formerly, when Sākya Buddha was a king, he prac­ticed the way of the bod­hisat­tva at this place and gave alms tire­lessly to all liv­ing be­ings ac­cord­ing to their wishes. He was the king of this land for one thou­sand lives, and it was at this aus­pi­cious place where he sur­rendered his eyes in one thou­sand lives.

[0881a25] 捨眼東不遠有二石窣堵波，各高百餘尺。右則梵王所立，左乃天帝所建，以妙珍寶而瑩飾之。如來寂滅，寶變為石；基雖傾陷，尚曰崇高。

Not far east of where Sākya Buddha for­sook his eyes there are two stone stu­pas, both more than one hun­dred feet high. The one on the right was erec­ted by Brahma and the one on the left by In­dra, and both are beau­ti­fully dec­or­ated with won­der­ful jew­els and gems. After the de­mise of the Tathāgata the gems turned into stone. Al­though the found­a­tions have sunk the stu­pas still stand high and lofty.

[0881a29] 梵、釋窣堵波西北行五十餘里，有窣堵波，是釋迦如來於此化鬼子母，令不害人，故此國俗祭以求嗣。

More than fifty li to the north­w­est of the stu­pas built by Brahma and In­dra there is a stupa that marks the place where Sākya Tathāgata con­ver­ted the god­dess Hārītī to pre­vent her from do­ing harm to people. Thus it be­came the cus­tom of the coun­try to pray to the god­dess for off­spring.

[0881b03] 化鬼子母北行五十餘里，有窣堵波，是商莫迦菩薩(舊曰睒摩菩薩，訛也)恭行鞠養，侍盲父母，於此採菓，遇王遊獵，毒矢誤中；至誠感靈，天帝傅藥，德動明聖，尋即復穌。

More than fifty li to the north of the place where Hārītī was con­ver­ted, there is a stupa built at the spot where Syā­maka Bod­hisat­tva (formerly tran­scribed in­cor­rectly as Shanmo Bod­hisat­tva) gathered fruit to of­fer to his blind par­ents in ful­fill­ment of his fi­lial duty, and he met the king who was hunt­ing and who ac­ci­dent­ally hit him with a poisoned ar­row. In­dra, moved by Syā­maka’s mind of sin­cer­ity, dressed the wound with medi­cine and his vir­tu­ous deed in­spired the gods, who re­stored him to life very quickly.

[0881b07] 商莫迦菩薩被害東南行二百餘里，至跋虜沙城。城北有窣堵波，是蘇達拏太子(唐言善牙)以父王大象施婆羅門，蒙譴被擯，顧謝國人，既出郭°門，於此告別。其側伽藍，五十餘僧，並小乘學也。昔伊濕伐邏(唐言自在)論師於此製《阿毘達磨明燈論》。

Go­ing to the south­east for more than two hun­dred li from the place where Syā­maka Bod­hisat­tva was in­jured, I reached the city of Varṣa. To the north of the city there is a stupa built at the place where Prince Sudāna (“Good Tooth” | sic |) said farewell to his coun­try­men at the city gate when he was ban­ished from the city, and apo­lo­gized to the people for hav­ing given his father’s ele­phant as a gift to a brah­man. In the mon­as­tery be­side the stupa there are more than fifty monks, all of whom are fol­low­ers of the Hinay­ana teach­ings. It was at this place that the śāstra mas­ter Iśvara (“Self-ex­ist­ence”) com­posed the Ab­hid­han­nadīpa-śāstra.

[0881b13] 跋虜沙城東門外有一伽藍，僧徒五十餘人，並大乘學也，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建立。昔蘇達拏太子擯在彈多落迦山(舊曰壇特山，訛也)，婆羅門乞其男女，於此鬻賣。

Out­side the east gate of Varṣa there is a mon­as­tery with more than fifty monks, all of whom are fol­low­ers of the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. There is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Formerly, when Prince Sudāna was liv­ing in ex­ile at Daṇdaloka Moun­tain (formerly known as Tante Moun­tain er­ro­neously), a brah­man begged for his sons and wife and then sold them at this place.

[0881b17] 跋虜沙城東北二十餘里，至彈多落迦山。嶺上有窣堵波，無憂王所建，蘇達拏太子於此棲隱。其側不遠有窣堵波，太子於此以男女施婆羅門，婆羅門捶其男女，流血染地，今諸草木猶帶絳色。巖間石室，太子及妃習定之處。谷中林樹垂條若帷，竝是太子昔所遊止。其側不遠有一石廬，即古仙人之所居也。

At a place more than twenty li to the north­east from Varṣa one reaches Daṇdaloka Moun­tain. On the ridge there is a stupa built by King Aśoka to mark the place where Prince Sudāna once lived in se­clu­sion. Not far away there is an­other stupa, built at the spot where the prince gave away his sons and wife to a brah­man. The brah­man beat the prince’s sons and wife un­til their blood ran to the ground and stained the earth. Even now the grass and plants still re­tain a red­dish hue. The cave on the cliff was the place where the prince and his wife prac­ticed med­it­a­tion. The branches of the trees in the val­ley droop like cur­tains, and the prince used to roam about here. Nearby is a stone her­mit­age that was the abode of an an­cient ṛṣi (sagely an­chor­ite).’s

[0881b25] 仙廬西北行百餘里，越一小山，至大山，山南有伽藍，僧徒尠少，並學大乘。其側窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。昔獨角仙人所居之處。仙人為婬女誘亂，退失神通，婬女乃駕其肩而還城邑。

At more than one hun­dred li to the north­w­est from the her­mit­age one crosses over a small hill and ar­rives at a large moun­tain. On the south of the moun­tain there is a mon­as­tery, in which lived a few monks who stud­ied Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. The stupa be­side it was built by King Aśoka at the place where the ṛṣi Uni­com once lived. This ṛṣi was en­snared by a lust­ful wo­man and lost his su­per­nat­ural powers. The lust­ful wo­man then rode on his shoulders and re­turned to the city.

[0881c01] 跋虜沙城東北五十餘里，至崇山。山有青石大自在天婦像，毘摩天女也。聞諸土俗曰：此天像者，自然有也。靈異既多，祈禱亦眾，印度諸國，求福請願，貴賤畢萃，遠近咸會。其有願見天神形者，至誠無貳，絕食七日，或有得見，求願多遂。山下有大自在天祠，塗灰外道式修祠祀。

At more than fifty li to the north­east from Varṣa one reaches a lofty moun­tain, on which there is a blu­ish stone im­age of Bhīmādevī, wife of Ma­heśvara. The local people said that this im­age of the god­dess ex­is­ted nat­ur­ally. It showed many mar­vels and many people came to give pray­ers. In all parts of In­dia people, both noble and com­mon, who wish to pray for blessed­ness flock to this place from far and near. Those who wish to see the phys­ical form of the god­dess may get a vis­ion of her after fast­ing for seven days with a sin­cere and con­cen­trated mind, and in most cases their wishes will be ful­filled. At the foot of the moun­tain there is a temple for Ma­heśvara in which the ash-smear­ing heretics per­form ce­re­mon­ies.

[0881c08] 毘摩天祠東南行百五十里，至烏鐸迦漢荼城，周二十餘里，南臨信度河。居人富樂，寶貨盈積，諸方珍異，多集於此。

Go­ing for a hun­dred fifty li to the south­east from the Bhīmādevī temple I reached the city of Udakhand, which is more than twenty li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing the In­dus River in the south. The in­hab­it­ants are rich and happy. Pre­cious goods pile up high and most of the rare and valu­able things of dif­fer­ent places are col­lec­ted here.

[0881c11] 烏鐸迦漢荼城西北行二十餘里，至婆羅覩邏邑，是製《聲明論》波爾尼仙本生處也。遂古之初，文字繁廣，時經劫壞，世界空虛，長壽諸天，降靈道俗，由是之故，文籍生焉。自時厥後，其源泛濫。梵王、天帝作則隨時，異道諸仙各製文字，人相祖述，競習所傳，學者虛功，難用詳究。

Go­ing for more than twenty li to the north­w­est from Udakhand I reached the city of Salātura, the birth­place of the ṛṣi Pāṇini, au­thor of the Sabda-vidyā-śāstra. At the be­gin­ning of an­tiquity the writ­ten lan­guage was rich and ex­tens­ive in vocab­u­lary, but with the pas­sage of the kalpa of de­struc­tion the world be­came empty, and af­ter­ward the long-lived deit­ies des­cen­ded to the earth to guide hu­man be­ings. There­after, lit­er­ary doc­u­ments were pro­duced, and thence­forth the source of lit­er­at­ure be­came a tor­ren­tial flood. Brahma and In­dra wrote model com­pos­i­tions as the time re­quired, and the ṛṣis of each of the heretical sys­tems formed their own words. The people stud­ied what was taught by their pre­de­cessors and emu­lated what was handed down; but the ef­forts of the stu­dents were wasted be­cause it was dif­fi­cult for them to mas­ter everything in de­tail.

人壽百歲之時，有波爾尼仙，生知博物，愍時澆薄，欲削浮偽，刪定繁猥，遊方問道，遇自在天，遂申述作之志。自在天曰：「盛矣哉！吾當祐汝。」仙人受教而退，於是研精覃思，採摭群言，作為字書，備有千頌，頌三十二言矣。究極今古，總括文言。封以進上，王甚珍異，下令國中，普使傳習，有誦通利，賞千金錢。所以師資傳授，盛行當世。故此邑中諸婆羅門，碩學高才，博物強識。

At the time when the hu­man life span was a hun­dred years, the ṛṣi Pāṇini was born with in­nate know­ledge of wide scope. Feel­ing pity at the shal­low­ness of learn­ing in his time, and wish­ing to ex­punge what was su­per­fi­cial and false and de­lete what was su­per­flu­ous, he traveled about to make in­quir­ies into the way of learn­ing. He met with Ma­heśvara and told the deity of his in­ten­tion. Ma­heśvara said, ‘‘How grand it is! I shall render you as­sist­ance.” The ṛṣi with­drew after hear­ing these words and con­cen­trated his mind to pon­der the mat­ter. He col­lec­ted all words and com­posed a text of one thou­sand stan­zas, each stanza con­sist­ing of thirty-two syl­lables. In this book he made a thor­ough study of the writ­ten and spoken lan­guage of both an­cient and mo­dem times, and offered it to the king in a sealed en­vel­ope. The king treas­ured it very much and ordered that all the people of the coun­try should learn the text; one who could re­cite it flu­ently by heart would be re­war­ded with a thou­sand gold coins. Thus this text was trans­mit­ted from teacher to pu­pil and be­came pre­val­ent at that time. Hence­forth the brah­mans in this city are great schol­ars of high tal­ent with know­ledge of wide scope.

[0881c27] 婆羅覩邏邑中有窣堵波，羅漢化波爾尼仙後進之處。如來去世，垂五百年，有大阿羅漢自迦濕彌羅國遊化至此，乃見梵志捶訓稚童。時阿羅漢謂梵志曰：「何苦此兒？」梵志曰：「令學《聲明論》，業不時進。」阿羅漢逌爾而笑。老梵志曰：「夫沙門者，慈悲為情，愍傷物類。仁今所笑，願聞其說。」阿羅漢曰：「談不容易，恐致深疑。汝頗甞聞波爾尼仙製《聲明論》，垂訓於世乎？」婆羅門曰：「此邑之子，後進仰德，像設猶在。」阿羅漢曰：「今汝此子，即是彼仙。猶以強識，翫習世典，唯談異論，不究真理。神智唐捐，流轉未息，尚乘餘善，為汝愛子。然則世典文辭，徒疲功績；豈若如來聖教，福智冥滋？

In the city of Śalātura there is a stupa built at the place where an ar­hat con­ver­ted a dis­ciple of Pāṇini. Five hun­dred years after the de­mise of the Tathāgata a great ar­hat came from Kaśmīra to this place in the course of his jour­ney. When he saw a brah­man teacher beat­ing a school­boy, he asked the brah­man, ‘‘Why are you chas­tising the child?” The brah­man said, “I asked him to learn the Sab­davidyā-śāstra but he has not made pro­gress with the pas­sage of time.” The ar­hat smiled ami­ably and the old brah­man said, “A śramaṇa should be com­pas­sion­ate and have sym­pathy for all liv­ing be­ings. But you are now smil­ing and I would like to know why.” The ar­hat said in reply, “It is not easy for me to tell you, for fear that it might cause you deep doubt. Have you ever heard about the ṛṣi Pāṇini, who com­posed the Sab­davidyā-śāstra for the in­struc­tion of pos­ter­ity?” The brah­man said, “He was a scion of this city. Out of ad­mir­a­tion for his vir­tue his dis­ciples have made an im­age of him, which is still in ex­ist­ence.” The ar­hat said, “This son of yours is [a re­in­carn­a­tion of] that ṛṣi. On ac­count of his rich know­ledge he took de­light in study­ing worldly books, dis­cuss­ing only the heretical the­or­ies and never re­search­ing the truth. He wasted his spirit and wis­dom and is still in­volved in the wheel of re­birth. By vir­tue of his sur­plus good deeds he has been re­born as your be­loved son. But he simply wasted his en­ergy study­ing the dic­tion and lan­guage of worldly books. How can this be the same as the Tathāgata’s holy teach­ings, which give rise to bliss and wis­dom in a mys­ter­i­ous way?

曩者南海之濱有一枯樹，五百蝙蝠於中穴居。有諸商侶止此樹下，時屬風寒，人皆飢凍，聚積樵蘇，蘊火其下，煙焰漸熾，枯樹遂燃°。時商侶中有一賈客，夜分已後，誦《阿毘達磨藏》。彼諸蝙蝠雖為火困，愛好法音，忍而不去，於此命終。隨業受生，俱得人身，捨家修學，乘聞法聲，聰明利智，並證聖果，為世福田。

“In olden times there was a de­cayed tree by the shore of the South Sea, and five hun­dred bats lived in the holes of the tree. Once a cara­van of mer­chants stayed un­der the tree. As the sea­son windy and chilly and the mer­chants were hungry and cold, they piled up fire­wood and built a fire un­der the tree. The smoke and flames gradu­ally began to burn fiercely and set the de­cayed tree fire. One of the mer­chants re­cited the Ab­hid­harma-piṭaka after mid­night, and the bats, even though scorched by the heat, so loved to listen to the re­cit­a­tion of the Dharma that they would not leave the place; they dis­reg­arded the in­tense heat and died in the tree. Ac­cord­ing to their karmic force they were re­born as hu­man be­ings and re­nounced their homes to leam and prac­tice [the Buddhist teach­ings]. As they had heard the re­cit­a­tion of the Dharma they were clever and in­tel­li­gent and real­ized saint­hood; thus they be­came fields of blessed­ness for the world.

近迦膩色迦王與脇尊者招集五百賢聖，於迦濕彌羅國作《毘婆沙論》，斯並枯樹之中五百蝙蝠也。余雖不肖，是其一數。斯則優劣良異，飛伏懸°殊。仁今愛子，可許出家；出家功德，言不能述。」

“Re­cently King Kan­iṣka and Ven­er­able Pārśva summoned five hun­dred holy per­sons in Kaśmīra to com­pile the Vibhāṣā-śāstra, and these five hun­dred holy per­sons are the five hun­dred bats that lived in that de­cayed tree. Al­though I am an un­worthy per­son I was one of them. From this we may see that there is such a great dif­fer­ence between the su­per­ior and the in­ferior, the vir­tu­ous and the vi­cious, as that between those that fly high in the air and those that crouch down on the ground. Per­mit your be­loved son to be­come a monk, for the mer­its of be­com­ing a monk are in­des­crib­able in words.”

時阿羅漢說此語已，示神通事，因忽不現。婆羅門深生敬異，歎善久之，具告隣里，遂放其子出家修學，因即迴信，崇重三寶，鄉人從化，於今彌篤。

After hav­ing spoken these words the ar­hat per­formed mir­acles and dis­ap­peared all of a sud­den. The brah­man cher­ished a deep feel­ing of awe and faith and ex­claimed sādhu (“ex­cel­lent”) for a long time. He re­lated everything to the people of the neigh­bor­hood and per­mit­ted his son to be­come a monk to learn and prac­tice [the Buddhist teach­ings]. He then gained faith and honored the Triple Gem, and his coun­try­men have ac­cep­ted his edi­fic­a­tion with more and more earn­est­ness up to this day.

從烏鐸迦漢荼城北踰山涉川，行六百餘里，至烏仗那國(唐言苑，昔輪王之苑囿也。舊云烏場，或曰烏茶，皆訛。北印度境)。

Go­ing from Udakhand to the north over moun­tains and across rivers for more than six hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Udyāna. (This means “park,” as it was a pleas­ure garden of a pre­vi­ous wheel king. Formerly it was tran­scribed as Wuchang or Wutu, both er­ro­neously. It is in the do­main of North In­dia.)

大唐西域記卷第二

End of Fas­cicle II of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第三(八國)

Fas­cicle III: Eight Coun­tries, from Udyāna to Rā­japura

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

烏仗那國

1. The Coun­try of Udyāna

鉢露羅國

2. The Coun­try of Balūra

呾叉始羅國

3. The Coun­try of Takṣaśilā

僧訶捕羅國

4. The Coun­try of Sim­hapura

烏剌°尸國

5. The Coun­try of Ur­aśā

迦濕彌羅國

6. The Coun­try of Kaśmīra

半笯(奴故反)嗟國

7. The Coun­try of Parṇotsa

遏羅闍補羅國

8. The Coun­try of Rā­japur

[0882b10] 烏仗那國，周五千餘里，山谷相屬，川澤連原。穀稼雖播，地利不滋。多蒲萄，少甘蔗，土產金、鐵，宜欝金香，林樹蓊欝，花果茂盛。寒暑和暢，風雨順序。人性怯懦，俗情譎詭。好學而不功，禁呪為藝業。多衣白[疊*毛]，少有餘服。語言雖異，大同印度。文字禮儀，頗相參預。

The coun­try of Udyāna is over five thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with moun­tains and val­leys con­nect­ing each other and rivers and marshes link­ing to­gether. Al­though crops are planted, the yield is poor ow­ing to the in­fer­til­ity of the land. There are many grapev­ines but sug­ar­cane is scanty. The coun­try pro­duces gold and iron and the soil is suit­able for grow­ing saf­fron. The woods are ex­uber­ant and flowers and fruit are abund­ant. The cli­mate is mild with timely wind and rain. The people are timid and over­cau­tious by nature and the prac­tice of fraud­u­lence is the com­mon cus­tom. They en­joy learn­ing but do not make pro­found stud­ies, and they take the re­cit­a­tion of spells as their pro­fes­sion. They mostly wear white cot­ton and have few other gar­ments. Al­though they speak a dif­fer­ent dia­lect, it is roughly the same as that spoken in In­dia, and their writ­ten lan­guage and etiquette are closely re­lated to those of In­dia.

崇重佛法，敬信大乘。夾蘇婆伐窣堵河，舊有一千四百伽藍，多已荒蕪。昔僧徒一萬八千，今漸減少。並學大乘，寂定為業，善誦其文，未究深義，戒行清潔，特閑禁呪。律儀傳訓，有五部焉：一法密部，二化地部，三飲光部，四說一切有部，五大眾部。天祠十有餘所，異道雜居。堅城四五，其王多治瞢揭釐城。城周十六七里，居人殷盛。

They hold Buddhism in high es­teem and rev­er­ently be­lieve in the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. Along the two sides of the Śubhavastu River there were formerly one thou­sand four hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies, but most of them are now in des­ol­a­tion. In the old days there were eight­een thou­sand monks but the num­ber has gradu­ally de­creased. They all study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings and spend their time in si­lent med­it­a­tion. They can re­cite their books well but they do not make re­searches into the deep mean­ings. They are pure in ob­serving the dis­cip­lin­ary rules and are spe­cially ad­ept in re­cit­ing in­cant­a­tions. There are five tra­di­tions of the Vinaya rules, namely, the Dharmagup­taka, the Mahīśā­saka, the Kāśyapīya, the Sar­vāstivāda, and the Mahāsāṃghika. There are more than ten deva temples with heretics liv­ing to­gether. There are four or five for­ti­fied cit­ies, and the king mostly rules over the coun­try from the city of Maṅgala, which is six­teen or sev­en­teen li in cir­cuit and is well pop­u­lated.

[0882b24] 瞢揭釐城東四五里有窣堵波，極多靈瑞，是佛在昔作忍辱仙，於此為羯利王(唐言鬪諍。舊云哥利，訛也)割截支體。

Four or five li to the east of Maṅgala there is a stupa that has shown a great num­ber of spir­itual signs. This was the spot where the Buddha, as the ṛṣi Pa­tience in a pre­vi­ous life, had his limbs mu­til­ated by King Kali (“Fight­ing,” formerly tran­scribed as Geli er­ro­neously).

[0882b27] 瞢揭釐城東北行二百五六十里，入大山，至阿波邏羅龍泉，即蘇婆伐窣堵河之源也。派流西南，春夏含凍，昏夕飛雪，雪霏五彩，光流四照。此龍者，迦葉波佛時生在人趣，名曰殑祇，深閑呪術，禁禦惡龍，不令暴雨，國人賴之，以稸餘糧。居人眾庶感恩懷德，家稅斗穀以饋遺焉。既積歲時，或有逋課。殑祇含怒，願為毒龍，暴行風雨，損傷苗稼。命終之後，為此池龍。泉流白水，損傷地利。釋迦如來大悲御世，愍此國人獨遭斯難，降神至此，欲化暴龍。執金剛神杵擊山崖，龍王震懼，乃出歸依，聞佛說法，心淨信悟，如來遂制勿損農稼。龍曰：「凡有所食，賴收人田，今蒙聖教，恐難濟給，願十二歲一收糧儲。」如來含覆，愍而許焉。故今十二年一遭白水之災。

Go­ing to the north­east for two hun­dred and fifty or sixty li from Maṅgala, I came to a great moun­tain and reached Ap­alāla Dragon Spring, which is the source of the Subhavasṅi River and has a trib­u­tary flow­ing to the south­w­est. Morn­ing and even­ing the white spray falls like snow­flakes with all the col­ors of the rain­bow, shin­ing upon all sides. At the time of Kāśyapa Buddha the dragon [of this spring] was born a hu­man be­ing named Jingqi, who was an ex­pert in the art of ex­or­cism and had re­strained a ma­li­cious dragon from caus­ing rain­storms. It was be­cause of his help that the people of the coun­try had sur­plus grain to store at home. Out of grat­it­ude for the ex­or­cist’s vir­tu­ous deeds, each house­hold of the in­hab­it­ants con­trib­uted one doit (ten liters) of grain as a gift to him. As time passed some people neg­lected their duty, and Jingqi be­came angry and wished to be­come a ma­lig­nant dragon and cause storms to spoil the seed­lings of the crops. After his death he was re­born a dragon at this place and caused white wa­ter to flow from the spring and it dam­aged the fer­til­ity of the soil. When Śākya Tathāgata came to guide the world with a mind of great pity he had sym­pathy with the people of this coun­try, who alone suffered from the dis­aster, and he sent a deity to the place to con­vert the fe­ro­cious dragon. The deity Vajrapāṇi stmck the moun­tain cliffs with his vajra (thun­der­bolt) and the shock ter­ri­fied the dragon king, who came out and took refuge in the Buddha. After hear­ing the Buddha preach­ing the Dharma for him, the dragon pur­i­fied his mind and had faith in en­light­en­ment. The Tathāgata then for­bade him to des­troy ag­ri­cul­tural products. The dragon said, “Whatever food I eat is col­lec­ted from the fields cul­tiv­ated by people. Un­der your holy teach­ings I fear that I could not sus­tain my life. I hope that I may be al­lowed to col­lect grain for stor­age once every twelve years.” The Tathāgata ac­cep­ted the dragon’s re­quest with com­pas­sion. Thus the coun­try suf­fers this white wa­ter calam­ity once every twelve years.

[0882c14] 阿波邏羅龍泉西南三十餘里，水北岸大磐石上，有如來足所履迹，隨人福力，量有短長，是如來伏此龍已，留迹而去。後人於上積石為室，遐邇相趨，花香供養。順流而下三十餘里，至如來濯衣石，袈裟之文煥焉如鏤。

More than thirty li to the south­w­est of Ap­alāla Dragon Spring, on the north­ern bank of the river, there is a huge rock with a foot­print of the Tathāgata, which var­ies in size ac­cord­ing to the power of the mer­its of the meas­urer. It was left by the Tathāgata when he was go­ing away after hav­ing con­ver­ted the dragon. Af­ter­ward people built a stone cham­ber in the rock and wor­shipers came here from far and near to of­fer flowers and in­cense. Go­ing down­stream for more than thirty li, one reaches the rock on which the Tathāgata washed his robe. The lines of the robe are still clearly vis­ible, as if they were carved into the rock.

[0882c20] 瞢揭釐城南四百餘里，至醯羅山，谷水西派，逆流東上，雜華異果，被澗緣崖，峯巖危險，谿谷盤紆，或聞諠語之聲，或聞音樂之響。方石如塔，宛若工成，連延相屬，接布崖谷。是如來在昔為聞半頌(舊曰伽，梵文略也。或曰偈他，梵音訛也。今從正音，宜云伽他。伽他者，唐言頌，頌三十二言也)之法，於此捨身命焉。

More than four hun­dred li to the south of Maṅgala one reaches Hidda Moun­tain, where the stream in the val­ley flows west­ward. As one goes up to the east against the cur­rent of the stream, there are vari­ous kinds of flowers and strange [types of] fruit, cov­er­ing the gully and climb­ing the steeps. The peaks and cliffs are pre­cip­it­ous and the brooks and rav­ines wind and me­ander. The sound of loud talk­ing and the echo of mu­sic are some­times heard. Ly­ing linked to­gether in the val­ley are square rocks that re­semble bed­steads made by crafts­men. This was the place where once in a former life the Tathāgata for­sook his life to hear half a stanza of the Dharma. (The word “stanza” was formerly tran­scribed as jie, an ab­bre­vi­ation of the ori­ginal Sanskrit, or as ji­eta, a mis­pro­nun­ci­ation of the Sanskrit word. The cor­rect read­ing should be gāthā, mean­ing a “verse” con­sist­ing of thirty-two syl­lables.)

[0883a01] 瞢揭釐城南二百餘里，大山側，至摩訶伐那(唐言大林)伽藍。是如來昔修菩薩行，號薩縛達之王(唐言一切施)，避敵棄國，潛行至此，遇貧婆羅門，方來乞匃。既失國位，無以為施，遂令羈縛，擒往敵王，冀以賞財，迴為惠施。

More than two hun­dred li to the south of Maṅgala is Mahāvana (“Great Forest”) Mon­as­tery, loc­ated be­side a moun­tain. This was the place where the Tathāgata, when he was prac­ti­cing the way of the bod­hisat­tva in one of his pre­vi­ous lives as a king named Sar­vad­atta (“All-giv­ing”), came in­cog­nito after hav­ing aban­doned his king­dom to avoid an en­emy. He met a poor brah­man com­ing to beg for alms. Since the king had lost his king­dom he had noth­ing to give as alms. So he asked the brah­man to bind him, send him to the en­emy king, and claim a re­ward so that he might give the re­ward as alms to the brah­man.

[0883a07] 摩訶伐那伽藍西北，下山三四十里，至摩愉(摩言豆)伽藍。有窣堵波，高百餘尺。其側大方石上，有如來足蹈之迹，是佛昔蹈此石，放拘胝光明，照摩訶伐那伽藍，為諸人、天說本生事。其窣堵波基下有石，色帶黃白，常有津膩。是如來在昔修菩薩行，為聞正法，於此析骨書寫經典。

Go­ing down the moun­tain for thirty or forty li from the north­w­est of Mahāvana Mon­as­tery, one reaches Mayū (“Bean”) Mon­as­tery. There is a stupa over one hun­dred feet high, be­side which is a big square rock with a foot­print of the Tathāgata. In one of his pre­vi­ous lives the Buddha stood on the rock and emit­ted mil­lions of rays of light to il­lu­mine Mahāvana Mon­as­tery, while he re­lated the Jā­taka stor­ies to hu­man and di­vine be­ings. Be­low the base of the stupa there is a stone, yel­low­ish-white in color and which al­ways ex­udes an oily sub­stance. This was the place where the Tathāgata, when prac­ti­cing the way of the bod­hisat­tva, wrote down scrip­tures with a splinter of his bone in or­der to hear the right Dharma.

[0883a14] 摩愉伽藍西六七十里，至窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。是如來昔修菩薩行，號毘迦王(唐言與。舊曰尸毘王，訛)，為求佛果，於此割身，從鷹代鴿。

Sixty or sev­enty li to the west of Mayū Mon­as­tery is a stupa built by King Aśoka. This was the place where in or­der to ac­quire buddha­hood when he was prac­ti­cing the way of the bod­hisat­tva the Tathāgata, in a former life as a king named Sivaka (“Giv­ing,” formerly tran­scribed as Shipi er­ro­neously), cut his body to ransom a dove from a hawk.

[0883a18] 代鴿西北二百餘里，入珊尼羅闍川，至薩裒殺地(唐言蛇藥)僧伽藍。有窣堵波，高八十餘尺。是如來昔為帝釋，時遭饑歲，疾疫流行，醫療無功道，死相屬。帝釋悲愍，思所救濟，乃變其形為大蟒身，僵屍川谷，空中遍告；聞者感慶，相率奔赴，隨割隨生，療飢療疾。其側不遠，有蘇摩大窣堵波。是如來昔為帝釋，時世疾疫，愍諸含識，自變其身為蘇摩蛇，凡有噉食，莫不康豫。

More than two hun­dred li to the north­w­est of the place where the dove was ransomed, one enters the Sanirāja Val­ley and reaches Sar­pauṣadhi (“Ser­pent Medi­cine”) Mon­as­tery, where there is a stupa over eighty feet high. This was the place where a fam­ine and pes­ti­lence oc­curred when the Tathāgata was In­dra in a former life. Med­ical treat­ment failed to cure the people, who died one after an­other on the road. With a mind of com­pas­sion In­dra wished to save them, so he trans­formed him­self into a huge py­thon ly­ing dead in the val­ley, and an an­nounce­ment echoed in the air. Those who heard it hap­pily rushed to the spot to cut off pieces of flesh, which were im­me­di­ately re­gen­er­ated, to sat­isfy their hun­ger and cure their dis­ease. Not far away there is the great Sūma Stupa, mark­ing the place where the Tathāgata, as In­dra in in one of his former lives, pit­ied the people suf­fer­ing dur­ing a year of fam­ine. He changed him­self into a large sūma (wa­ter) ser­pent and all those who ate its flesh were cured.

[0883a27] 珊尼羅闍川北石崖邊，有窣堵波。病者至求，多蒙除差。如來在昔為孔雀王，與其群而至此，熱渴所逼，求水不獲，孔雀王以[此/束]啄崖，涌泉流注。今遂為池，飲沐愈疾。石上猶有孔雀蹤迹。

Be­side the cliff at the north of the Sanirāja River there is a stupa that of­ten cures sick people who come to pray for the re­cov­ery of their health. When in a former life the Tathāgata was a pea­cock king, he came here with his flock. As it was the hot sea­son, the pea­cocks were thirsty but they could not find any wa­ter to drink. The pea­cock king then pecked the cliff to let wa­ter flow out of the rock. Now a pond has been formed there, and its wa­ter is ef­fect­ive for heal­ing ill­ness. There are traces of the pea­cocks still vis­ible on the stone.

[0883b03] 瞢揭釐城西南行六七十里，大河東有窣堵波，高六十餘尺，上軍王之所建也。昔如來之將寂滅，告諸大眾：「我涅槃後，烏仗那國上軍王宜與舍利之分。」及諸王將欲均量，上軍王後來，遂有輕鄙之議。是時天人大眾重宣如來顧命之言，乃預同分，持歸本國，式遵崇建。

More than sixty or sev­enty li south­w­est from Maṅgala there is a stupa over sixty feet high built by King Ut­tarasena at the east side of a great river. When the Tathāgata was about to enter nir­vana he told the as­sembly of monks, “After my nir­vana, King Ut­tarasena of Udyāna should be given a por­tion of my relic bones.” The vari­ous other kings wished to share the rel­ics equally among them­selves and, as King Ut­tarasena ar­rived later, he was des­pised by the other kings. At that time all the people, heav­enly be­ings, and monks re­it­er­ated the Tathāgata’s last words. Thus King [Ut­tarasena] took part in shar­ing the rel­ics and car­ried his por­tion back to his own coun­try, where he rev­er­ently con­struc­ted a stupa.

窣堵波側大河濱，有大石，狀如象。昔上軍王以大白象負舍利歸，至於此地，象忽蹎仆，因而自斃，遂變為石，即於其側起窣堵波。

On the bank be­side the great river there is a huge rock in the shape of an ele­phant. Formerly, when King Ut­tarasena used his great white ele­phant to carry the rel­ics home, it sud­denly fell down and died at this place; it was trans­formed into a rock and a stupa was erec­ted be­side it.

[0883b12] 瞢揭釐城西五十餘里，渡大河，至盧醯呾迦(唐言赤)窣堵波，高五十餘尺，無憂王之所建也。昔如來修菩薩行，為大國王，號曰慈力，於此刺身血以飼五藥叉(舊曰夜叉，訛也)。

More than fifty li to the west of Maṅgala and across a great river, one reaches Ro­hi­taka (“Red”) Stupa, which is over fifty feet in height and was built by King Aśoka. Formerly when the Tathāgata was prac­ti­cing the way of the bod­hisat­tva as a king named Maitrībala, he drew blood from his body to feed five yakṣas (formerly tran­scribed as yecha er­ro­neously).

[0883b17] 瞢揭釐城東北三十餘里，至遏部多(唐言奇特)石窣堵波，高四十餘尺。在昔如來為諸人、天說法開導，如來去後，從地踊出，黎庶崇敬，香華不替。

More than thirty li to the north­w­est of Maṅgala, one reaches Adb­huta (“Mar­velous Stone”) Stupa, which is over forty feet in height. Formerly the Tathāgata preached the Dharma to in­struct hu­man and heav­enly be­ings at this place. When the Tathāgata had left the place this stupa emerged from the ground, to which the people offered in­cense and flowers rev­er­ently, without cease.

[0883b21] 石窣堵波西渡大河三四十里，至一精舍，中有阿縛盧枳低濕伐羅菩薩像(唐言觀自在。合字連聲，梵語如上；分文散音，即阿縛盧枳多譯曰觀，伊濕伐羅譯曰自在。舊譯為光世音，或云觀世音，或觀世自在，皆訛謬也)。威靈潛被，神迹昭明，法俗相趨，供養無替。

Cross­ing the great river at the west of the stone stupa and go­ing for thirty or forty li, I reached a vi­hāra in which is en­shrined an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva (known as Guan­zizai in Chinese. When it is pro­nounced in con­nec­ted syl­lables it reads as the above-men­tioned Sanskrit form, and when it is read sep­ar­ately it is di­vided into avalokita, trans­lated as guan or “ob­serve,” and īśvara, trans­lated as zizai or “mas­ter.” Formerly it was trans­lated as Guang- shiyin, Guan­shiyin, or Guan­shiz­izai, all er­ro­neously). Its pro­tect­ive spir­itual in­flu­ence is lat­ent but its di­vine mani­fest­a­tions are ap­par­ent. Both monks and laypeople come here one after an­other to make of­fer­ings to it without cease.

[0883b25] 觀自在菩薩像西北百五十里，至藍勃盧山。山嶺有龍池，周三十餘里，淥波浩汗，清流皎鏡。[0883b27] 昔毘盧釋迦王前伐諸釋，四人拒軍者，宗親擯逐，各事分飛。其一釋種，既出國都，跋涉疲弊，中路而止。時有一雁，飛趣其前，既以馴狎，因即乘焉。其雁飛翔，下此池側。釋種虛遊，遠適異國，迷不知路，假寐樹陰。

Go­ing north­w­est for one hun­dred forty or fifty li from the im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva, I reached Lan­polu Moun­tain, on top of which is a dragon lake more than thirty li in cir­cuit, a vast ex­panse of green wa­ter as pure as a bril­liant mir­ror. Formerly when King Vir­ud­haka went to at­tack the Śākyas, four men of the Śākya clan res­isted the [in­vad­ing] army and their re­l­at­ives were ex­iled to dif­fer­ent places. One of the four men came out of the cap­ital city and, feel­ing tired dur­ing the march, he stopped mid­way. At that time a wild goose came be­fore him and, as the bird was do­cile and friendly the man climbed onto its back. The goose flew up and alighted be­side the lake. The Sākya man, hav­ing traveled through the air and ar­rived in a dis­tant and strange land, lost his way and took a nap un­der the shade of a tree.

池龍少女，遊覽水濱，忽見釋種，恐不得當也，變為人形，即而摩拊。釋種驚寤，因即謝曰：「羈旅羸人，何見親拊？」遂欵殷勤，凌逼野合。女曰：「父母有訓，祗奉無違。雖蒙惠顧，未承高命。」釋種曰：「山谷杳冥，爾家安在？」曰：「我此池之龍女也。敬聞聖族流離逃難，幸因遊覽，敢慰勞弊。命有讌私，未聞來旨。況乎積禍，受此龍身，人畜殊途，非所聞也。」釋種曰：「一言見允，宿心斯畢。」龍女曰：「敬聞命矣，唯所去就。」

The young daugh­ter of the dragon in the lake was en­joy­ing the scenery at the lakeside when she sud­denly saw the Sākya refugee. Fear­ing that her shape was un­fit [to ap­pear be­fore a stranger], she changed her­self into a hu­man be­ing and stroked him. The Sākya man, startled, asked her, “I am a poor trav­eler; why are you so in­tim­ate with me?” Then he tried to be af­fec­tion­ate with the girl and at­temp­ted to have il­li­cit in­ter­course with her. The girl said, “If I had my par­ents’ per­mis­sion I would be glad to com­ply with your wishes. But even though you show me fa­vor [I can­not ac­cept it] without my par­ents’ con­sent.” The Sākya said, “In this wil­der­ness of moun­tains and val­leys, where is your home?” The girl said, “I am the daugh­ter of the dragon in this lake. I have heard that people of your noble clan have be­come des­ti­tute and home­less in the course of flee­ing from calam­ity. I am lucky to have this op­por­tun­ity to com­fort you in your fa­tigue while on an ex­cur­sion here. You ask me to have in­tim­acy with you but I have not re­ceived in­struc­tions from my par­ents. Moreover, it is due to my evil deeds done in past lives that I have been born in the form of a dragon. A hu­man be­ing and an an­imal are be­ings of dif­fer­ent ways and [their union] is un­think­able.” The Śākya man said, “Once I get your con­sent my mind will be sat­is­fied.” The dragon girl said, “Then I shall ac­cept your or­ders and will do whatever you wish me to do.”

釋種乃誓心曰：「凡我所有福德之力，令此龍女舉體成人。」福力所感，龍遂改形，既得人身，深自慶悅。乃謝釋種曰：「我積殃運，流轉惡趣。幸蒙垂顧，福力所加，曠劫弊身，一旦改變。欲報此德，糜軀未謝。心願陪遊，事拘物議。願白父母，然後備禮。」

The Sākya man then made an oath in his mind: “I shall render the whole body of this dragon girl [per­man­ently] trans­formed into that of a hu­man be­ing by the power of whatever blessed­ness and vir­tue I have ac­cu­mu­lated.” So the dragon girl ac­tu­ally changed her form through the power of the man’s blessed­ness. Hav­ing as­sumed the form of a hu­man be­ing, the girl was over­joyed and thanked the Sākya, say­ing, “Due to my past evil deeds I was born in the cycle of the evil ways of ex­ist­ence. I am lucky that your power of blessed­ness has trans­formed my wicked body, in which I have been re­born for many kal­pas in the past, into a hu­man fig­ure in an in­stant. I am so grate­ful to you that even if I were to smashed my body into pieces it would not be suf­fi­cient to ex­press my thanks. I am will­ing to be in­tim­ate with you but I fear people’s cri­ti­cism. I wish to tell my par­ents to ar­range the rites in the proper way.”

龍女還池，白父母曰：「今者遊覽，忽逢釋種，福力所感，變我為人，情存好合，敢陳事實。」龍王心欣人趣，情重聖族，遂從女請。乃出池而謝釋種曰：「不遺非類，降尊就卑，願臨我室，敢供灑掃。」

The dragon girl re­turned to the lake and said to her par­ents, “Today when on an ex­cur­sion I met a Sākya man, who by the power of his blessed­ness trans­formed me into a hu­man be­ing. As we wish to get mar­ried I ven­ture to in­form you of the fact.” The dragon king was pleased with hu­man be­ings and had re­spect for the holy Sākya clan, so he con­sen­ted to his daugh­ter’s re­quest and came out of the lake to ex­press his thanks to the man, say­ing, “You con­des­cend to marry my daugh­ter des­pite her sta­tion as a non­hu­man be­ing. Please come to my home and let her serve you.”

釋種受龍王之請，遂即其居。於是龍宮之中，親迎備禮，燕爾樂會，肆極歡娛。釋種覩龍之形，心常畏惡，乃欲辭出。龍王止曰：「幸無遠舍，隣此宅居，當令據疆土，稱大號，總有臣庶，祚延長世。」釋種謝曰：「此言非冀。」

At the dragon king’s in­vit­a­tion, the Sākya man came in and stayed in his abode. He lived in the dragon palace to­gether [with the dragon girl] after per­form­ing due ce­re­mon­ies and the two of them shared a happy con­jugal life with great pleas­ure. But the Sākya man al­ways feared and loathed the sight of dragons, so he wished to beg leave to de­part. The dragon king stopped him, say­ing, “Please do not go far away but stay near us as neigh­bors. I shall cause you to pos­sess ter­rit­ory and have the grand title of king; you will have min­is­ters and sub­jects un­der your con­trol and rule over the coun­try for a long time.” The Sākya de­clined, say­ing, “What you have said is not my wish.”

龍王以寶劍置篋中，妙好白[疊*毛]，而覆其上。謂釋種曰：「幸持此[疊*毛]以獻國王，王必親受遠人之貢，可於此時害其王也。因據其國，不亦善乎？」

The dragon king then put a sword into a small chest and covered it with a piece of the best white cot­ton. He said to the Sākya man, “Take this white cot­ton and present it to the king. He will cer­tainly ac­cept the gift with his own hands from a man com­ing from afar. At that mo­ment you can kill the king, and wouldn’t it be good to seize the king­dom in such a way?”

釋種受龍指誨，便往行獻；烏仗那王躬舉其[疊*毛]，釋種執其袂而刺之。侍臣、衛兵諠亂階陛，釋種麾劍告曰：「我所杖劍，神龍見授，以誅後伏，以斬不臣。」咸懼神武，推尊大位。於是沿弊立政，表賢恤患。已而動大眾，備法駕，即龍宮而報命，迎龍女以還都。

Thus, at the in­stig­a­tion of the dragon, the Sākya went to of­fer the gift. When the king of Udyāna per­son­ally took up the white cot­ton, the Sākya got hold of his sleeve and stabbed him. The king’s at­tend­ants and guards were thrown into a hub­bub of con­fu­sion at the flight of steps lead­ing up to the audi­ence hall. The Sākya wield­ing the sword said to them, “This sword in my hand was given to me by a di­vine dragon to kill those who sur­render after the oth­ers or who re­fuse to serve me.” Fear­ing his di­vine mar­tial power, they all sup­por­ted him in his as­cent to the throne. Then he rec­ti­fied the ab­uses of the gov­ern­ment and im­ple­men­ted new policies, eu­lo­giz­ing the sages and sym­path­iz­ing with those who were in trouble. He mo­bil­ized his ret­inue and rode in a car­riage to re­turn to the dragon palace to re­port on his mis­sion, as well as to wel­come the dragon girl to the cap­ital.

龍女宿業未盡，餘報猶在、每至讌私，首出九龍之頭。釋種畏惡，莫知圖計，伺其寐也，利刃斷之。龍女驚寐曰：「斯非後嗣之利，非徒我命有少損傷，而汝子孫當苦頭痛。」故此國族常有斯患，雖不連綿，時一發動。釋種既沒，其子嗣位，是嗢呾羅犀那王(唐言上軍)。

As the in­flu­ence of the dragon girl’s evil deeds done in the past was not yet com­pletely wiped out, she of­ten as­sumed her dragon form with nine heads when in her private cham­ber. The Sākya man feared and ab­horred the sight and did not know what to do about it. He waited un­til the girl was asleep and ap­proached to cut off her heads with a sharp knife. The dragon girl, startled from sleep, said, “This will not be ad­vant­age­ous to our off­spring. Not only would I be slightly in­jured but your des­cend­ants will suf­fer from head­ache.” Thus the clanspeople of this coun­try of­ten suf­fer from this ail­ment. Al­though it is not con­tinu­ously pain­ful it re­curs from time to time.

[0884a15] 上軍王嗣位之後，其母喪明。如來伏阿波邏羅龍還也，從空下其宮中。上軍王適從遊獵，如來因為其母略說法要。遇聖聞法，遂得復明。如來問曰：「汝子，我之族也，今何所在？」母曰：「旦出畋遊，今將返駕。」如來與諸大眾尋欲發引。王母曰：「我惟福遇，生育聖族，如來悲愍，又親降臨，我子方還，願少留待。」世尊曰：「斯人者，我之族也。可聞教而信悟，非親誨以發心。我其行矣。還，語之曰：『如來從此往拘尸城娑羅樹間入涅槃，宜取舍利，自為供養。』」如來與諸大眾凌虛而去。

After the death of the Sākya man, his son suc­ceeded to the throne as King Ut­tarasena (“Su­per­ior Army”). After King Ut­tarasena had as­cen­ded the throne his mother lost her sight. When the Tathāgata had sub­dued the Ap­alāla dragon and was on his re­turn jour­ney, he des­cen­ded from the air and alighted at the palace at a time when King Ut­tarasena was out hunt­ing. Then the Tathāgata briefly preached the Dharma to [Ut­tarasena’s] mother. Hav­ing met the Holy One and heard the Dharma, she re­gained her sight. The Tathāgata asked her, “Your son is a clans­man of mine. Where is he now?” The king’s mother said, “He went out in the morn­ing on a hunt­ing ex­cur­sion. He will re­turn soon.” When the Tathāgata and his ret­inue of monks were about to re­sume their jour­ney the king’s mother said, “I am for­tu­nate to have given birth to a son of the holy clan, and you have had pity on us such that you con­des­cen­ded to visit us in per­son. My son will re­turn soon—please stay and wait for a mo­ment.” The World-honored One said, “As this per­son is a clans­man of mine he may be­come en­lightened on hear­ing of my teach­ings, so it is not ne­ces­sary for him to re­ceive my per­sonal in­struc­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of his mind. I am go­ing now. You may tell him when he re­turns that the Tathāgata has gone to Kuśin­agara to enter nir­vana between the śāda trees. He can ob­tain some of my relic bones for his private wor­ship.” The Tathāgata and his as­sembly of monks rose into the air and went away.

上軍王方遊獵，遠見宮中光明赫奕，疑有火災，罷獵而返。乃見其母復明，慶而問曰：「我去幾何，有斯祥感，能令慈母復明如昔？」母曰：「汝出之後，如來至此，聞佛說法，遂得復明。如來從此至拘尸城娑羅樹間，當取涅槃，召汝速來分取舍利。」

While King Ut­tarasena was hunt­ing, he saw from afar that his palace was shin­ing brightly, and he sus­pec­ted that a fire might have oc­curred. He stopped hunt­ing and re­turned to find that his mother had re­gained her sight. He asked de­lightedly, “What aus­pi­cious event happened dur­ing my brief ab­sence that my kind mother’s eye­sight has been re­stored?” His mother said, “When you were out the Tathāgata came here. After hear­ing the Buddha’s Dharma I re­gained my sight. The Tathāgata has gone from here to Kuśin­agara to enter nir­vana between the śāla trees. He sug­ges­ted that you go promptly to ob­tain a por­tion of his relic bones.”

時王聞已，悲號頓躄，久而醒悟，命駕馳赴。至雙樹間，佛已涅槃。時諸國王輕其邊鄙，寶重舍利，不欲分與。是時天、人大眾重宣佛意，諸王聞已，遂先均授。

Upon hear­ing these words the king wailed piteously and fain­ted, and re­covered only after a long time. He got into his car­riage and hur­ried to the śāla trees, but the Buddha had already entered nir­vana. The other kings des­pised him as a [minor] king from a vul­gar bor­der­land; they val­ued the relic bones they did not wish to share them with him. At that time the as­sembly of gods and people re­peated the Buddha’s last words. Only when the other kings heard the Buddha’s words did they share with him an equal por­tion of the rel­ics.

[0884b06] 瞢揭釐城東北踰山越谷，逆上信度河，途路危險，山谷杳冥，或履°縆索，或牽鐵鎖，棧道虛臨，飛梁危構，椽杙躡蹬，行千餘里，至達麗羅川，即烏仗那國舊都也。多出黃金及欝金香。達麗川中大伽藍側，有刻木慈氏菩薩像，金色晃昱，靈鑒潛通，高百餘尺，末田底迦(舊曰末田地，訛略也)阿羅漢之所造也。羅漢以神通力，携引匠人升覩史多天(舊曰兜率他也，又曰兜術他，訛也)親觀妙相，三返之後，功乃畢焉。自有此像，法流東派。

Climb­ing over moun­tains and cross­ing val­leys to the north­w­est from Maṅgala, and go­ing up­stream along the In­dus River, the road is per­il­ous and goes through gloomy gul­lies, which are linked either by thick ropes or by iron chains, with via­ducts and bridges con­struc­ted at the pre­cip­ices and wooden pegs in­stalled on the rocks as steps for climbers to set foot on. After a jour­ney of over one thou­sand li, I reached the plain of Darada, the old cap­ital of Udyāna, where gold and saf­fron are pro­duced in abund­ance. Be­side the great mon­as­tery at Darada there is a wooden statue of Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva more than a hun­dred feet tall, of golden hue and lat­ent spir­itual power. It was made by the ar­hat Mad­hyāntika (formerly tran­scribed and abridged in­cor­rectly as Mo­tiendi). Through his su­per­nat­ural powers the ar­hat brought a crafts­man up to Tuṣita Heaven (formerly tran­scribed as Doushuaita or Doushuta er­ro­neously) three times to ob­serve the fine fea­tures of the bod­hisat­tva, and then [the ar­tisan] com­pleted the task. The Dharma has been trans­mit­ted to the East since the time when this statue was made.

從此東行，踰嶺越谷，逆上信度河，飛梁棧道，履危涉險，經五百餘里，至鉢露羅國(北印度境)。

From here go­ing to the east across moun­tains and val­leys up­stream of the In­dus River, over fly­ing bridges and via­ducts through per­il­ous re­gions for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Balūra (in the do­main of North In­dia).

[0884b18] 鉢露羅國，周四千餘里，在大雪山間，東西長，南北狹。多麥、豆，出金、銀，資金之利，國用富饒。時唯寒烈，人性獷暴，薄於仁義，無聞禮節。形貌麁弊，衣服毛褐。文字大同印度。言語異於諸國，伽藍數百所，僧徒數千人，學無專習，戒行多濫。

The coun­try of Balūra is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit. Situ­ated among the Great Snow Moun­tains, it is long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. It yields much wheat and pulse and pro­duces gold and sil­ver. Hav­ing the ad­vant­age of gold re­sources the coun­try has ample means for state ex­pendit­ures. The cli­mate is bit­terly cold and the people are rude by nature, lack­ing in kind­ness and right­eous­ness and know­ing noth­ing of po­lite­ness. Their fea­tures are ugly and they wear coarse woolen gar­ments. Their writ­ing is roughly the same as that of In­dia but their spoken lan­guage di­verges from those of other coun­tries. There are sev­eral hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with sev­eral thou­sand monks, who do not study the the­or­ies of any one spe­cific school, and they are mostly de­fect­ive in ob­serving the Vinaya rules.

[0884b23] 從此復還烏鐸迦漢荼城，南渡信度河，河廣三四里，南流，澄清皎鏡，汩°淴漂流。毒龍、惡獸窟穴其中，若持貴寶、奇花果種及佛舍利渡者，船多飄沒。

From here I went back to Udakhand and crossed the In­dus River to the south. Flow­ing south­w­est, the river is three or four li wide, with pure and limpid rap­idly mov­ing wa­ter. Pois­on­ous dragons and evil an­im­als make their dens in the river and of­ten over­turn the boats of those who are trans­port­ing pre­cious ob­jects, seeds of rare flowers and fruit, or the Buddha’s relic bones across the river.

渡河至呾叉始羅國(北印度境)。[0884b28] 呾叉始羅國，周二千餘里。國大都城周十餘里。酋豪力競，王族絕嗣，往者役屬迦畢試國，近又附庸迦濕彌羅國。地稱沃壤，稼穡殷盛，泉流多，花草茂。氣序和暢，風俗輕勇，崇敬三寶。伽藍雖多，荒蕪已甚，僧徒寡少，並學大乘。

After cross­ing the river, I reached the coun­try of Takṣaśilā (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Takṣaśilā is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over ten li in cir­cuit. As the royal fam­ily is ex­tinct, the re­gional chief­tains have com­peted with each other for sov­er­eignty. Formerly it be­longed to the coun­try of Kāpiśī but re­cently it be­came a de­pend­ency of the coun­try of Kaśmīra. The soil is fer­tile and the crops are rich, with many springs and lux­uri­ant ve­get­a­tion. The cli­mate is mild and the people are reck­less and brave by cus­tom and they ven­er­ate the Triple Gem. There are many mon­as­ter­ies but most of them are in des­ol­a­tion. There are a few monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings.

[0884c04] 大城西北七十餘里有醫羅鉢呾羅龍王池，周百餘步。其水澄清，雜色蓮華同榮異彩。此龍者，即昔迦葉波佛時壞醫羅鉢羅樹苾芻者也。故今彼土請雨祈晴，必與沙門共至池所，彈指慰問隨願必果。

More than sev­enty li to the north­w­est of the cap­ital city is the pond of the dragon king Elāpat­tra, which is about one hun­dred paces in cir­cuit. The wa­ter is lu­cid and has lo­tus flowers of dif­fer­ent col­ors grow­ing in it. This dragon was a monk who in­jured an elāpat­tra tree in the time of Kāśyapa Buddha. There­fore, when the people of this land ap­proached the dragon to pray for rain or fine weather they had to in­vite a monk to go with them to the pond. When the monk snapped his fin­gers to com­fort the dragon the people’s wishes would surely be ful­filled.

[0884c08] 龍池東南行三十餘里，入兩山間，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，高百餘尺。是釋迦如來懸記，當來慈氏世尊出興之時，自然有四大寶藏，即斯勝地，當其一所。聞諸先志曰：或時地震，諸山皆動，周藏百步，無所傾搖。諸有愚夫，妄加發掘，地為震動，人皆蹎仆。傍有伽藍，圮°損已甚，久絕僧徒。

Go­ing south­east for more than thirty li, I entered a spot between two moun­tains where there is a stupa more than a hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. This was the place where Śākya Tathāgata pre­dicted that when Maitreya ap­pears in the world as a buddha four great treas­ures would nat­ur­ally come into ex­ist­ence. This aus­pi­cious spot is one of the four places. I heard the local people say that dur­ing an earth­quake all the moun­tains would shake but for about a hun­dred paces around this treas­ure place the earth does not quiver even a little. Some fool­ish people once vainly at­temp­ted to dig up the treas­ure but the earth quaked and all the people toppled over onto the ground. Be­side this spot is a mon­as­tery in a very deser­ted con­di­tion, hav­ing had no monks liv­ing in it for quite a long time.

[0884c15] 城北十二三里有窣堵波，無憂王之建也。或至齋日，時放光明，神花天樂，頗有見聞。聞諸先志曰：近有婦人，身嬰惡癩，竊至窣堵波，責躬禮懺，見其庭宇有諸糞穢，掬除灑掃，塗香散華，採青蓮。重布其地。惡疾除愈，形貌增妍，身出名香，青蓮同馥。

Twelve or thir­teen li to the north of the city is a stupa built by King Aśoka. On fast days it some­times emits a light amid [a shower of] di­vine flowers and heav­enly mu­sic. I heard the local people say that re­cently a wo­man suf­fer­ing from ma­lig­nant lep­rosy secretly came to this stupa to make self- re­proach and re­pent [of evil deeds she had done in her past lives]. When she saw that the com­pound was in a filthy con­di­tion she re­moved the dirt, swept the place clean, smeared in­cense paste and scattered flowers on the ground, and she plucked some blue lo­tus flowers to scat­ter on the road. By do­ing so she was cured of her ma­lig­nant dis­ease and be­came beau­ti­ful in ap­pear­ance, and a sweet smell as fra­grant as blue lo­tus is­sued from her body.

斯勝地也，是如來在昔修菩薩行，為大國王，號戰達羅鉢剌婆(唐言月光)，志求菩提，斷頭惠施。若此之捨，凡歷千生。

This was also the place where the Tathāgata, while prac­ti­cing the Dharma in a former life as a great king named Can­draprabha (“Moon­light”), cut off his head for alms­giv­ing in the course of ac­quir­ing en­light­en­ment. He per­formed such alms­giv­ing a thou­sand times in past lives.

[0884c24] 捨頭窣堵波側有僧伽藍，庭宇荒涼，僧徒減少。昔經部拘摩羅邏多(唐言童受)論師於此製述諸論。

Be­side this stupa where the head was for­saken, there is a des­ol­ate mon­as­tery with a few monks. Formerly Kumāralāta (known as Tong­shou in Chinese), a śāstra mas­ter of the Sautrāntika school, wrote treat­ises at this mon­as­tery.

[0885a02] 城外東南，南山之陰有窣堵波，高百餘尺，是無憂王太子拘浪拏為繼母所誣抉目之處，無憂王所建也。盲人祈請，多有復明。

Out­side the city to the south­east, on the north­ern side of South Hill, is a stupa over a hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka at the place where his son, Prince Kuṇāla, had his eyes tom out due to the calumny of his step­mother. Blind people prayed at this place and most of them re­covered their eye­sight.

[0885a05] 此太子正后生也，儀貌妍雅，慈仁夙著。正后終沒，繼室憍婬，縱其惛愚，私逼太子。太子瀝泣引責，退身謝罪。繼母見違，彌增忿怒，候王閑隙，從容言曰：「夫呾叉始羅，國之要領，非親子弟，其可寄乎？今者，太子仁孝著聞，親賢之故，物議斯在。」王或聞說，雅悅姦謀，即命太子，而誡之曰：「吾承餘緒，垂統繼業，唯恐失墜，忝負先王。呾叉始羅國之襟帶，吾今命爾作鎮彼國。國事殷重，人情詭雜，無妄去就，有虧基緒。凡有召命，驗吾齒印。印在吾口，其有謬乎？」

Prince Kuṇāla, who had been borne by the chief queen, was a hand­some man who was well known for his kind­ness. After the death of the chief queen, his step­mother, a las­ci­vi­ous, im­moral wo­man, fried to force the prince to have il­li­cit re­la­tions with her. The prince wept and blamed him­self for his re­fusal and with­drew with an apo­logy. Hav­ing been re­jec­ted by the prince, the step­mother was ashamed and be­came angry and hav­ing waited for the chance to speak to the king, she said coolly, “Takṣaśilā is in a stra­tegic po­s­i­tion, and who else but a royal des­cend­ant can be de­pended on for its pro­tec­tion? Prince Kuṇāla is well known for his kind­ness and fi­lial piety. Be­cause you do not em­ploy saga­cious per­sons the people are crit­ical of you.” De­luded by these words, the king was pleased with the in­trigue and ordered the prince, say­ing, “I suc­ceeded to the throne handed down by our an­cest­ors to rule over the coun­try and I fear los­ing it—our fore­run­ners would be dis­ap­poin­ted. As Takṣaśilā is a stra­tegic place I now ap­point you to gar­rison that coun­try. State af­fairs are im­port­ant and hu­man re­la­tion­ships are treach­er­ous. You must not move about at will so as to jeop­ard­ize the found­a­tion of the state. Whenever there is a [writ­ten] sum­mons from me you should verify it by my teeth marks. As my teeth are in my mouth, no one can make a for­gery.”

於是太子銜命來鎮。歲月雖淹，繼室彌怒，詐發制書，紫泥封記，候王眠睡，竊齒為印，馳使而往，賜以責書。輔臣跪讀，相顧失圖。太子問曰：「何所悲乎？」曰：「大王有命，書責太子，抉去兩目，逐棄山谷，任其夫妻，隨時生死。雖有此命，尚未可依。今宜重請，面縛待罪。」太子曰：「父而賜死，其可辭乎？齒印為封，誠無謬矣。」

The prince thus went to the gar­rison post by the king’s or­der, and even though time passed his step­mother be­came in­creas­ingly angry with him. She is­sued a false or­der in the king’s name, sealed it with purple clay, and had it marked with the king’s teeth a when he was asleep. It was then dis­patched to the prince to rep­rim­and him. When his as­sist­ants knelt down to read the or­der they looked at each other, not know­ing what to do. The prince asked them, “What is it that makes you look so miser­able?” They said, “The great king has is­sued an or­der to rep­rim­and Your High­ness, stat­ing that your eyes should be tom out and that you should be ex­iled to the val­leys among moun­tains and left there to live or die with your wife. How­ever, the or­der may be fraud­u­lent and it would be bet­ter for you to go see the king face to face and hear his per­sonal ver­dict.” The prince said, “How can I dis­obey my father’s or­der, even if he asked me to die? There is no mis­take since the or­der is sealed with his teeth marks.”

命旃荼羅抉去其眼。眼既失明，乞貸自濟，流離展轉，至父都城。其妻告曰：「此是王城。嗟乎，飢寒良苦！昔為王子，今作乞人！願得聞知，重申先責。」於是謀計，入王內廐，於夜後分，泣對清風，長嘯悲吟，箜篌鼓和。

The prince then asked a caṇdāla (out­caste) to tear out his eyes, and hav­ing lost his eye­sight he lived there­after as a beg­gar, wan­der­ing from place to place, un­til he came to the cap­ital city where the king lived. His wife told him, “This is the royal city and we are now suf­fer­ing from hun­ger and cold. Formerly you were a prince but now you are a beg­gar! I wish to re­port the mat­ter to the king and ask him to re­con­sider the rep­rim­and.” Then through some sub­ter­fuge they slipped into the royal stable, where they wept in the cool breeze, late into the night, and sang piteously to the ac­com­pani­ment of a kong­hou (a sort of harp).

王在高樓，聞其雅唱，辭甚怨悲，怪而問曰：「箜篌歌聲，似是吾子，今以何故而來此乎？」即問內廐：「誰為歌嘯？」遂將盲人，而來對旨。王見太子，銜悲問曰：「誰害汝身，遭此禍釁？愛子喪明，猶自不覺，凡百黎元，如何究察？天乎，天乎，何德之衰！」太子悲泣，謝而對曰：「誠以不孝，負責於天，某年日月，忽奉慈旨，無由致辭，不敢逃責。」其王心知繼室為不軌也，無所究察，便加刑辟。

On a lofty pa­vil­ion the king heard the me­lodi­ous singing of mel­an­choly and sor­row­ful words and, feel­ing it strange, he asked, “The voice of the singing ac­com­pan­ied by a kong­hou sounds like that of my son. Why has he come here?” He in­quired of the sta­ble­man as to who was singing in the stable. So the man brought the blind singer into the king’s pres­ence. Upon see­ing the prince, the king felt sor­row­ful and asked him, “Who dis­figured you into such a dis­astrous con­di­tion? If I did not even know that my be­loved son had lost his eye­sight, how can I [claim to] see into the af­fairs of my people? Good heav­ens! Oh, good heav­ens! How is it that my vir­tue has been cor­rup­ted to such an ex­tent?” The prince wept piteously and apo­lo­get­ic­ally said in reply, “It is be­cause of my un­fili­al­ity that I in­curred the blame of Heaven. On such- and-such day I sud­denly re­ceived your com­pas­sion­ate edict. I had no way to speak to you, nor did I dare evade my re­spons­ib­il­ity [to im­ple­ment your edict].” Find­ing out that it had all been done il­leg­ally by his second wife, the king in­flic­ted cap­ital pun­ish­ment upon her without fur­ther in­vest­ig­a­tion.

時菩提樹伽藍有瞿沙(唐言妙音)大阿羅漢者，四辯無礙，三明具足。王將盲子，陳告其事，唯願慈悲，令得復明。時彼羅漢受王請已，即於是日宣令國人：「吾於後日，欲說妙理，人持一器，來此聽法，以盛泣淚也。」於是遠近相趨，士女雲集。是時阿羅漢說十二因緣，凡厥聞法，莫不悲耿，以所持器，盛其瀝泣。說法既已，總收眾淚，置之金盤，而自誓曰：「凡吾所說，諸佛至理。理若不真，說有紕繆，斯則已矣；如其不爾，願以眾淚，洗彼盲眼，眼得復明，明視如昔。」發是語訖，持淚洗眼，眼遂復明。

At that time there was at the mon­as­tery near the bodhi tree a great ar­hat named Ghoṣa (“Won­der­ful Voice”), who pos­sessed the four kinds of un­hindered elo­quence and was com­plete with the three in­sights. The king told him what his blind son had said and wished him to be so kind as to re­store his son’s eye­sight. At the king’s re­quest the ar­hat then made an an­nounce­ment on that day to the people of the coun­try, say­ing, “On the day after to­mor­row I shall speak on the sub­lime doc­trine. You may come listen to the Dharma and each of you should bring a ves­sel with you to hold your tears.” Thus men and wo­men com­ing from far and near flocked to the place. At that time the ar­hat spoke on the twelve­fold caus­a­tion. None of those who heard the Dharma did not shed tears, and they col­lec­ted the tears in the ves­sels. When the preach­ing was over the tears of every­one in the en­tire as­sembly were col­lec­ted in a golden basin. The ar­hat then made a pledge, say­ing, “All that I have said is the Buddha’s ul­ti­mate truth. If it is un­true and if I have spoken wrongly, I shall have noth­ing more to say. Oth­er­wise, I wish to wash the blind man’s eyes to re­store his eye­sight to what it was be­fore.” Hav­ing said this, he used the tears to wash the eyes of the prince, whose eye­sight was thus re­stored.

王乃責彼輔臣，詰諸僚佐，或黜或放，或遷或死。諸豪世俗移居雪山東北沙磧之中。

The king then re­proached his min­is­ters and de­nounced his as­sist­ants at court, who were all dis­missed, ban­ished, re­leg­ated, or ex­ecuted, and many power­ful and wealthy fam­il­ies were de­por­ted to the desert to the north­east of the Snow Moun­tains.

[0885b21] 從此東南越諸山谷，行七百餘里，至僧訶補羅國(北印度境)。[0885b23] 僧訶補羅國，周三千五六百里，西臨信度河。國大都城周十四五里，依山據嶺，堅峻險固。農務少功，地利多獲。氣序寒，人性猛，俗尚驍勇，又多譎詐。國無君長主位，役屬迦濕彌羅國。

From here go­ing to the south­east across moun­tains and val­leys for over seven hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Sim­hapura (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Sim­hapura is over three thou­sand five hun­dred or six hun­dred li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing on the In­dus River on the west. The cap­ital city of the coun­try is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit, and as it was built with a range of hills at the back it is an im­preg­nable strong­hold. The farm­ers ex­ert little ef­fort but gain much profit from the land. The cli­mate is cold and the people are rude by nature. They are vali­ant but de­ceit­ful by cus­tom. There is no king rul­ing over the coun­try; it is a de­pend­ency of the coun­try of Kaśmīra.

[0885b27] 城南不遠有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。莊飾有虧，靈異相繼。傍有伽藍，空無僧侶。

Not far to the south of the city is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Al­though some of its dec­or­a­tions are miss­ing, it con­tin­ues to be ef­fect­ive in show­ing spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions. Be­side it there is a mon­as­tery devoid of monks.

城東南四五十里至石窣堵波，無憂王建也，高二百餘尺。池沼十數，映帶左右，雕石為岸，殊形異類。激水清流，汩°淴漂注，龍魚水族，窟穴潛泳，四色蓮華，彌漫清潭。百果具繁，同榮異色，林沼交映，誠可遊玩。傍有伽藍，久絕僧侶。

Forty or fifty li to the south­east of the city there is a stone stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. There are about ten ponds around the stupa. The banks of the ponds are built with rocks carved in vari­ous strange shapes and clear wa­ter rushes into the ponds, giv­ing off spray. Dragons, fish, and other aquatic creatures move about in the grot­toes un­der the wa­ter. Lo­tus flowers of the four col­ors cover the sur­faces of the clear ponds and all kinds of fruit trees blos­som lux­uri­antly in dif­fer­ent hues. With the woods re­flec­ted in the ponds, this place is truly a pleas­ure garden. There is a mon­as­tery nearby but it has been deser­ted for a long time.

[0885c05] 窣堵波側不遠，有白衣外道本師悟所求理初說法處，今有封記，傍建天祠。其徒苦行，晝夜精勤，不遑寧息。本師所說之法，多竊佛經之義，隨類設法，擬則軌儀。大者謂苾芻，小者稱沙彌。威儀律行，頗同僧法。唯留少髮，加之露形，或有所服，白色為異，據斯流別，稍用區分。其天師像，竊類如來，衣服為差，相好無異。

Not far from the stupa is where the founder of the white-clothed [Jains] real­ized the prin­ciples he was seek­ing and first preached his doc­trine. Now there is a me­morial of the event and be­side it is a deva temple. His dis­ciples prac­tice aus­ter­it­ies, per­sever­ing day and night without leis­ure to take rest. The doc­trine preached by the founder was mostly taken from the ten­ets of the Buddhist scrip­tures and he taught them ac­cord­ing to the dif­fer­ent in­clin­a­tions of people and laid down dis­cip­lin­ary rules. The senior dis­ciples are called bhikṣus and the ju­nior ones śrāmaṇeras. Their man­ner of liv­ing and code of de­port­ment are quite sim­ilar to those of the Buddhist monks, ex­cept that they keep a tuft of hair on the head and [some] go na­ked. If they put on any cloth­ing the spe­cial color is white, which dif­fer­en­ti­ates them from other sects. The statues of the founder are made, without au­thor­ity, in the same pos­ture as im­ages of the Tathāgata. The only dif­fer­ence is the cos­tume; the good fea­tures are ex­actly the same.

[0885c13] 從此復還呾叉始羅國北界，渡信度河，南東行二百餘里，度大石門，昔摩訶薩埵王子，於此投身飤餓烏擇(音徒)。其南百四五十步有石窣堵波，摩訶薩埵愍餓獸之無力也，行至此地，乾竹自刺，以血啗之，於是乎獸乃噉焉。其中地土，洎諸草木，微帶絳色，猶血染也。人履其地，若負芒刺，無云疑信，莫不悲愴。

From here I re­turned to the north­ern part of the coun­try of Takṣaśilā, where I crossed the In­dus River and, after go­ing south­east for more than two hun­dred li, I came across a great rocky pass. Formerly Prince Mahāsat­tva sac­ri­ficed his body at this place to feed a starving tigress. About one hun­dred and forty or fifty paces to the south is a stone stupa, built at the spot where the Mahāsat­tva had pity on the [starving] tigress. When he came here he pricked him­self with a dry bam­boo splinter so as to give the tigress his blood. The an­imal [re­gained enough strength and sub­sequently] de­voured him. The soil and plants of this place are dark red­dish in color, as if stained by blood. When people come to this spot they feel nervous and un­easy, as if they had prickles hurt­ing their backs, and whether or not they be­lieve [the story of the hungry tigress] they are moved to pity.

[0885c20] 捨身北有石窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。雕刻奇製，時燭神光。小窣堵波及諸石龕動以百數，周此塋域，其有疾病，旋繞多愈。

To the north of this stupa of the sac­ri­fice of the body there is a stone stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. It is dec­or­ated with mar­velous en­grav­ings and some­times emits a di­vine light. Smal­ler stu­pas and stone niches, coun­ted by the hun­dreds, sur­round the sepulchral ground. Those who are suf­fer­ing from ill­ness cir­cum­am­bu­late this place and most of them are cured.

[0885c24] 石窣堵波東有伽藍，僧徒百餘人，並學大乘教。從此東行五十餘里，至孤山，中有伽藍，僧徒二百餘人，並學大乘法教。華菓繁茂，泉池澄鏡。傍有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，是如來在昔於此化惡藥叉，令不食肉。

To the east of the stone stupa there is a mon­as­tery with more than a hun­dred monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. From here go­ing east for more than fifty li, I reached an isol­ated hill where there is a mon­as­tery with over two hun­dred monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. There are lux­uri­ant flowers and fruit trees with ponds of spring wa­ter as lu­cid as a mir­ror. Be­side it is a stupa over two hun­dred feet high, built at the spot where the Tathāgata in a former life con­ver­ted an evil yakṣa and taught him not to eat meat.

從此東南行五百餘里，至烏剌尸國(北印度境)。[0886a01] 烏剌尸國，周二千餘里，山阜連接，田疇隘狹。國大都城周七八里，無大君長，役屬迦隰彌羅國。宜稼穡，少華果。氣序溫和，微有霜雪。俗無禮義，人性剛猛，多行詭詐，不信佛法。大城西南四五里有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王所建也。傍有伽藍，僧徒寡少，並皆學大乘法教。

From here go­ing south­east for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Ur­aśā (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Ur­aśā is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with moun­tains and hills con­nec­ted to­gether, ren­der­ing the cul­tiv­ated fields nar­row and small. The cap­ital city of the coun­try is seven or eight li in cir­cuit; it is without a sov­er­eign king and the coun­try is a de­pend­ency of the coun­try of Kaśmīra. The soil is suit­able for grow­ing cer­eals but the coun­try has few flowers and little fruit. The cli­mate is mild and there is not much frost or snow. The people are rough and de­ceit­ful and lack the cus­tom of ob­serving the pro­pri­et­ies, and they do not be­lieve in Buddhism. About four or five li to the south­w­est of the cap­ital city there is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. Be­side it is a mon­as­tery with few monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings.

從此東南，登山履險，度鐵橋，行千餘里，至迦濕彌羅國(舊曰罽賓，訛也。北印度境)。[0886a09] 迦濕彌羅國，周七千餘里。四境負山，山極陗峻，雖有門徑，而復隘狹，自古隣敵無能攻伐。國大都城西臨大河，南北十二三里，東西四五里。宜稼穡，多花果，出龍種馬及欝金香、火珠、藥草。

From here go­ing south­east for more than one thou­sand li over moun­tains, along dan­ger­ous paths and across iron bridges, I reached the coun­try of Kaśmīra (formerly tran­scribed er­ro­neously as Jibin, in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Kaśmīra is more than seven thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with pre­cip­it­ous moun­tains sur­round­ing it on all sides. Al­though there are passes the pas­sages are very nar­row. Since an­cient times no hos­tile neigh­bor­ing coun­tries have been able to in­vade this coun­try. The cap­ital city, with a great river on its west, is twelve or thir­teen li from south to north and four or five li from east to west. The soil is suit­able for grow­ing cer­eals and there are plenty of flowers and fruit. It pro­duces horses of the dragon breed and also yields saf­fron, fire-pearls, and medi­cinal herbs.

氣序寒勁，多雪少風。服毛褐，衣白[疊*毛]。土俗輕僄，人多怯懦。國為龍護，遂雄隣境。容貌妍美，情性詭詐。好學多聞，邪正兼信。伽藍百餘所，僧徒五千餘人。有四窣堵波，並無憂王建也，各有如來舍利升餘。

The cli­mate is bit­terly cold and there is much snow but little wind. The people wear woolen or cot­ton clothes. They are frivol­ous by cus­tom and mostly timid. As the coun­try is pro­tec­ted by a dragon the people hold sway over the neigh­bor­ing re­gions. Their fea­tures are hand­some but they are of de­ceit­ful dis­pos­i­tions. They are fond of learn­ing and have a wide scope of know­ledge, be­liev­ing in both heretical teach­ings and the right teach­ings. There are over one hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with more than five thou­sand monks. There are four stu­pas, all built by King Aśoka, each con­tain­ing about one sheng of the Tathāgata’s relic bones.

[0886a19] 《國志》曰：國地本龍池也。昔佛世尊自烏仗那國降惡神已，欲還中國，乘空當此國上，告阿難曰：「我涅槃之後，有末田底迦阿羅漢，當於此地建國安人，弘揚佛法。」如來寂滅之後第五十年，阿難弟子末田底迦羅漢者，得六神通，具八解脫，聞佛懸記，心自慶悅，便來至此，於大山嶺，宴坐林中，現大神變。龍見深信，請資所欲。阿羅漢曰：「願於池內，惠以容膝。」龍王於是縮水奉施。羅漢神通廣身，龍王縱力縮水，池空水盡，龍飜請地。阿羅漢於此西北為留一池，周百餘里；自餘枝屬，別居小池。

In the Na­tional Re­cord it is said that this coun­try was ori­gin­ally a dragon lake. Formerly, when the Buddha, the World-honored One, had sub­dued an evil god in the coun­try of Udyāna and was fly­ing over this coun­try on his way back to Cent­ral In­dia, he said to Ān­anda, ‘‘After my nir­vana the ar­hat Mad­hyāntika will es­tab­lish a coun­try at this place, settle people, and propag­ate tile buddha-dharma.” In the fiftieth year after the Tathāgata’s nir­vana, Ān­anda’s dis­ciple, the ar­hat Mad­hyāntika, who pos­sessed the six su­per­nat­ural powers and had at­tained the eight eman­cip­a­tions, heard about the Buddha’s pre­dic­tion with a feel­ing of joy. He came here and sat down in the woods on a great moun­tain, show­ing great su­per­nat­ural powers. Upon see­ing him, the dragon had deep faith in him and asked him what he wanted. The ar­hat said, “I want you to give me enough space to keep [just] my knees in the lake.” Thereupon the dragon king with­drew some wa­ter from the lake to of­fer [a bit of dry land] to the monk. Through his mi­ra­cu­lous powers the ar­hat en­larged his body [to take more land] as the dragon did his ut­most to draw away the wa­ter from the lake un­til it was com­pletely ex­hausted, so that the dragon had to ask for some place for him­self. The ar­hat re­served a lake more than a hun­dred li in cir­cuit in the north­w­est for the dragon, while the dragon’s re­l­at­ives dwelled sep­ar­ately in a small lake.

龍王曰：「池地總施，願恒受供。」末田底迦曰：「我今不久無餘涅槃，雖欲受請，其可得乎？」龍王重請：「五百羅漢常受我供，乃至法盡，法盡之後，還取此國以為居池。」末田底迦從其所請。

The dragon king said, “Now that I have presen­ted all the land of the lake to you, please al­ways ac­cept my of­fer­ings.” Mad­hyāntika said, “As I shall enterpar­inir­vāṇa (com­plete nir­vana) very soon, how will I be able to al­ways ac­cept your of­fer­ings, though I would like to?” The dragon then re­ques­ted that five hun­dred ar­hats should al­ways ac­cept his of­fer­ings un­til the ex­tinc­tion of the Dharma, and that after the ex­tinc­tion of the Dharma he should then re­take this coun­try as his dwell­ing lake. Mad­hyāntika as­sen­ted to this re­quest.

時阿羅漢既得其地，運大神通力，立五百伽藍。於諸異國買鬻賤人，以充役使，以供僧眾。末田底迦入寂滅後，彼諸賤人自立君長，隣境諸國鄙其賤種，莫與交親，謂之訖利多(唐言買得)。今時泉水已多流濫。

After hav­ing ob­tained the land the ar­hat es­tab­lished five hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with his great su­per­nat­ural powers and bought slaves from dif­fer­ent coun­tries to serve the monks. After Mad­hyāntika entered ex­tinc­tion the slaves made them­selves rulers. The neigh­bor­ing coun­tries des­pise them as low­born people and do not in­ter­act with them, call­ing them the Krīta (“The Bought”). Now spring wa­ter is over­flow­ing at many places.

[0886b11] 摩揭陀國無憂王以如來涅槃之後第一百年，命世君臨，威被殊俗。深信三寶，愛育四生。時有五百羅漢僧、五百凡夫僧，王所敬仰，供養無差。有凡夫僧摩訶提婆(唐言大天)，闊達多智，幽求名實，潭思作論，理違聖教，凡有聞知，群從異議。無憂王不識凡、聖，同情所好，黨援所親，召集僧徒赴殑伽河，欲沈深流，總從誅戮。時諸羅漢既逼命難，咸運神通，凌虛履空，來至此國，山棲谷隱。時無憂王聞而懼，躬來謝過，請還本國。彼諸羅漢確不從命。無憂王為羅漢建五百僧伽藍，總以此國持施眾僧。

King Aśoka of Magadha as­cen­ded the throne in the hun­dredth year after the Tathāgata’s nir­vana and ex­er­ted his in­flu­ence in dis­tant lands. He deeply be­lieved in the Triple Gem and fostered all creatures of the four forms of birth. There were then five hun­dred ar­hat monks and five hun­dred or­din­ary monks, whom the king re­spec­ted and treated with equal hos­pit­al­ity. There was a monk named Mahādeva (“Great Deity”), a per­son of ex­tens­ive learn­ing and great wis­dom, who had made pro­found stud­ies of the cat­egor­ies of name and real­ity. He wrote an elab­or­ate treat­ise in ex­pos­i­tion of the­or­ies con­trary to the holy teach­ings [of the Buddha], and all his friends and ac­quaint­ances fol­lowed his het­ero­dox views. Be­ing un­able to dis­cern the ar­hats from the or­din­ary monks, King Aśoka had sym­pathy with those whom he liked and sup­por­ted those who were on in­tim­ate terms with him. He summoned the monks to the Ganges River, in­tend­ing to drown them in the deep wa­ter and kill them all. The ar­hats, real­iz­ing that their lives were at stake, em­ployed their su­per­nat­ural powers and flew through the air to this coun­try [of Kaśmīra], where they lived in the moun­tains and val­leys. Upon hear­ing this, King Aśoka was afraid and re­pen­ted; he came in per­son to apo­lo­gize and in­vited the ar­hats to re­turn to his coun­try but the ar­hats flatly re­fused the in­vit­a­tion. Thus King Aśoka built five hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies for the ar­hats and offered the whole coun­try as alms to the com­munity of monks.

[0886b22] 健馱邏國迦膩色迦王，以如來涅槃之後第四百年，應期撫運，王風遠被，殊俗內附。機務餘暇，每習佛經，日請一僧入宮說法，而諸異議部執不同。王用深疑，無以去惑。時脇尊者曰：「如來去世，歲月逾邈，弟子部執，師資異論，各據聞見，共為矛楯。」時王聞已，甚用感傷，悲歎良久，謂尊者曰：「猥以餘福，聿遵前緒，去聖雖遠，猶為有幸，敢忘庸鄙，紹隆法教，隨其部執，具釋三藏。」脇尊者曰：「大王宿殖善本，多資福祐，留情佛法，是所願也。」

King Kan­iṣka of the coun­try of Gand­hāra as­cen­ded the throne in the four- hun­dredth year after the Tathāgata’s nir­vana; his in­flu­ence reached far and dis­tant lands, which then be­came af­fil­i­ated with him. In his leis­ure hours he al­ways stud­ied Buddhist scrip­tures and each day he in­vited a monk to preach the Dharma in his palace. As the monks be­longed to dif­fer­ent schools their views were at vari­ance with each other, and the king was greatly puzzled and could not get rid of his de­lu­sions. At that time Ven­er­able Pārśva ex­plained, “In the long period of time since the Tathāgata passed away, his dis­ciples have ad­hered to dif­fer­ent schools and the mas­ters have held vari­ous views, each grasp­ing his own opin­ions and giv­ing rise to con­tra­dic­tions.” The king was quite moved to hear this and, after brood­ing in a sor­row­ful mood for a long time, he said to the ven­er­able monk, “By the rem­nant blessed­ness of my an­cest­ors I am lucky enough to have suc­ceeded to the ex­ploits of my pre­de­cessors. Al­though I am far away from the time of the Buddha I am still for­tu­nate. I ven­ture to for­get my vul­gar­ity and in­com­pet­ence and wish to propag­ate the Dharma by ex­pound­ing the whole Tripiṭaka ac­cord­ing to the ten­ets of dif­fer­ent schools.” Ven­er­able Pārśva said, “Your Majesty has planted the root of good deeds in the past and has ac­cu­mu­lated much bless­ing. It is my wish that Your Majesty should pay at­ten­tion to the buddha-dharma.”

王乃宣令遠近，召集聖哲。於是四方輻湊，萬里星馳，英賢畢萃，叡聖咸集。七日之中，四事供養。既欲法議，恐其諠雜。王乃具懷白諸僧曰：「證聖果者住，具結縛者還。」如此尚眾。又重宣令：「無學人住，有學人還。」猶復繁多。又更下令：「具三明、備六通者住，自餘各還。」然尚繁多。又更下令：「其有內窮三藏、外達五明者住，自餘各還。」於是得四百九十九人。

Then the king is­sued an or­der to sum­mon holy and learned monks through­out the coun­try, from far and near. Thus bril­liant schol­ars and wise monks flocked to the as­sembly from great dis­tances in the four quar­ters, to be en­ter­tained with the four mon­astic re­quis­ites for seven days. Since [the as­sembly] was for the dis­cus­sion of the great Dharma, hav­ing too many par­ti­cipants would be too chaotic. Thus the king re­spect­fully said to the monks, “Those who have at­tained saint­hood may stay, while those who are still un­der the bond­age of re­birth may.” The re­main­ing num­ber was still too many, so the king de­clared again, “Those who have com­pleted their learn­ing may stay, while those who are still in the course of learn­ing may go back.” The re­main­ing num­ber was still too many, and so he ordered again, “Those who pos­sess the three in­sights and have the six su­per­nat­ural powers may stay, while the rest may go back.” But as the re­main­ing num­ber was still too many, he again is­sued an or­der, say­ing, “Only those who are well versed in the Tripiṭaka with its supra­mundane the­or­ies and who thor­oughly un­der­stand the five mundane branches of know­ledge may re­main, while the oth­ers may go back.” Thereupon four hun­dred ninety-nine per­sons were se­lec­ted.

王欲於本國，苦其暑濕，又欲就王舍城大迦葉波結集石室。脇尊者等議曰：「不可。彼多外道，異論糺紛，酬對不暇，何功作論？眾會之心，屬意此國。

The king wished [to hold the con­ven­tion] in his own coun­try but the cli­mate was too hot and hu­mid for the pur­pose. He also wished to go to the cave at Rā­jagṛha, where Mahākāśyapa had con­vened his as­sembly. Ven­er­able Pārśva and oth­ers dis­cussed the mat­ter and said, “No! [At Rā­jagṛha] there are many heretics who en­gage in de­bate, hold­ing di­ver­gent het­ero­dox views. We would get in­volved with them in dis­pu­ta­tions and then how could we have the time to write our treat­ises?” Thus the monks in the meet­ing all favored the coun­try [of Kaśmīra for the as­sembly].

此國四周山固，藥叉守衛，土地膏腴，物產豐盛，賢聖之所集往，靈僊之所遊止。」眾議斯在，僉曰：「允諧。」其王是時與諸羅漢自彼而至，建立伽藍，結集三藏，欲作《毘婆沙論》。

Be­cause the coun­try was sur­roun­ded by moun­tains on the four sides and was strongly guarded by yakṣas, and had fer­tile soil and rich products, it was a place where sages and saints met and took up their lodgings and was fre­quen­ted by spir­its and genies. The monks dis­cussed the place and they all agreed that it was an ap­pro­pri­ate loc­a­tion [for the meet­ing]. The king and the ar­hats then came from their coun­try [of Gand­hāra] to the coun­try [of Kaśmīra] and con­struc­ted a mon­as­tery to col­lect and com­pile the Tripiṭaka with the in­ten­tion of com­pos­ing a Vibhāṣā-śāstra.

是時尊者世友，戶外納衣。諸阿羅漢謂世友曰：「結使未除，淨議乖謬，爾宜遠迹，勿居此也。」世友曰：「諸賢於法無疑，代佛施化，方集大義，欲製正論。我雖不敏，粗達微言，三藏玄文、五明至理，頗亦沈研，得其趣矣。」諸羅漢曰：「言不可以若是。汝宜屏居，疾證無學，已而會此，時未晚也。」世友曰：「我顧無學，其猶涕唾，志求佛果，不趨小徑。擲此縷丸，未墜于地，必當證得無學聖果。」

At that time Ven­er­able Vasum­itra, dressed in a monk’s patched robe, was out­side the door, when the ar­hats said to him, “You have not got­ten rid of the bond­age of the pas­sions and your ar­gu­ments are ab­surd and er­ro­neous. You should go far away and not stay here.” Vasum­itra said, “You saga­cious monks have no doubts about the Dharma and you are spread­ing the Buddha’s teach­ings in his place. You are col­lect­ing the great doc­trines with the in­ten­tion of writ­ing a stand­ard treat­ise. Al­though I am un­in­tel­li­gent, I do know some­thing of the subtle teach­ings. I have made pro­found stud­ies of the ab­struse texts of the Tripiṭaka and the sub­lime prin­ciples of the five branches of know­ledge and I have mastered their es­sences.” The ar­hats said, “You must not speak in this man­ner. You should live in se­clu­sion and at­tain ar­hat­ship quickly. Then it will not be too late for you to come and join us at the meet­ing.” Vasum­itra said, “I deem the at­tain­ment of ar­hat­ship to be as in­sig­ni­fic­ant as spittle. My am­bi­tion is to gain buddha­hood;d I do not wish to go by the small path. But I can still at­tain the holy fruit of ar­hat­ship be­fore a ball of thread falls down to the ground after I have thrown it up into the air.”

時諸羅漢重訶之曰：「增上慢人，斯之謂也。無學果者，諸佛所讚，宜可速證，以決眾疑。」於是世友即擲縷丸，空中諸天接縷丸而請曰：「方證佛果，次補慈氏，三界特尊，四生攸賴，如何於此欲證小果？」時諸羅漢見是事已，謝咎推德，請為上座，凡有疑議，咸取決焉。

The ar­hats again re­proached him, say­ing, “You are truly an ar­rog­ant man. Ar­hat­ship is what all the buddhas have praised and you should quickly real­ize it, so as to re­move the monks’ doubts.” Vasum­itra then tossed a ball of thread up into the air but the devas, took hold of it and made an ap­peal to him, say­ing, “You should now at­tain buddha­hood and be­come the suc­cessor to Maitreya in the fu­ture, to be spe­cially honored by all the three realms and be someone on which all be­ings of the four forms of birth can de­pend. Why should you wish to real­ize the small fruit here and now?” Upon wit­ness­ing this event the ar­hats apo­lo­gized [to Vasum­itra] and elec­ted him to be the elder of the meet­ing, and all du­bi­ous points were settled by him.

是五百賢聖，先造十萬頌《鄔波第鑠論》(舊曰《優波提舍論》，訛也)。釋《素呾纜藏》(舊曰《修多羅藏》，訛也)。次造十萬頌《毘柰耶毘婆沙論》，釋《毘奈耶藏》(舊曰《毘那耶藏》，訛也)。後造十萬頌《阿毘達磨毘婆沙論》，釋《阿毘達磨藏》(或曰《阿毘曇藏》，略也)。凡三十萬頌，九百六十萬言，備釋三藏，懸諸千古，莫不窮其枝葉，究其淺深，大義重明，微言再顯，廣宣流布，後進賴焉。

First the five hun­dred saintly and holy monks com­posed the Up­adeśa- śāstra (formerly tran­scribed wrongly as Yoii­pot­ishe hm) in a hun­dred thou­sand stan­zas for the ex­pos­i­tion of the Sutra piṭaka (formerly tran­scribed wrongly as Xi­uduoluoz­ang). Then they wrote the Vmaya-vibhāṣā-śāstra in one hun­dred thou­sand stan­zas for the ex­pos­i­tion of the Vinaya piṭaka (formerly tran­scribed wrongly as Pinayez­ang). Last, they com­piled the Ab­hid­harma-vibhāṣā-śāstra in one hun­dred thou­sand stan­zas for the ex­pos­i­tion of the Ab­hid­harma piṭaka (known as Apit­an­zang in ab­bre­vi­ation). There are al­to­gether three hun­dred thou­sand stan­zas with nine mil­lion six hun­dred thou­sand words for the full ex­plan­a­tion of the Tripiṭaka, to be stud­ied for all ages to come. They probe into all branches and rami­fic­a­tions, whether shal­low or deep. The gen­eral mean­ings are re­peatedly cla­ri­fied and the subtle say­ings made ap­par­ent. They are widely cir­cu­lated for the guid­ance of pos­ter­ity.

迦膩色迦王遂以赤銅為鍱，鏤寫論文，石函緘封，建窣堵波，藏於其中。命藥叉神周衛其國，不令異學持此論出，欲求習學，就中受業。於是功既成畢，還軍本都。出此國西門之外，東面而跪，復以此國總施僧徒。[0887a17] 迦膩色迦王既死之後，訖利多種復自稱王，斥逐僧徒，毀壞佛法。

King Kan­iṣka had these treat­ises in­cised on red cop­per plates and kept them in stone cases, and a stupa was con­struc­ted for their pre­ser­va­tion. He ordered the yakṣa deit­ies to be on guard all around the coun­try to pre­vent heretics from tak­ing the treat­ises out of the coun­try. Those who wished to study them might do so in­side the coun­try. After hav­ing com­pleted the task the king re­turned to his own cap­ital with his army. When he came out of the west­ern gate of the cap­ital city of the coun­try [of Kaśmīra], he knelt down fa­cing the east to of­fer the whole coun­try as alms to the monks. But after the Kan­iṣka’s death the Krīta tribe re­sumed king­ship, ex­pelled the monks, and de­mol­ished the buddha-dharma.

覩貨邏國呬摩呾羅王(唐言雪山下)，其先釋種也。以如來涅槃之後第六百年，光有疆土，嗣膺王業，樹心佛地，流情法海。聞訖利多毀滅佛法，招集國中敢勇之士，得三千人，詐為商旅，多齎寶貨，挾隱軍器，來入此國。此國之君，特加賓禮。商旅之中，又更選募，得五百人，猛烈多謀，各袖利刃，俱持重寶，躬齎所奉，持以獻上。時雪山下王去其帽，即其座，訖利多王驚懾無措，遂斬其首，令群下曰：「我是覩邏國雪山下王也。怒此賤種公行虐政，故於今者誅其有罪。凡百眾庶，非爾之辜。」然其國輔宰臣，遷於異域。既平此國，召集僧徒，式建伽藍，安堵如故。復於此國西門之外，東面而跪，持施眾僧。

The king of Hi­matala (“Be­low the Snow Moun­tains”) in the coun­try of Tukhāra, a des­cend­ant of the Śākya clan, fully oc­cu­pied his ter­rit­ory and as­cen­ded the throne in the six-hun­dredth year after the Tathāgata’s nir­vana. He planted his mind in the earth of the Buddha and poured his sen­ti­ments into the sea of the Dharma. When he heard that the Krīta tribes­men were des­troy­ing the buddha-dharma, he mustered three thou­sand brave war­ri­ors of his coun­try and out­fit­ted them in the guise of mer­chants. Car­ry­ing with them a large quant­ity of valu­able goods, they hid weapons secretly among the mer­chand­ise and came to this coun­try. The lord of [Kaśmīra] treated them with spe­cial cour­tesy. From among the [dis­guised] mer­chants, five hun­dred brave men who pos­sessed tac­tical skill were se­lec­ted. Each was equipped with a sharp dag­ger hid­den in his sleeves and they car­ried rare valu­ables to present to the lord in per­son. At that mo­ment the king of Hi­matala took off the hat of the lord and oc­cu­pied his throne. The king of the Krīta tribe was taken aback by the sur­prise at­tack and was be­headed right away. [The king of Hi­matala] de­clared to the people, “I am the king of Hi­matala in the coun­try of Tukhāra. I was en­raged by this low-born tribes­man, who openly car­ried out cruel policies. I have put him to death be­cause he was guilty. You in­no­cent people are guilt­less.” The chief min­is­ters of the court were ban­ished to a for­eign land. Once or­der was re­stored in the coun­try the monks were in­vited back and mon­as­ter­ies were built, as peace­fully as be­fore. The king knelt down out­side the west­ern gate of the cap­ital city with his face turned to the east to again of­fer the coun­try as alms to the monks.

其訖利多種屢以僧徒覆宗滅祀，世積其怨，嫉惡佛法。歲月既遠，復自稱王。故今此國不甚崇信，外道天祠，特留意焉。

Be­cause the Krīta tribes­men had lost power on ac­count of Buddhist monks on sev­eral oc­ca­sions, they bore them a grudge for gen­er­a­tions and hated the buddha-dharma. After a long period of time they re­sumed the king­ship once again. There­fore Buddhism is not much be­lieved in by the people of the coun­try, while deva temples en­joy much at­ten­tion.

[0887b07] 新城東南十餘里，故城北，大山陽，有僧伽藍，僧徒三百餘人。其窣堵波中有佛牙，長可寸半，其色黃白，或至齋日時放光明。

More than ten li to the south­east of the new city, at the south side of a great moun­tain to the north of the old city, is a mon­as­tery with over three hun­dred monks. In the stupa of the mon­as­tery there is a Buddha’s tooth relic, about one and a half inches long, yel­low­ish-white in color. On fast days it some­times emits a light.

昔訖利多種之滅佛法也，僧徒解散，各隨利居。有一沙門，遊諸印度，觀禮聖迹，申其至誠。後聞本國平定，即事歸途，遇諸群象，橫行草澤，奔馳震吼。沙門見已，昇樹以避。是時群象相趨奔赴，競吸池水，浸漬樹根，互共排掘，樹遂蹎仆。

Formerly when the Krīta tribespeople per­se­cuted the buddha-dharma, the monks scattered to vari­ous places and lived sep­ar­ately. One of the śramaṇas went to In­dia to visit and wor­ship the sac­red sites with ut­most sin­cer­ity. Later, when he heard that or­der had been re­stored in his coun­try, he star­ted on his re­turn jour­ney and on the way he met a herd of ele­phants run­ning amok in the marsh, trum­pet­ing and ram­pa­ging wildly. At the sight of the ele­phants, the śramaṇa climbed up into a tree to avoid them. At that mo­ment the ele­phants rushed to a pond to get wa­ter to soak the roots of the tree, then they pushed the tree un­til it fell down.

既得沙門，負載而行，至大林中，有病象瘡痛而臥，引此僧手，至所苦處，乃枯竹所刺也。沙門於是拔竹傅藥，裂其裳，裹其足。別有大象，持金函授與病象，象既得已，轉授沙門，沙門開函，乃佛牙也。諸象圍繞，僧出無由。明日齋時，各持異果，以為中饌。食已，載僧出林，數百里外，方乃下之，各跪拜而去。

Hav­ing got hold of the śramaṇa, the ele­phants car­ried him into a big forest, where a sick ele­phant was ly­ing on the ground with a pain­ful sore. They put the monk’s hand on the pain­ful spot and he found that the wound had been made by a bam­boo prickle. After pluck­ing out the bam­boo prickle and ap­ply­ing medi­cine to the wound, the śramaṇa tore off a piece of his robe to dress the sick ele­phant’s wounded foot. One of the ele­phants took a golden cas­ket to the sick ele­phant and the sick ele­phant handed it over to the śramaṇa. Upon open­ing the cas­ket, the śramaṇa saw a Buddha’s tooth relic in it. The monk was sur­roun­ded by the ele­phants and could not get away from them. At meal­time on the fol­low­ing day they brought him strange [kinds of] fruit for his mid­day meal. After the meal was over, they car­ried the monk out of the forest and, hav­ing car­ried him for sev­eral hun­dred li, they let him get down and knelt on the ground to wor­ship him be­fore they dis­persed.

沙門至國西界，渡一駛河，濟乎中流，船將覆沒。同舟之人互相謂曰：「今此船覆，禍是沙門；必有如來舍利，諸龍利之。」船主檢驗，果得佛牙。時沙門舉佛牙俯謂龍曰：「吾今寄汝，不久來取。」遂不渡河，迴船而去，顧河歎曰：「吾無禁術，龍畜所欺！」重往印度，學禁龍法。三歲之後，復還本國，至河之濱，方設壇場，其龍於是捧佛牙函以授沙門。沙門持歸，於此伽藍，而修供養。

When the śramaṇa reached the west­ern bound­ary of the coun­try he boarded a ferry­boat to cross a rapid river but in mid­stream the boat was al­most over­turned. The other pas­sen­gers in the boat said among them­selves, “This śramaṇa must be the cause of our trouble—al­most get­ting drowned in the river. He must have car­ried with him some relic bones of the Tathāgata, which are greatly val­ued by dragons.” The boat­man searched the pas­sen­gers and in fact dis­covered the Buddha’s tooth relic. The śramaṇa then held the tooth relic high and lowered his head to say to the dragon [in the river], “I now hand this over to you for safe­keep­ing but I shall come soon to take it back.” He did not cross the river but dis­em­barked and, gaz­ing at the river, he said re­gret­fully, “As I did not learn the craft of sub­du­ing dragons I am now bul­lied by this beast of a dragon!” So he went back to In­dia to learn the ma­gical craft of sup­press­ing dragons. After three years he star­ted again on his re­turn jour­ney, and when he reached the bank of the river and was pre­par­ing an al­tar [for per­form­ing the rites], the dragon handed over the cas­ket con­tain­ing the Buddha’s tooth relic to the śramaṇa, who took it back and en­shrined it at this mon­as­tery.

[0887c03] 伽藍南十四五里，有小伽藍，中有觀自在菩薩立像。其有斷食誓死為期願見菩薩者，即從像中出妙色身。

Four­teen or fif­teen li to the south of the mon­as­tery [of the tooth relic] there is a small mon­as­tery in which is en­shrined a stand­ing statue of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. If a wor­shiper de­cides to starve him­self to death, in case he can­not ful­fill his wish to see the bod­hisat­tva in per­son, the bod­hisat­tva ap­pears in his mar­velous cor­por­eal body out of the statue.

[0887c06] 小伽藍東南三十餘里，至大山，有故伽藍，形製宏壯，蕪漫良甚，今唯一隅起小重閣。僧徒三十餘人，並學大乘法教。昔僧伽跋陀羅(唐言眾賢)論師於此製《順正理論》。伽藍左右諸窣堵波，大阿羅漢舍利並在。野獸、山猨採華供養，歲時無替，如承指命。然此山中多諸靈迹，或石壁橫分，峯留馬迹。凡厥此類，其狀譎詭，皆是羅漢、沙彌，群從遊戲，手指麾畫，乘馬往來。遺迹若斯，難以詳述。

Over thirty li to the south­east of the small mon­as­tery I ar­rived at a great moun­tain on which there was an old mon­as­tery built on a mag­ni­fi­cent scale, but it is now mostly in ru­ins. There is only one small stor­ied pa­vil­ion at a corner of the mon­as­tery, with more than thirty monks, who study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. Formerly the śāstra mas­ter Saṃgh­abhadra (known as Zhongxian in Chinese) com­posed the Ab­hid­harma-nyāyānusāra-śāstra here. On the left and right sides of the mon­as­tery there are stu­pas con­tain­ing relic bones of great ar­hats. Mon­keys and other wild an­im­als pluck flowers as of­fer­ings at all times of the year without in­ter­rup­tion, as if they were per­form­ing a duty un­der in­struc­tion. There are many strange traces on this moun­tain, such as rocky walls that are split cross­wise, or the hoof­prints of horses left on the tops of the peaks. All these traces have strange shapes. They were drawn by ar­hats who were śrāmaṇeras (not yet fully or­dained monks) with their fin­gers while they were rid­ing to and fro on pleas­ure trips. Such traces are so nu­mer­ous that it is dif­fi­cult to give a full ac­count of them.

[0887c14] 佛牙伽藍東十餘里，北山崖間，有小伽藍，是昔索建地羅大論師於此作《眾事分毘婆沙論》。

Over ten li to the east of the Buddha tooth mon­as­tery, on the steep side of a north­ern moun­tain, there is a small mon­as­tery where the great śāstra mas­ter Skandhila com­posed the Ab­hid­harma-prakaraṇa-pāda-śāstra in former times.

[0887c18] 小伽藍中有石窣堵波，高五十餘尺，是阿羅漢遺身舍利也。先有羅漢，形量偉大，凡所飲食，與象同等。時人譏曰：「徒知飽食，安識是非？」羅漢將入寂滅也，告諸人曰：「吾今不久當取無餘，欲說自身所證妙法。」眾人聞之，相更譏笑，咸來集會，共觀得失。時阿羅漢告諸人曰：「吾今為汝說本因緣。此身之前，報受象身，在東印度，居王內廐。是時此國有一沙門，遠遊印度，尋訪聖教諸經典論。時王持我，施與沙門，載負佛經，而至於此。是後不久，尋即命終。乘其載經福力所致，遂得為人，復鍾餘慶，早服染衣，勤求出離，不遑寧居，得六神通，斷三界欲。然其所食，餘習尚然，每自節身，三分食一。」

In the small mon­as­tery there is a stone stupa more than fifty feet high, con­tain­ing the relic bones of an ar­hat. Formerly there was an ar­hat, a big and tall man who had the ap­pet­ite of an ele­phant. The people of the time sneered at him, say­ing, “You know only how to sat­isfy your­self and have no sense of right and wrong!” When the ar­hat was about to enter nir­vana he told the people, “I shall soon take up com­plete ex­tinc­tion. I wish to tell you the won­der­ful Dharma I have per­son­ally real­ized.” On hear­ing this the people all jeered at him even more and they all gathered to see what would hap­pen. The ar­hat then said to them, “Now I shall tell you my per­sonal karmic con­di­tions. Be­fore my present ex­ist­ence I was born an ele­phant, and I lived in the royal stable of a king of East In­dia. There was then in the coun­try [of Kaśmīra] a śramaṇa who was mak­ing a long jour­ney in In­dia in search of sac­red scrip­tures and com­ment­ar­ies. The king presen­ted me as a gift to the śramaṇa to carry the Buddhist scrip­tures for him to this coun­try. Soon af­ter­ward I died and by the merit of hav­ing car­ried scrip­tures I was re­born a hu­man be­ing. With the sur­plus blessed­ness I was able to be­come a monk at an early age. I worked hard to find lib­er­a­tion from the cycle of re­birth, without spend­ing a single mo­ment in idle­ness, un­til I at­tained the six su­per­nat­ural powers and cut off the pas­sions of the three realms. But my old habit of eat­ing [like an ele­phant] was still as be­fore, though I re­stric­ted my­self to eat­ing only one-third of my reg­u­lar amount of food.”

雖有此說，人猶未信。即昇虛空，入火光定，身出煙焰，而入寂滅，餘骸墜下，起窣堵波。

When he said this the people did not be­lieve him, so he rose into the air and entered the samādhi (con­cen­trated trance) of fire­light. Flames and smoke came from his body and he entered ex­tinc­tion while his re­mains dropped down, over which a stupa was built.

[0888a05] 王城西北行二百餘里，至商林伽藍，布剌°拏(唐言圓滿)論師於此作《釋毘婆沙論》。

Go­ing north­w­est from the royal city for over two hun­dred li, I reached Vikrītavana Mon­as­tery, where the śāstra mas­ter Pūrṇa (known as Yuan­man in Chinese) com­posed the Ex­pos­i­tion of the Ab­hid­harma-śāstra.

[0888a06] 城西行百四五十里，大河北，接山南，至大眾部伽藍，僧徒百餘人。昔佛地羅論師於此作大眾部《集真論》。

Go­ing west from the city for one hun­dred forty or fifty li, I reached the north of a great river at the south side of a moun­tain and came to a mon­as­tery of the Mahāsāṃghika school with more than a hun­dred monks. This was the place where the śāstra mas­ter Bod­hila com­posed the Tat­tvasam­caya-śāstra of the Mahāsāṃghika school.

[0888a09] 從此西南，踰山涉險，行七百餘里，至半笯(奴故反)嗟國(北印度境)。[0888a11] 半笯嗟國，周二千餘里。山川多，疇壠狹，穀稼時播，花菓繁茂，多甘蔗，無蒲萄，菴沒羅菓、烏淡跋羅、茂遮等菓，家植成林，珍其味也。氣序溫暑，風俗勇烈。裳服所製，多衣[疊*毛]布。人性質直，淳信三寶。伽藍五所，並多荒圮°。無大君長，役屬迦濕彌羅國。城北伽藍少有僧徒。伽藍北有石窣堵波，寔多靈異。

Go­ing south­w­est from here for more than seven hun­dred li over moun­tains and across dan­ger­ous rivers, I reached the coun­try of Parṇotsa (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Parṇotsa is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and has many moun­tains and rivers; it has nar­row strips of cul­tiv­ated land. The crops are sown in sea­son and flowers and fruit are lux­uri­ant. There is plenty of sug­ar­cane but no grapes. Trees bear­ing such fruit as āmra (mango), udum­bara (fig), moca (plantain), and so on have been planted by house­hold­ers in the woods near their dwell­ing places, be­cause the people en­joy the taste of these [var­it­cics of] fruit. The cli­mate is hu­mid and hot and the people are bold and fiery by cus­tom. Their gar­ments are mostly made of cot­ton cloth. They are simple and straight­for­ward by nature and be­lieve in the Triple Gem. There are five mon­as­ter­ies, mostly in ru­ins. The coun­try has no ruler and is a de­pend­ency of Kaśmīra. In the mon­as­tery to the north of the city there are a few monks. To the north of the mon­as­tery there is a stone stupa that of­ten shows mir­acles.

[0888a18] 從此東南行四百餘里，至曷邏闍補羅國(北印度境)。[0888a20] 曷邏闍補羅國，周四千餘里。國大都城周十餘里。極險固，多山阜，川原隘狹，地利不豐。土宜氣序，同半笯嗟國。風俗猛烈，人性驍勇。國無君長，役屬迦濕彌羅國。伽藍十所，僧徒寡少。天祠一所，外道甚多。

From here go­ing south­east for more than four hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Rā­japura (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Rā­japura is over four thou­sand li in cir­cuit; the cap­ital city, which is more than ten li in cir­cuit and has many hills and mounds around it, is a strong fort­ress. The val­leys and plains are nar­row and the soil is not pro­duct­ive. The nat­ive products and cli­mate are the same as those of Parṇotsa. The people are bold and fiery by cus­tom and are brave and vali­ant by nature. The coun­try has no ruler and is a de­pend­ency of Kaśmīra. There are ten mon­as­ter­ies with few monks. There is one deva temple with many heretics.

自濫波國至於此土，形貌麁弊，情性猥暴，語言庸鄙，禮義輕薄，非印度之正境，乃邊裔之曲俗。

From the coun­try of Lampā up to this land all the in­hab­it­ants are coarse and vul­gar in ap­pear­ance and rus­tic and vi­ol­ent by nature. They speak un­re­fined dia­lects, have little cour­tesy, and lack the sense of right­eous­ness. Their lands do not be­long to In­dia proper but are un­civ­il­ized fron­tier re­gions.

[0888a26] 從此東南，下山，渡水，行七百餘里，至磔迦國(北印度境)。

From here pro­ceed­ing south­east, des­cend­ing from a moun­tain, cross­ing a river, and go­ing for more than seven hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Ṭakka (in the do­main of North In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第三

End of Fas­cicle III of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第四(十五國)

Fas­cicle IV: Fif­teen Coun­tries, from Ṭakka to Kapitha

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

磔迦國

1. The Coun­try of Ṭakka

至那僕底國

2. The Coun­try of Cīn­ab­hukti

闍爛達羅國

3. The Coun­try of Jālam­d­hara

屈(居勿反)露多國

4. The Coun­try of Kulūta

設多圖盧國

5. The Coun­try of Śatadru

波理夜呾羅國

6. The Coun­try of Pāriyātra

秣菟羅國

7. The Coun­try of Ma­th­ura

薩他泥濕伐羅國

8. The Coun­try of Sthāneśvara

窣祿勤那國

9. The Coun­try of Śrughna

秣底補羅國

10. The Coun­try of Ma­tipura

婆囉吸摩補羅國

11. The Coun­try of Brahmapura

瞿毘霜那國

12. The Coun­try of Gov­iṣāṇa

堊醯掣呾羅國

13. The Coun­try of Ah­ic­chat­tra

毘羅刪那國

14. The Coun­try of Vil­aśāṇa

劫比他國

15. The Coun­try of Kapitha

[0888b14] 磔迦國，周萬餘里，東據毘播奢河，西臨信度河。國大都城周二十餘里。宜粳稻，多宿麥，出金、銀、鍮石、銅、鐵。

The coun­try of Ṭakka is more than ten thou­sand li in cir­cuit, with the Vi­pāśā River at its east and the In­dus River at its west; the cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The soil is good for grow­ing non­glu­tin­ous rice and there is plenty of winter wheat. The coun­try pro­duces gold, sil­ver, brass, cop­per, and iron.

時候暑熱，土多風飆。風俗暴惡，言辭鄙褻。衣服鮮白，所謂憍奢耶衣、朝霞衣等。少信佛法，多事天神。伽藍十所，天祠數百。

The cli­mate is hot and there is much vi­ol­ent wind. The people are rude and ill-tempered and their lan­guage is base and vul­gar. They dress in white gar­ments known as kauśeya (“wild silk”) clothes and “morn­ing glow” (fine cot­ton) cos­tume. Few of them be­lieve in the buddha-dharma and most of them serve the deit­ies. There are ten mon­as­ter­ies and sev­eral hun­dred deva temples.

此國已往，多有福舍，以贍貧匱，或施藥，或施食，口腹之資，行旅無累。

In this coun­try there were formerly many alms­houses to render help to the poor and needy or give them free food and medi­cine, and to provide trav­el­ers with meals so that they might dis­pel their fa­tigue.

[0888b22] 大城西南十四五里，至奢羯羅故城。垣堵雖壞，基趾尚固。周二十餘里。其中更築小城，周六七里，居人富饒；即此國之故都也。

Go­ing four­teen or fif­teen li to the south­w­est from the cap­ital city, I reached the old city of Sākala. The city wall is dilap­id­ated but the found­a­tions are still tough and strong. It is over twenty li in cir­cuit, in­side which there is a smal­ler city, six or seven li in cir­cuit, with rich and pros­per­ous in­hab­it­ants. This was the ori­ginal cap­ital city of the coun­try.

[0888b24] 數百年前，有王號摩醯邏矩羅(唐言大族)，都治此城，王諸印度。有才智，性勇烈，隣境諸國，莫不臣伏。機務餘閑，欲習佛法，令於僧中推一俊德。時諸僧徒莫敢應命，少欲無為，不求聞達；博學高明，有懼威嚴。

Sev­eral hun­dred years ago there was a king named Mahirak­ula (known as Dazu, “Great Clan,” in Chinese), who reigned in this city over all parts of In­dia. He was a man of tal­ent and in­tel­li­gence with a bold and furi­ous nature. All the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries were his vas­sal states. Wish­ing to learn about the buddha-dharma in his leis­ure time, he ordered the monks to re­com­mend a learned monk of vir­tue [to be his teacher]. But none of the monks dared ac­cept the of­fer, as they had few de­sires in their quiet lives and did not seek fame or em­in­ence, while those who were eru­dite and prom­in­ent feared his majesty.

是時王家舊僮，染衣已久，辭論清雅，言談贍敏，眾共推舉，而以應命。王曰：「我敬佛法，遠訪名僧，眾推此隸，與我談論。常謂僧中，賢明肩比，以今知之，夫何敬哉？」於是宣令五印度國，繼是佛法並皆毀滅，僧徒斥逐無復孑遺。

At that time there was a man who had been a ser­vant of the royal house­hold but he had also been a monk for a long time. A man of re­fined speech and skill­ful in dis­cus­sion, he was chosen by the monks to ac­cept the king’s ap­point­ment. King Mahirak­ula said, “Out of re­spect for the buddha-dharma I tried to seek a monk of renown, and you now re­com­mend a slave to hold dis­cus­sions with me! I thought that there were many bril­liant schol­ars in the com­munity of monks but now I have come to know the ac­tual con­di­tion. What is there for me to re­spect?” Then he is­sued an or­der to all the five parts of In­dia to des­troy whatever was con­nec­ted with Buddhism and to ex­pel all monks and not al­low a single one to re­main be­hind.

[0888c07] 摩揭陀國婆羅阿迭多王(唐曰幼日)，崇敬佛法，愛育黎元，以大族王淫刑虐政，自守疆場，不恭職貢。時大族王治兵將討。幼日王知其聲問，告諸臣曰：「今聞寇至，不忍鬪其兵也。幸諸僚庶赦而不罪，賜此微軀潛行草澤。」言畢出宮，依緣山野。國中感恩慕從者數萬餘人，棲竄海島。

Now in the coun­try of Magadha, King Bālāditya (known as Youri, “Morn­ing Sun,” in Chinese) re­spec­ted the buddha-dharma and loved his sub­jects, Be­cause King Mahirak­ula em­ployed cruel pun­ish­ment and prac­ticed tyranny, King Bālāditya de­fen­ded his ter­rit­ory and re­fused to pay trib­ute to Mahirak­ula as his sub­or­din­ate. King Mahirak­ula mo­bil­ized his troops to pun­ish Bālāditya, but Bālāditya got news of the in­va­sion and said to his min­is­ters, “I have heard that the in­vaders are com­ing but I do not have the heart to in­jure the sol­diers. May you of­fi­cials and com­mon­ers spare me of guilt and al­low my humble self to hide in the grassy marsh­land.” Hav­ing said so, he left the palace and went to the moun­tain­ous wil­der­ness and sev­eral myri­ads of his ad­mirers and fol­low­ers ac­com­pan­ied him to take refuge on an is­land.

大族王以兵付弟，浮海往伐。幼日王守其阨險，輕騎誘戰，金鼓一震，奇兵四起，生擒大族，反接引現。大族王自愧失道，以衣蒙面。幼日王踞師子床，群官周衛，乃命侍臣告大族曰：「汝露其面，吾欲有辭。」大族對曰：「臣主易位，怨敵相視，既非交好，何用面談？」再三告示，終不從命。於是宣令數其罪曰：「三寶福田，四生攸賴。苟任豺狼，傾毀勝業。福不祐汝，見擒於我。罪無可赦，宜從刑辟。」

King Mahirak­ula then handed over his troops to his younger brother and sailed across the sea to at­tack the is­land. King Bālāditya guarded the stra­tegic points and sent his light cav­alry­men to lure the en­emy to war. Amid the clamor of gongs and drums, Bālāditya’s sol­diers, ly­ing in am­bush, sud­denly ap­peared in all quar­ters and cap­tured Mahirak­ula alive, who was then gran­ted the fa­vor of an audi­ence. Ashamed of his mis­be­ha­vior, King Mahirak­ula covered his face with his robes. King Bālāditya, seated on his lion seat and sur­roun­ded by his of­fi­cials, ordered his at­tend­ants to tell Mahirak­ula, “Un­cover your face; I wish to speak to you.” Mahirak­ula said in reply, “The vas­sal and the lord have changed po­s­i­tions. We now face each other in grudges and enmity, and since we are not on friendly terms what is the use of hav­ing a face-to-face talk?” Des­pite re­peated ex­horta­tion to [un­cover his face] he would not do so. Then it was ordered to enu­mer­ate Mahirak­ula’s faults. “The Triple Gem is the field of blessed­ness, it is that on which all creatures of the four forms of birth can de­pend. If I had al­lowed you to act like a jackal or wolf you would have com­pletely des­troyed the causes of su­per­ior [good] deeds. Good luck is not on your side and so you have been cap­tured by me. Your crimes are un­par­don­able and you must be sen­tenced to death.”

時幼日王母博聞強識，善達占相。聞殺大族也，疾告幼日王曰：「我甞聞大族奇姿多智，欲一見之。」幼日王命引大族至母宮中。幼日母曰：「嗚呼，大族幸勿恥也！世間無常，榮辱更事，吾猶汝母，汝若吾子，宜去蒙衣，一言面對。」大族曰：「昔為敵國之君，今為俘囚之虜，隳廢王業，亡滅宗祀，上愧先靈，下慚黎庶，誠恥面目。俯仰天地，不勝自喪，故此蒙衣。」王母曰：「興廢隨時，存亡有運。以心齊物，則得喪俱忘；以物齊心，則毀譽更起。宜信業報，與時推移，去蒙對語，或存軀命。」大族謝曰：「苟以不才，嗣膺王業，刑政失道，國祚亡滅，雖在縲紲之中，尚貪旦夕之命。敢承大造，面謝厚恩。」於是去蒙衣，出其面。王母曰：「子其自愛，當終爾壽。」

When the mother of King Bālāditya, who was a wo­man of eru­di­tion and good memory and an ex­pert physiognom­ist, heard that Mahirak­ula was to be ex­ecuted, she promptly told King Bālāditya, “I have heard that Mahirak­ula is a per­son with mar­velous fea­tures and great wis­dom. I wish to have a look at him.” King Bālāditya then had Mahirak­ula led to his mother’s palace. The queen mother said, “Alas, Mahirak­ula! You need not feel ashamed. The world is im­per­man­ent and honor and dis­grace re­place each other al­tern­ately. I am just as your mother and you, my son. You should re­move the cov­er­ing on your face so that we may talk face to face.” Mahirak­ula said, “I was the lord of a coun­try hos­tile to you but I am now a cap­tive at your court. I have de­mol­ished the achieve­ments of my fore­run­ners and brought my an­ces­tral line to an end. Not only I am ashamed to face my fore­fath­ers but also I feel re­morse­ful to my sub­jects. I am ashamed to see heaven and earth so I re­gret­fully cover my face with my clothes.” The king’s mother said, “The rise and fall of a na­tion de­pends on cir­cum­stances and ex­ist­ence or ex­tinc­tion is pre­destined by fate. If your mind looks at things with a view of equal­ity, then both gain and loss are for­got­ten. If your mind is con­trolled by things, there will then arise feel­ings of calumny and com­mend­a­tion. You should be­lieve in karmic re­tri­bu­tion and change with the change of time. If you re­move your cov­er­ing and speak to me face to face, you may per­haps be able to keep your life.” Mahirak­ula said grate­fully, “I am a man of no tal­ent and at­tained the throne by mere chance. Through my mal­prac­tice in polit­ical ad­min­is­tra­tion my royal lin­eage was brought to an end. Al­though I am un­der ar­rest I still cling to my life even for a short while. For your great cour­tesy I thank you face to face with pro­fuse grat­it­ude.” Then he re­moved his robes from his face. The king’s mother said to him, “Take good care of your­self and you will live to the nat­ural end of your life.”

已而告幼日王曰：「先典有訓，宥過好生。今大族王積惡雖久，餘福未盡，若殺此人，十二年中，菜色相視。然有中興之氣，終非大國之王，當據北方，有小國土。」幼日王承慈母之命，愍失國之君，娉以稚女，待以殊禮，總其遺兵，更加衛從，未出海島。

Then she told King Bālāditya, “It is laid down in the code of our an­cest­ors that we should for­give other people’s faults and be kind to liv­ing be­ings. Al­though King Mahirak­u­la­has done evil for a long time his per­sonal blessed­ness has not yet been ex­hausted. If you kill this man we will suf­fer fam­ine for twelve years. He has pro­gnostic signs of re­in­state­ment but he will not be the king of a great coun­try; he will oc­cupy and pos­sess a small coun­try in the north.” Un­der the ad­mon­i­tion of his com­pas­sion­ate mother, King Bālāditya took pity on the lord who had lost his king­dom; he mar­ried his young daugh­ter to him and treated him with spe­cial hos­pit­al­ity. Mahirak­ula’s de­feated sol­diers were en­rolled to re­in­force his guards be­fore [the former king] was sent out of the is­land.

[0889a14] 大族王弟還國自立，大族失位，藏竄山野，北投迦濕彌羅國。迦濕彌羅王深加禮命，愍以失國，封以土邑。

In the mean­time King Mahirak­ula’s younger brother had re­turned to his own coun­try and es­tab­lished him­self as king, so Mahirak­ula had lost the throne and had to flee and hide him­self in the moun­tain­ous wil­der­ness. He then went north to seek refuge in the coun­try of Kaśmīra, and the king of Kaśmīra ac­cor­ded him deep cour­tesy and con­ferred feudal es­tates upon him.

歲月既淹，率其邑人，矯殺迦濕彌羅王而自尊立。乘其戰勝之威，西討健馱邏國，潛兵伏甲，遂殺其王，國族大臣，誅鋤殄滅。毀窣堵波，廢僧伽藍，凡一千六百所。兵殺之外，餘有九億人，皆欲誅戮，無遺噍類。時諸輔佐咸進諫曰：「大王威懾強敵，兵不交鋒，誅其首惡。黎庶何咎？願以微躬，代所應死。」王曰：「汝信佛法，崇重冥福，擬成佛果，廣說本生，欲傳我惡於未來世乎？汝宜復位，勿有再辭。」

After some years had passed [Mahirak­ula], com­mand­ing the people of his fief­dom, killed the king of Kaśmīra on some pre­text and pro­claimed him­self king. With the prestige of his suc­cess in the war he then at­tacked the coun­try of Gand­hāra in the west and he had his troops lie in am­bush and killed the king. The mem­bers of the royal clan and all the min­is­ters were slaughtered and one thou­sand six hun­dred stu­pas and mon­as­ter­ies were de­mol­ished. Apart from those killed in the war, there were nine koṭis of people who re­mained alive, and he in­ten­ded to kill them all and not al­low a single one to sur­vive. At that time his as­sist­ants at court ad­mon­ished him, say­ing, “Your Majesty’s prestige awed the strong en­emies so much that their chiefs were ex­ecuted even be­fore the sol­diers ex­changed blows. What guilt have the com­mon people com­mit­ted? We wish to sub­sti­tute our humble lives for their deaths.” The king said, “You be­lieve in the buddha-dharma and think highly of fu­ture blessed­ness. Be­cause you de­sire to achieve buddha­hood you widely propag­ate the Jā­taka stor­ies. Do you in­tend to hand down my evil re­pute to pos­ter­ity? Go back to your seats and say no more!”

於是以三億上族，臨信度河流殺之；三億中族，下沈信度河流殺之；三億下族，分賜兵士，於是持其亡國之貨，振旅而歸。曾未改歲，尋即徂落。于時，雲霧冥晦，大地震動，暴風奮發。時證果人愍而歎曰：「枉殺無辜，毀滅佛法，墮無間獄，流轉未已。」

Three koṭis of people of the up­per class were taken to the bank of the In­dus River and put to death, three koṭis of people of the middle class were drowned in the river, and three koṭis of people of the lower class were gran­ted to the sol­diers [as slaves]. After that, Mahirak­ula car­ried the loot he had taken from the conquered coun­try and marched home in tri­umph. But in less than a year’s time he died a sud­den death, and at that time clouds and mist darkened the sky and the earth quaked, with a vi­ol­ent wind blow­ing vehe­mently. A per­son who had real­ized saint­hood had pity on him and re­marked with a sigh of re­gret, “You un­justly killed in­no­cent people and des­troyed the buddha-dharma. You will fall into the deep­est hell of in­cess­ant suf­fer­ing and ro­tate [in the wheel of re­birth] without end.”

[0889b04] 奢羯羅故城中有一伽藍，僧徒百餘人，並學小乘法。世親菩薩昔於此中製《勝義諦論》。其側窣堵波，高二百餘尺，過去四佛於此說法。又有四佛經行遺迹之所。伽藍西北五六里，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也，是過去四佛說法之處。

In the old city of Śākala there is a mon­as­tery with more than one hun­dred monks, all of whom study Hinay­ana teach­ings. Formerly Vas­ub­andhu Bodhi- sat­tva com­posed the Para­mārtha-satya-śāstra at this mon­as­tery. Be­side it is a stupa over two hun­dred feet high built at a place where the four past buddhas preached the Dharma. There are also the ru­ins of a place where the four buddhas used to walk up and down. Five or six li to the north­w­est of the mon­as­tery there is an­other stupa over two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka at a place where the four past buddhas had preached the Dharma.

[0889b10] 新都城東北十餘里，至石窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也，是如來往北方行化中路止處。《印度記》曰：「窣堵波中有多舍利，或有齋日，時放光明。」從此東行五百餘里，至那僕底國(北印度境)。

Go­ing for more than ten li to the north­east of the new cap­ital city, I reached a stone stupa over two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka at a place where the Tathāgata had once hal­ted halfway on his evan­gel­ical jour­ney to the north. It is said in the Re­cord of In­dia that there are many relic bones pre­served in the stupa and on fast days they of­ten emit a light.

[0889b15] 至那僕氐國，周二千餘里。國大都城周十四五里。稼穡滋茂，菓木稀疎。編戶安業，國用豐贍。氣序溫暑，風俗怯弱，學綜真俗，信兼邪正。伽藍十所，天祠八所。

From here go­ing east­ward for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Cīn­ab­hukti (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Cīn­ab­hukti is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit. It is abund­ant in cer­eals but fruit trees are scarce. The in­hab­it­ants are en­rolled in house­hold re­gis­tra­tion and live in peace and con­tent­ment. The state treas­ury has rich and pro­fuse re­sources. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and warm and the people are timid and weak by cus­tom. They study the the­or­ies of both the tran­scend­ental and the con­ven­tional truth in a com­pre­hens­ive way and be­lieve in het­ero­doxy as well as or­tho­doxy. There are ten mon­as­ter­ies and eight deva temples.

[0889b19] 昔迦膩色迦王之御宇也，聲振隣國，威被殊俗，河西蕃維，畏威送質。迦膩色迦王既得質子，賞遇隆厚，三時易館，四兵警衛。此國則冬所居也，故曰至那僕底(唐言漢封)。質子所居，因為國號。

When King Kan­iṣka oc­cu­pied the throne his fame reached neigh­bor­ing coun­tries and his prestige covered dis­tant lands with dis­sim­ilar cus­toms. In fear of his in­flu­ence, a vas­sal state to the west of the Yel­low River [in China] sent a host­age to him. King Kan­iṣka re­ceived the host­age with mu­ni­fi­cent hos­pit­al­ity, provided him with three res­id­ences for the three sea­sons of the year, and ap­poin­ted four di­vi­sions of sol­diers to serve as his guards. The winter res­id­ence of the host­age was in this dis­trict and was called Cīn­ab­hukti (known as Han­feng, “China Fief,” in Chinese), which was also the name of the coun­try where he had so­journed.

此境已往，洎諸印度，土無梨、桃，質子所植，因謂桃曰至那爾(唐言漢持來)，梨曰至那羅闍弗呾邏(唐言漢王子)。故此國人深敬東土，更相指語：「是我先王本國人也。」

In this dis­trict, and bey­ond it in the vari­ous parts of In­dia, there had been no pears or peaches; it was the host­age who first planted them. Thus peaches are called cīn­anī (“brought from China”) and pears are called cīn­arā­japutra (“Chinese prince”). There­fore the people of this coun­try have a deep re­spect for the East Land and they of­ten said to one an­other, point­ing at me, “This is a man from the land of our former king.”

[0889b28] 大城東南行五百餘里，至答秣蘇伐那僧伽藍(唐言闍林)。僧徒三百餘人，學說一切有部，眾儀肅穆，德行清高，小乘之學特為博究，賢劫千佛皆於此地集天、人眾，說深妙法。釋迦如來涅槃之後第三百年中，有迦多衍那(舊曰迦旃延，訛也)論師者，於此製《發智論》焉。

Go­ing to the north­east for more than five hun­dred li from the cap­ital city, I reached Tamasāvana-samghārāma (known as An­lin, “Dark Forest,” in Chinese), where there are more than three hun­dred monks who study the teach­ings of the Sar­vāstivāda school. They be­have in a sol­emn and re­spect­ful man­ner with pure and high vir­tues. They are par­tic­u­larly learned in the doc­trines of the Hinay­ana schools. All the thou­sand buddhas of the bhad­rakalpa will hold meet­ings of heav­enly and hu­man be­ings at this place to speak on the pro­found and mar­velous Dharma. In the three-hun­dredth year after the nir­vana of Sākya Tathāgata, the śāstra mas­ter Kātyāy­ana (wrongly tran­scribed as Jiazhan­yan in olden times) com­posed the Ab­hid­harma-jñāna-prasthāna-śāstra at this mon­as­tery.

[0889c05] 闍林伽藍中有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。其側則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之處。小窣堵波、諸大石室，鱗次相望，不詳其數，並是劫初已來諸果聖人，於此寂滅，差難備舉，齒骨猶在。繞山伽藍周二十里，佛舍利窣堵波數百千所，連隅接影。

In­side Dark Forest Mon­as­tery there is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. Be­side it are the ru­ins of places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. Small stu­pas and large caves, of which the num­ber is un­known, lie close to­gether. They were built since the be­gin­ning of the present kalpa, when ar­hats of dif­fer­ent stages passed away at this place, but I can­not give a full de­scrip­tion of these events. Their holy tooth rel­ics are still kept there. The range of hills that en­circles the mon­as­tery is over twenty li in cir­cuit. There are hun­dreds and thou­sands of stu­pas con­tain­ing the Buddha’s relic bones, built so closely to­gether that their shad­ows touch one an­other.

[0889c11] 從此東北行百四五十里，至闍爛達羅國(北印度境)。[0889c13] 闍爛達邏國，東西千餘里，南北八百餘里。國大都城周十二三里。宜穀稼，多粳稻，林樹扶疎，華菓茂盛。氣序溫暑，風俗剛烈，容貌鄙陋，家室富饒。伽藍五十餘所，僧徒二千餘人，大小二乘，專門習學。天祠三所，外道五百餘人，並塗灰之侶也。

Go­ing north­east from here for more than one hun­dred forty or fifty li, I reached the coun­try of Jālam­d­hara (in die do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Jālam­d­hara is over one thou­sand li from east to west and more than eight hun­dred li from south to north; the cap­ital city is twelve or thir­teen li in cir­cuit. It yields cer­eals and has plenty of non­glu­tin­ous rice. The trees in the forests are lux­uri­ant and flowers and fruit are abund­ant. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and warm and the people are vi­ol­ent and in­dom­it­able by cus­tom and ugly in ap­pear­ance, but all their house­holds are wealthy. There are over fifty mon­as­ter­ies with more than two thou­sand monks, who have spe­cial­ized know­ledge of both Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana teach­ings. There are three deva temples with over five hun­dred heretics, who all smear their bod­ies with ashes.

此國先王崇敬外道，其後遇羅漢，聞法信悟。故中印度王體其淳信，五印度國三寶之事，一以總監。混彼此，忘愛惡，督察僧徒，妙窮淑慝。故道德著聞者，竭誠敬仰；戒行虧犯者，深加責罰。聖迹之所，並皆旌建，或窣堵波，或僧伽藍，印度境內，無不周遍。

A pre­vi­ous king of this coun­try had ven­er­ated heretics, but he later met an ar­hat from whom he heard the Dharma and he came to un­der­stand and be­lieve in it. The king of Cent­ral In­dia, ap­pre­ci­at­ing his sin­cere faith, em­powered him to be the sole con­trol­ler of all af­fairs con­nec­ted with the Triple Gem in all of the five parts of In­dia. [The king of Jālam­d­hara] made no dis­tinc­tion between dif­fer­ent re­gions and, for­get­ting his per­sonal likes and dis­likes, he su­per­vised all the monks, skill­fully point­ing out even the most minute of their good and evil deeds. There­fore vir­tu­ous monks of good re­pute were highly re­spec­ted, while those who vi­ol­ated the dis­cip­lin­ary rules were de­nounced and pun­ished. At all sac­red sites he erec­ted me­morial build­ings, either stu­pas or mon­as­ter­ies, which were found every­where in In­dia.

[0889c24] 從此東北，踰峻嶺越，洞谷，經危途，涉險路，行七百餘里，至屈(居勿反)露多國(北印度境)。[0889c27] 屈露多國，周三千餘里，山周四境。國大都城周十四五里。土地沃壤，穀稼時播，華果茂盛，卉木滋榮。既隣雪山，遂多珍藥，出金、銀、赤銅及火珠、雨石。氣序逾寒，霜雪微降。人貌麁弊，既癭且尰，性剛猛，尚氣勇。伽藍二十餘所，僧徒千餘人，多學大乘，少習諸部。天祠十五，異道雜居。依巖據嶺，石室相距，或羅漢所居，或仙人所止。

Go­ing from here to the north­east for more than seven hun­dred li over pre­cip­it­ous ranges, through deep val­leys, and along per­il­ous paths, and trudging on dan­ger­ous tracks, I reached the coun­try of Kulūta (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Kulūta is more than three thou­sand li in cir­cuit, sur­roun­ded by moun­tains, and the cap­ital city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit. The soil is fer­tile and cer­eals are sown and planted in sea­son. Flowers and fruit are abund­ant and vari­ous kinds of grasses and trees are lux­uri­ant. As it bor­ders the Snow Moun­tains, it is rich in pre­cious medi­cinal herbs. It yields gold, sil­ver, red cop­per, crys­tal, and brass. The cli­mate is some­what cold but there is little snow or frost. The people have ugly fea­tures and suf­fer from goiter as well as ed­ema. They are vi­ol­ent and furi­ous by nature and up­hold the spirit of bravery. There are more than twenty mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks, most of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings; a few of them prac­tice the ten­ets of vari­ous [Hinay­ana] schools. There are fif­teen deva temples with heretics liv­ing to­gether. On the steep moun­tains there are caves situ­ated in con­nec­tion with one an­other, which were either the lodgings of ar­hats or the abodes of ṛṣis.

國中有窣堵波，無憂王之建也。在昔如來曾至此國。說法度人，遺迹斯記。

In this coun­try there is a stupa built by King Aśoka in memory of the event of the Tathāgata com­ing to this place in olden times to preach the Dharma for the con­ver­sion of the people.

[0890a07] 從此北路千八九百里，道路危險，踰山越谷，至洛護羅國。此北二千餘里，經途艱阻，寒風飛雪，至秣邏娑國(亦謂三波訶國)。

From here the road, lead­ing to the north for one thou­sand and eight or nine hun­dred li by per­il­ous paths and over moun­tains and val­leys, takes one to the coun­try of Lāhul. Go­ing fur­ther to the north over two thou­sand li along a route full of dif­fi­culties and obstacles, in cold winds and waft­ing snow­flakes, one could reach the coun­try of Marsa (also known as the coun­try of San­bohe).

[0890a10] 自屈露多國南行七百餘里，越大山，濟大河，至設多圖盧國(北印度境)。[0890a12] 設多圖盧國，周二千餘里，西臨大河。國大都城周十七八里。穀稼殷盛，果實繁茂，多金、銀，出珠珍。服用鮮素，裳衣綺靡。氣序暑熱，風俗淳和，人性善順，上下有序。敦信佛法，誠心質敬。王城內外，伽藍十所，庭宇荒涼，僧徒尠少。城東南三四里，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。傍有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

From the coun­try of Kulūta go­ing south for more than seven hun­dred li over a great moun­tain across a big river, I reached the coun­try of Satadru (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Śatadru is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing on a big river in the west. The cap­ital city is sev­en­teen or eight­een li in cir­cuit. Cer­eals are grown in abund­ance and fruit is plen­ti­ful. It pro­duces much gold and sil­ver and also yields pearls. The people’s dress and utensils are bright and clean and their clothes are ex­tra­vag­ant and gor­geous. The cli­mate is hot and the people are hon­est and ami­able by cus­tom. Their dis­pos­i­tion is kind and gentle and the su­per­ior and in­ferior are in proper or­der. They earn­estly be­lieve in the buddha-dharma with a true at­ti­tude of re­spect. Within and out­side the royal city there are ten mon­as­ter­ies, which are in des­ol­a­tion and have few monks. Three or four li to the south­east of the city there is a stupa over two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. Be­side it are the ru­ins of places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down.

[0890a19] 復從此西南行八百餘里，至波理夜呾羅國(中印度境)。[0890a21] 波理夜呾羅國，周三千餘里。國大都城周十四五里。宜穀稼，豐宿麥，有異稻種六十日而收穫焉。多牛羊，少華菓。氣序暑熱，風俗剛猛。不尚學藝，信奉外道。王，吠奢種也，性勇烈，多武略。伽藍八所，傾毀已甚，僧徒寡少，習學小乘。天祠十餘所，異道千餘人。

Go­ing from here to the south­w­est for over eight hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Pāriyātra (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Par­iyātra is more than three thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit. It yields cer­eals and winter wheat in abund­ance and has a par­tic­u­lar spe­cies of rice that is ready for har­vest sixty days after plant­ing. It has plenty of cattle and sheep but flowers and fruit are scarce. The cli­mate is hot and the people are vi­ol­ent and furi­ous by cus­tom. They do not es­teem learn­ing and they pro­fess false teach­ings. The king, a des­cend­ant of the vaiśya caste, is a man of cour­age and mil­it­ary skills. There are eight mon­as­ter­ies stand­ing in an ex­tremely ru­in­ous con­di­tion, with a few monks who study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana schools. There are over ten deva temples with more than a thou­sand de­votees.

[0890a26] 從此東行五百餘里，至秣菟羅國(中印度境)。[0890a28] 秣菟羅國，周五千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里，土地膏腴，稼穡是務。菴沒羅菓家植成林，雖同一名，而有兩種：小者生青熟黃，大者始終青色。出細班[疊*毛]及黃金。氣序暑熱，風俗善順，好修冥福，崇德尚學。伽藍二十餘所，僧徒二千餘人，大小二乘，兼功習學。天祠五所，異道雜居。[0890b05] 有三窣堵波，並無憂王所建也。過去四佛遺迹甚多。

Go­ing from here to the east for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Ma­th­ura (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Ma­th­ura is more than five thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The land is fer­tile and ag­ri­cul­ture is the main oc­cu­pa­tion. Mango frees are grown by the people in their homesteads. There are two spe­cies of this fruit, one is small and turns yel­low when ripe; the other large and al­ways re­mains green. The coun­try pro­duces fine ka­pok cloth and gold. The cli­mate is hot and the people are good and gen­ial by cus­tom. They like to work for the hap­pi­ness of the de­par­ted, they re­spect the vir­tu­ous, and they ad­voc­ate learn­ing. There are over twenty mon­as­ter­ies with more than two thou­sand monks who study the teach­ings of both the Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana schools. There are five deva temples where heretics live to­gether. There are three stu­pas, all built by King Aśoka, and nu­mer­ous traces left by the four past buddhas.

釋迦如來諸聖弟子遺身窣堵波，謂舍利子(舊曰舍利子，又曰舍利弗，訛略也)、沒特伽羅子(舊曰目乾連，訛也)、布剌°拏梅呾麗衍尼弗呾羅、(唐言滿慈子。舊曰彌多羅尼子，訛略也)、鄔波釐、阿難陀、羅怙羅(舊曰羅睺，又曰羅云，皆訛略也)，曼殊室利(唐言妙吉祥。舊曰濡首，又曰文殊師利，或言曼殊尸利，譯曰妙德，訛也)諸菩薩窣堵波等。

There are also stu­pas con­tain­ing the relic bones of the holy dis­ciples of Sākya Tathāgata, such as Sāri­putra (formerly known as Shel­izi or Shelifu in wrongly ab­bre­vi­ated forms), Maudgalyāy­ana (formerly known as Muji­an­lian er­ro­neously), Pūrṇa­maitrāy­aṇīputra (known as Man­cizi, “Full Com­pas­sion Son,” in Chinese, and formerly tran­scribed in a wrongly ab­bre­vi­ated form as Midouluon­izi), Up­āli, Ān­anda, and Rāhula (formerly known as Luo­hou or Louyun, both be­ing er­ro­neous and ab­bre­vi­ated forms). There are stu­pas for such bod­hisat­tvas as Mañjuśrī (known as Miaojixi­ang, “Won­der­ful Aus­pices,” in Chinese, formerly known as Rushou, Wenshushili, or Manshushili and wrongly trans­lated as “Won­der­ful Vir­tue”), and oth­ers.

每歲三長及月六齋，僧徒相競，率其同好，齎持供具，多營奇玩，隨其所宗，而致像設。阿毘達磨眾供養舍利子；習定之徒供養沒特伽羅子；誦持經者供養滿慈子；學毘柰耶眾供養鄔波釐；諸苾芻°尼供養阿難；未受具戒者供養羅怙羅；其學大乘者供養諸菩薩。是日也，諸窣堵波競修供養，珠幡布列，寶蓋駢羅，香煙若雲，華散如雨，蔽虧日月，震蕩谿谷。國王大臣，修善為務。

In the three fast months of the year and on each of the six fast days of the month, the monks vie with their friends and ac­quaint­ances to carry ritual im­ple­ments and many rare and strange art­icles to of­fer to the im­ages of their par­tic­u­lar pat­rons. Those who study the Ab­hid­harma make of­fer­ings to Śāri- putra, those who prac­tice med­it­a­tion make of­fer­ings to Maudgalyāy­ana, the sutra re­citers to Pūrṇa­maitrāy­aṇīputra, the Vinaya stu­dents to Up­āli, the bhikṣuṇīs to Ān­anda, the śrāmaṇerns to Rāhula, and the Ma­hay­ana stu­dents to the vari­ous bod­hisat­tvas. On the day of­fer­ings to the vari­ous stu­pas are to be made in com­pet­i­tion pearled ban­ners are dis­played and be­jeweled can­op­ies ar­ranged in rows; the smoke of in­cense per­vades the air like clouds and flowers are scattered in such abund­ance that they ob­scure the sun and moon and cause great tu­mult in the val­leys. The king and his min­is­ters per­form good deeds as their bound duty.

[0890b20] 城東行五六里，至一山伽藍，疎崖為室，因谷為門，尊者鄔波毱多(唐言近護)之所建也。其中則有如來指爪窣堵波。

Go­ing east for five or six li from the city I came to a hill mon­as­tery, of which the cham­bers are carved on the pre­cip­ice of a moun­tain, with an en­trance fa­cing the val­ley. It was built by Ven­er­able Up­agupta (known as Jinhu, “Near Pro­tec­tion,” in Chinese). In the mon­as­tery is a stupa pre­serving the fin­ger­nails of the Tathāgata.

[0890b24] 伽藍北巖間，有石室，高二十餘尺，廣三十餘尺，四寸細籌填積其內。尊者近護說法化導，夫妻俱證羅漢果者，乃下一籌，異室別族，雖證不記。

On the steep rock to the north of the [hill] mon­as­tery there is a cave more than twenty feet in height and over thirty feet in breadth. Fine chips four inches long [used as coun­ters] are ac­cu­mu­lated in the cave. When Ven­er­able Up­agupta was preach­ing the Dharma to con­vert the people every mar­ried couple that at­tained ar­hat­ship put down a counter here, but single mem­bers of a fam­ily were not coun­ted even though they had be­come ar­hats.

[0890b28] 石室東南二十四五里，至大涸池，傍有窣堵波。在昔如來行經此處，時有彌猴，持蜜奉佛，佛令水和，普遍大眾。獼猴喜躍，墮坑而死，乘茲福力，得生人中。

Go­ing twenty-four or five li to the south­east from the cave I came to a large dried-up pond with a stupa be­side it. Formerly when the Tathāgata was once go­ing across this place, a mon­key offered him some honey. The Buddha had it mixed with wa­ter and dis­trib­uted the bever­age to the as­sembly of monks. The mon­key was so de­lighted that it gamboled with joy, fell into a pit, and died. By the mer­its of this of­fer­ing it was re­born as a hu­man be­ing.

[0890c04] 池北不遠，大林中有過去四佛經行遺迹。其側有舍利子、沒特伽羅子等千二百五十大阿羅漢習定之處，並建窣堵波，以記遺迹。如來在世，屢遊此國，說法之所，並有封樹。

Not far away to the north of the [dried-up] pond there is a large wood in which are traces left by the four past buddhas when they walked up and down. Be­side it are the places where the one thou­sand two hun­dred and fifty great ar­hats, Śāri­putra, Maudgalyāy­ana, and so on, prac­ticed med­it­a­tion and stu­pas have been built to mark the traces. When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world he fre­quently vis­ited this coun­try, and trees have been planted at the places where he preached the Dharma.

[0890c08] 從此東北行五百餘里，至薩他泥濕伐羅國(中印度境)。[0890c10] 薩他泥濕伐羅國，周七千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。土地沃壤，稼穡滋盛。氣序溫暑，風俗澆薄，家室富饒，競為奢侈。深閑幻術，高尚異能。多逐利，少務農，諸方奇貨多聚其國。伽藍三所，僧徒七百餘人，並皆習學小乘法教。天祠百餘所，異道甚多。

From here go­ing to the north­east for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Sthāneśvara (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Sthāneśvara is more than seven thou­sand li in cir­cuit; the cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The land is fer­tile and crops grow in abund­ance. The cli­mate is hot and the people are un­kind and ig­noble by cus­tom. The house­hold­ers are wealthy and vie with each other in show­ing ex­tra­vag­ance. The people are learned in art of ma­gic and they highly es­teem un­usual cap­ab­il­it­ies. Most of them en­gage in trade in pur­suit of profit, while a few are farm­ers. Ex­cep­tional goods of vari­ous places are col­lec­ted in this coun­try. There are three mon­as­ter­ies with over seven hun­dred monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana schools. Deva temples amount to over one hun­dred and have nu­mer­ous heretics.

[0890c16] 大城四周二百里內，彼土之人謂為福地。聞諸先志曰：昔五印度國二王分治，境壤相侵，干戈不息。兩主合謀，欲決兵戰，以定雌雄，以寧氓俗。黎庶胥怨，莫從君命。王以為眾庶者，難與慮始也，神可動物，權可立功。時有梵志，素知高才，密齎束帛，命入後庭，造作法書，藏諸巖穴。歲月既久，樹皆合拱。

Around the great city within a ra­dius of two hun­dred li, the dis­trict is called by the people of the coun­try the Land of Blessed­ness. I heard some old people say that the five parts of In­dia were formerly ruled sep­ar­ately by two kings. Their ter­rit­or­ies were ad­ja­cent to each other and the two kings car­ried out mu­tual in­va­sions in end­less wars. Then they agreed to fight a fi­nal battle to see who would be the mas­ter, so as to es­tab­lish peace for their sub­jects. But all the com­mon people bore a grudge against war and would not obey the kings’ or­ders [to fight]. Think­ing that it was dif­fi­cult to dis­cuss the mat­ter with his sub­jects, the king [of Sthāneśvara] con­sidered that the gods might be able to arouse his people and their power might help him achieve his ex­ploits. There was then a brah­man who was known for his high tal­ents. [The king] secretly sent him a roll of silk and in­vited him to the back cham­bers of the palace to com­pose a Dharma book, which was then hid­den in a rock cave. After a long lapse of many years, the cave was covered over by the trees grow­ing at the place.

王於朝坐，告諸臣曰：「吾以不德，忝居大位，天帝垂照，夢賜靈書，今在某山，藏於某嶺。」於是下令營求，得書山林之下。群官稱慶，眾庶悅豫，宣示遠近，咸使聞知。其大略曰：

One day at an audi­ence in the morn­ing, the king said to his min­is­ters, “As a man of no vir­tue I have un­wor­thily oc­cu­pied the throne. The Lord of Heaven has favored me with a dream in which he gran­ted me a spir­itual book, which is now hid­den un­der a cer­tain peak on a cer­tain moun­tain.” Then he gave or­ders to search for the book and, to the de­light of the min­is­ters as well as the pleas­ure of the com­mon people, the book was found in a forest on a moun­tain. The con­tents of the book were made known to all people far and near. It reads briefly as fol­lows:

「夫生死無崖，流轉無極，含靈淪溺，莫由自濟。我以奇謀，令離諸苦。今此王城周二百里，古先帝世福利之地。歲月極遠，銘記堙滅，生靈不悟，遂沈苦海。溺而不救，夫何謂歟？汝諸含識，臨敵兵死，得生人中，多殺無辜，受天福樂，順孫孝子，扶侍親老，經遊此地，獲福無窮。功少福多，如何失利？一喪人身，三途冥漠。是故含生，各務修業！」

The [wheel of] life and death is end­less and ro­tates in­cess­antly without limit. Those who are sub­merged in the sea of re­birth can­not save them­selves. I have a won­der­ful device to re­lease you from all kinds of suf­fer­ing. The re­gion two hun­dred li wide around the royal city is the Land of Blessed­ness, handed down by former kings from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, but in the long lapse of time the in­scrip­tions have been ob­lit­er­ated. As the people are not aware of the fact they are sunk in the sea of suf­fer­ing. What would people say if we failed to res­cue those who are be­ing drowned? You people will be re­born among hu­mans if you die fight­ing your en­emies, and if you slaughter many in­no­cent people you will en­joy hap­pi­ness in heaven. Obed­i­ent grand­sons and fi­lial sons serving their par­ents in tour­ing this re­gion will gain in­fin­ite blessed­ness. Why should you lose the chance to ob­tain much blessed­ness by per­form­ing a small mer­it­ori­ous deed? Once the hu­man body is lost you will suf­fer in the dark­ness of the three evil states of re­birth. There­fore every one of you should cul­tiv­ate good karma.

於是人皆兵戰，視死如歸。

There­after all the people prac­ticed the mil­it­ary arts and looked upon death as go­ing home.

王遂下令，招募勇烈，兩國合戰，積屍如莽。迄于°今時，遺骸°遍野，時既古昔，人骸偉大。國俗相傳，謂之福地。

The king then ordered that brave and high-spir­ited war­ri­ors be en­lis­ted and in the war that took place between the two counties the nu­mer­ous corpses of those killed on the bat­tle­field piled up high, so that even now skel­et­ons are scattered about in the wil­der­ness. Be­cause this happened in an­cient times the bod­ies of the fight­ers were very large in size. This re­gion is known as the Land of Blessed­ness by tra­di­tion of the coun­try.

[0891a10] 城西北四五里，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。甎皆黃赤色，甚光淨，中有如來舍利一斗，光明時照，神迹多端。

Four or five li to the north­w­est of the city is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. The bricks are all yel­low­ish-red in color, very lus­trous and clean. It con­tains one sheng of the Tathāgata’s relic bones, which of­ten emit a light with many di­vine mani­fest­a­tions.

[0891a13] 城南行百餘里，至俱昏(去聲)荼僧伽藍。重閣連甍，層臺間峙。僧徒清肅，威儀閑雅。

Go­ing south for over one hun­dred li from the city, I came to Govinda Mon­as­tery, which con­sists of stor­ied pa­vil­ions with the ridges of the roofs con­nec­ted to­gether, and ter­races of many tiers stand­ing one higher than an­other. The monks lead a pure and strict life and com­port them­selves in a calm and re­fined man­ner.

[0891a14] 從此東北行四百餘里，至窣祿勤那國(中印度境)。[0891a16] 窣祿勤那國，周六千餘里，東臨殑伽河，北背大山，閻牟那河中境而流。國大都城周二十餘里，東臨閻牟那河，荒蕪雖甚，基趾尚固。土地所產，風氣所宜，同薩他泥濕伐羅國。人性淳質，宗信外道。貴藝學，尚福慧。伽藍五所，僧徒千餘人，多學小乘，少習餘部。商搉微言，清論玄奧，異方俊彥，尋論稽疑。天祠百所，異道甚多。

From here go­ing north­east for more than four hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Śrughna (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Śrughna is more than six thou­sand li in cir­cuit, bor­der­ing the Ganges River on the east, with big moun­tains ly­ing at its back in the north and the Yamuna River flow­ing through the middle of its ter­rit­ory. The cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit and bor­ders the Yamuna River on the east. Al­though the city is in a des­ol­ate con­di­tion the found­a­tions are still strong. The nat­ive products and cus­toms and habits are the same as in the coun­try of Sthāneśvara. The people are hon­est by nature and be­lieve in heretical the­or­ies. They es­teem the learn­ing of arts and crafts and ad­voc­ate the cul­tiv­a­tion of blessed­ness and wis­dom. There are five mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks, most of whom study Hinay­ana teach­ings, but a few leam the ten­ets of other schools. They dis­cuss the subtle teach­ings and de­lib­er­ate on the ab­struse doc­trines. Tal­en­ted schol­ars of dif­fer­ent places come to hold dis­cus­sions with them in or­der to re­solve their doubts. There are one hun­dred deva temples with nu­mer­ous heretics.

[0891a23] 大城東南閻牟那河西，大伽藍東門外，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。如來在昔，曾於此處說法度人。其側又一窣堵波，中有如來髮、爪也。舍利子、沒特伽羅諸阿羅漢髮、爪窣堵波，周其左右，數十餘所。如來寂滅之後，此國為諸外道所詿誤焉，信受邪法，捐廢正見。今有五伽藍者，乃異國論師與諸外道及婆羅門論議勝處，因此建焉。

To the south­east of the great city, out­side the east­ern gate of a big mon­as­tery at the west of the Yamuna River, there is a stupa built by King Aśoka at a place where the Tathāgata once preached the Dharma to con­vert the people in olden times. Be­side it an­other stupa con­tains hair and fin­ger­nail rel­ics of the Tathāgata. Hair and fin­ger­nail rel­ics of Sāri­putra, Maudgalyāy­ana, and other ar­hats are pre­served in sev­eral tens of stu­pas built around here. After the nir­vana of the Tathāgata, the coun­try was led astray by heretics and the people aban­doned the right views. The five mon­as­ter­ies now in ex­ist­ence were built by for­eign śāstra mas­ters who had de­feated the heretics and brah­mans in de­bates at the sites where the mon­as­ter­ies were sub­sequently built.

[0891b02] 閻牟那河東行八百餘里，至殑伽河河源，廣三四里，東南流入海處廣十餘里。水色滄浪，波流浩汗，靈怪雖多，不為物害，其味甘美，細沙隨流。彼俗書記，謂之福水，罪咎雖積，沐浴便除；輕命自沈，生天受福；死而投骸，不墮惡趣；揚波激流，亡魂獲濟。

Go­ing east from the Yamunā River for over eight hun­dred li, I came to the Ganges River, the source of which is three or four li wide flow­ing south­east to the sea; it is over ten li at its mouth. The wa­ter is dark blue in color with great waves rising in it. Al­though there are many strange mon­sters [in the river], they do not harm people. The wa­ter is sweet and fine grains of sand come down with the cur­rent. Ac­cord­ing to local pop­u­lar re­cords, this river is known as the Wa­ter of Blessed­ness and one’s ac­cu­mu­lated sins can be ex­pi­ated by tak­ing a bath in it. Those who drown them­selves in the river will be re­born in heaven to en­joy hap­pi­ness, and a re­cently de­ceased per­son whose corpse is thrown into the river will not fall into the evil states of ex­ist­ence in his next re­birth. By rais­ing waves and block­ad­ing the cur­rent the souls of the dead will be saved.

時執師子國提婆菩薩深達實相，得諸法性，愍諸愚夫，來此導誘。當是時也，士女咸會，少長畢萃，於河之濱，揚波激流。提婆菩薩和光汲引，俯首反激，狀異眾人。有外道曰：「吾子何其異乎？」提婆菩薩曰：「吾父母親宗在執師子國，恐苦飢渴，冀斯遠濟。」諸外道曰：「吾子謬矣！曾不再思，妄行此事。家國綿邈，山川遼敻，激揚此水，給濟彼飢，其猶却行以求前及，非所聞也。」提婆菩薩曰：「幽途罪累，尚蒙此水；山川雖阻，如何不濟？」時諸外道知難謝屈，捨邪見，受正法，改過自新，願奉教誨。

Deva Bod­hisat­tva of the coun­try of was a man learned in the the­ory of real­ity; he un­der­stood the nature of all dharmas. Hav­ing pity for ig­nor­ant people, he came here to en­lighten them. At the time when all the people, men and wo­men, old and young, as­sembled at the banks of the river, raised waves, and block­aded the cur­rent, Deva Bod­hisat­tva mingled with them to draw up the wa­ter and lowered his head to push the cur­rent in the re­verse dir­ec­tion, counter to the ef­forts of the other people. A heretic said to him, “Why are you do­ing it in a strange way?” Deva Bod­hisat­tva said, “My par­ents and other kinsfolk are in the coun­try of Siṃhala and I fear that they may be suf­fer­ing from hun­ger and thirst. So I am try­ing to send this wa­ter from afar to save them.” The heretic said, “You are mis­taken. You did not con­sider the mat­ter well and be­haved er­ro­neously. Your home coun­try is far away, sep­ar­ated [from here] by big moun­tains and rivers. To agit­ate the wa­ter here with the hope of sav­ing those who are hungry there is like someone who goes back­ward in or­der to ad­vance. This is un­think­able !” Deva Bod­hisat­tva said, “If sin­ners in the nether world can be be­nefited by this wa­ter, why could it not also save the people sep­ar­ated [from here] by moun­tains and rivers?” The heretics then real­ized their fault and ac­know­ledged de­feat. They re­nounced their er­ro­neous views, ac­cep­ted the right Dharma, cor­rec­ted their mis­takes, and made a fresh start by wish­ing to listen to the in­struc­tions [of Deva Bod­hisat­tva].

[0891b19] 渡河東岸至秣底補羅國(中印度境)。[0891b21] 秣底補羅國，周六千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。宜穀、麥，多華果。氣序和暢，風俗淳質。崇尚學藝，深閑呪術。信邪正者，其徒相半。王，戍達羅種也，不信佛法，敬事天神。伽藍十餘所，僧徒八百餘人，多學小乘教說一切有部。天祠五十餘所，異道雜居。

Cross­ing the river to the east bank I reached the coun­try of Ma­tipura (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Ma­tipura is more than six thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. It yields rice and wheat and has plenty of flowers and fruit. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the people are hon­est by cus­tom. They es­teem the learn­ing of arts and crafts and are learned in the art of sor­cery. Half of the pop­u­la­tion be­lieves in het­ero­dox re­li­gions and the other half in the right teach­ings [of Buddhism]. The king is a śūdra by caste who does not be­lieve in the buddha-dharma but wor­ships the devas. There are over ten mon­as­ter­ies with more than eight hun­dred monks, most of whom study the teach­ings of the Sar­vāstivāda school of Hinay­ana Buddhism. There are over fifty deva temples where heretics live to­gether.

[0891b27] 大城南四五里，至小伽藍，僧徒五十餘人。昔瞿拏鉢剌婆(唐言德光)論師於此作《辯真》等論，凡百餘部。論師少而英傑，長而弘敏，博物強識，碩學多聞。本習大乘，未窮玄奧，因覽《毘婆沙論》，退業而學小乘，作數十部論，破大乘綱紀，成小乘執著。又製俗書數十餘部，非斥先進所作典論。覃思佛經，十數不決，研精雖久，疑情未除。

Four or five li to the south of the great city is a small mon­as­tery with over fifty monks. Formerly the śāstra mas­ter Guṇaprabha (known as De­guang, “Vir­tue Light,” in Chinese) com­posed at this place the Tat­tva-satya-śāstra and other treat­ises, total­ing over one hun­dred books. The śāstra mas­ter was em­in­ently smart when he was young and when he had grown up he be­came an in­tel­li­gent, vastly learned, and ver­sat­ile scholar, pos­sess­ing a good memory and eru­dite learn­ing. At first Guṇaprabha stud­ied Ma­hay­ana teach­ings but be­fore he could thor­oughly un­der­stand these pro­found teach­ings he came upon the Vibhāṣā-śāstra, and he changed his course of study and de­voted him­self to learn­ing Hinay­ana the­or­ies. He wrote sev­eral tens of treat­ises to re­fute the prin­ciples of the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings and to pro­mote Hinay­ana the­or­ies. He also wrote sev­eral tens of sec­u­lar books to de­nounce the clas­sical works writ­ten by his pre­de­cessors. He pondered the Buddhist scrip­tures and found more than ten du­bi­ous points that he could not solve and des­pite his stud­ies for a long time his doubts were not re­solved.

時有提婆犀那(唐言天軍)羅漢，往來覩史多天。德光願見慈氏，決疑請益。天軍以神通力，接上天宮。既見慈氏，長揖不禮。天軍謂曰：「慈氏菩薩次紹佛位，何乃自高，敢不致敬？方欲受業，如何不屈？」德光對曰：「尊者此言，誠為指誨。然我具戒苾芻，出家弟子，慈氏菩薩受天福樂，非出家之侶，而欲作禮，恐非所宜。」菩薩知其我慢心固，非聞法器，往來三返，不得決疑。更請天軍，重欲覲禮。天軍惡其我慢，蔑而不對。德光既不遂心，便起恚恨，即趣山林，修發通定，我慢未除，不證道果。

There was then the ar­hat Devasena (known as Tian­jun, “Heav­enly Army,” in Chinese), who used to fre­quent Tuṣita Heaven [where Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva resided]. Guṇaprabha wished to see Maitreya to seek in­struc­tions for the solu­tion of his doubts and Devasena brought him to the heav­enly palace by his su­per­nat­ural powers. Upon see­ing Maitreya, [Guṇaprabha] would not sa­lute him in the proper way. Devasena said to him, “Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva is next only to the Buddha in po­s­i­tion. Why are you so con­ceited as to not wor­ship him? Since you de­sire to study un­der his guid­ance how can you be so un­ruly to­ward him?” Guṇaprabha said in reply, “What you, Ven­er­able Sir, have said is truly a good ad­mon­i­tion but I am a fully or­dained bhikṣu, a home­less dis­ciple, while Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva is en­joy­ing the bliss of heaven and is not a re­nun­ci­ant monk. I am afraid that it is un­be­fit­ting of me to wor­ship him.” The bod­hisat­tva, know­ing that [Guṇaprabha’s] con­ceited mind was so stub­born that he was not a com­pet­ent per­son to hear the Dharma, would not re­solve his doubts, even though Guṇaprabha came up to heaven three times. [Guṇaprabha] said to Devasena that he wished to see [Maitreya] Bod­hisat­tva once more so as to wor­ship him but Devasena de­tested his con­ceit and con­temp­tu­ously ig­nored his re­quest. Hav­ing not sat­is­fied his wish, Guṇaprabha re­tired to a forest, hold­ing a grudge, to prac­tice med­it­a­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of su­per­nat­ural powers but as he did not elim­in­ate his con­ceit he could not at­tain saint­hood.

[0891c16] 德光伽藍北三四里，有大伽藍，僧徒二百餘人，並學小乘法教，是眾賢論師壽終之處。論師，迦濕彌羅國人也，聰敏博達，幼傳雅譽，特深研究《說一切有部毘婆沙論》。

Three or four li to the north of Guṇaprabha’s mon­as­tery there is a big mon­as­tery with more than two hun­dred monks, all of whom study Hinay­ana teach­ings. This is the place where the śāstra mas­ter Saṃgh­abhadra passed away. A nat­ive of the coun­try of Kaśmīra, the śāstra mas­ter was an in­tel­li­gent and learned man who en­joyed a good repu­ta­tion from the time of his youth and made a pro­found study of the Vibhāṣā-śāstra of the Sar­vāstivāda school.

時有世親菩薩，一心玄道，求解言外，破毘婆沙師所執，作《阿毘達磨俱舍論》，辭義善巧，理致清高。眾賢循覽，遂有心焉。於是沈研鑽極，十有二歲，作《俱舍雹論》二萬五千頌，凡八十萬言矣。所謂言深致遠，窮幽洞微。告門人曰：「以我逸才，持我正論，逐斥世親，挫其鋒銳，無令老叟獨擅先名。」於是學徒四三俊彥，持所作論，推訪世親。

There was then Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva, whose mind was fixed on the ab­struse Way, seek­ing im­plic­a­tions bey­ond words. In or­der to re­fute the Vibhāṣā mas­ters he com­posed the Ab­hid­har­makośa-śāstra, a work writ­ten in fine and dex­ter­ous lan­guage that ex­plains the mean­ings in a pure and sub­lime man­ner. When Saṃgh­abhadra read this work he made up his mind to probe into its con­tents. After mak­ing a pro­found study of the work for twelve years, he com­posed the Kośakarakā-śāstra in twenty-five thou­sand stan­zas and eight hun­dred thou­sand words. This book con­sists of words of far-reach­ing im­port, seek­ing the depths of ab­struse and subtle the­or­ies. He said to his dis­ciples, ‘‘With my out­stand­ing com­pet­ence and cor­rect reas­on­ing, go and re­fute Vas­ub­andhu to frus­trate his sharp­ness and break the old man’s mono­poly on em­in­ent fame.” Three or four of his prom­in­ent dis­ciples took Saṃgh­abhadra’s treat­ise and went to visit Vas­ub­andhu.

世親是時在磔迦國奢羯羅城，遠傳聲問，眾賢當至。世親聞已，即治行裝。門人懷疑，前進諫曰：「大師德高先哲，名擅當時，遠近學徒莫不推謝。今聞眾賢，一何惶遽？必有所下，我曹厚顏。」世親曰：「吾今遠遊，非避此子。顧此國中，無復監達。眾賢後進也，詭辯若流，我衰耄°矣，莫能持論。欲以一言頹其異執，引至中印度，對諸髦彥，察乎真偽，詳乎得失。」尋即命侶，負笈遠遊。

At that time Vas­ub­andhu was in Sākula City in the coun­try of Ṭakka. When the news ar­rived that Saṃgh­abhadra was com­ing Vas­ub­andhu packed up his things. His be­wildered dis­ciples came for­ward to re­mon­strate with him, say­ing, “Great Mas­ter, your vir­tue sur­passes that of former sages and your unique fame spreads far in the present world. All schol­ars far and near have great es­teem for you. Why are you so alarmed at the news of Saṃgh­abhadra’s ar­rival? Even if he is com­ing to hu­mi­li­ate us we will boldly face him.” Vas­ub­andhu said, “It is not be­cause I wish to avoid this man that I am go­ing far away. Look­ing around this coun­try, I find no one skill­ful and com­pet­ent enough to de­cide the case. Saṃgh­abhadra is a young man, elo­quent in de­bate, while I am ad­vanced in years and could not hold a dis­cus­sion with him. I wish to de­feat his het­ero­dox views with one word and I in­tend to lure him to Cent­ral In­dia to meet ven­er­able and learned schol­ars who can dis­cern truth from false­hood and find out right and wrong.” He then asked his com­pan­ion to carry his book­case for him and soon star­ted on the long jour­ney.

眾賢論師當後一日至此伽藍，忽覺氣衰，於是裁書謝世親曰：「如來寂滅，弟子部執，傳其宗學，各擅專門，黨同道，疾異部。愚以寡昧，猥承傳習，覽所製《阿毘達磨俱舍論》，破毘婆沙師大義，輒不量力，沈究彌年，作為此論，扶正宗學。智小謀大，死其將至。菩薩宣暢微言，抑揚至理，不毀所執，得存遺文，斯為幸矣，死何悔哉？」

The śāstra mas­ter Saṃgh­abhadra ar­rived at the mon­as­tery one day after [Vas­ub­andhu’s de­par­ture] and sud­denly found him­self short of breath. So he wrote a let­ter of apo­logy to Vas­ub­andhu, in which he said, ‘‘After the nir­vana of the Tathāgata his dis­ciples split into dif­fer­ent sects and schools, each propagat­ing his own the­or­ies in spe­cific ways. They de­fen­ded those who be­longed to their own sects and des­pised those who were af­fil­i­ated with other groups. Be­ing an ig­nor­ant man of shal­low learn­ing, I had the op­por­tun­ity to pur­sue know­ledge un­der my teach­ers and read the Ab­hid­har­makośa-śāstra com­posed by you for the re­fut­a­tion of the prin­ciples of the Vibhāṣā mas­ters. I over­rated my abil­it­ies and worked for many years on a treat­ise, [the Kośakarakā-śāstra,] with the in­ten­tion of mak­ing it a sup­port for the cor­rect the­or­ies. My scheme was great but my wis­dom too small, and the time of my death is ap­proach­ing. You are a bod­hisat­tva who ex­pounds the subtle say­ings and propag­ates the su­preme truth. I would be happy if you would not deny what opin­ions I hold so that my treat­ise might be pre­served. Then I can die without re­gret.”

於是歷選門人有辭辯者而告之曰：「吾誠後學，輕凌先達，命也如何？當從斯沒！汝持是書及所製論，謝彼菩薩，代我悔過。」授辭適畢，奄爾云亡。

He se­lec­ted some of his dis­ciples who were elo­quent in de­bate and said to them, “I am really a man of the younger gen­er­a­tion and des­pised the sages of older times. What can I do, if such is my fate? I shall be dy­ing soon. You should take this let­ter to­gether with my treat­ise to apo­lo­gize to that bod­hisat­tva and show re­pent­ance on my be­half.” As soon as he fin­ished these words, he passed away.

門人奉書至世親所而致辭曰：「我師眾賢已捨壽命。遺言致書，責躬謝咎。不墜其名，非所敢望。」

His dis­ciples took the let­ter and went to Vas­ub­andhu, and said to him, ‘‘Our teacher Saṃgh­abhadra has passed away. He left word for us to send this let­ter to ex­press his self-re­proach and apo­lo­gize to you for his mis­takes, hop­ing that you would not bring down his repu­ta­tion, though this may be bey­ond our ex­pect­a­tion.”

世親菩薩覽書閱論，沈吟久之，謂門人曰：「眾賢論師聰敏後進，理雖不足，辭乃有餘。我今欲破眾賢之論，若指諸掌。顧以垂終之託，重其知難之辭，苟緣大義，存其宿志，況乎此論，發明我宗？」遂為改題為《順正理論》。

Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva read the let­ter and looked over the treat­ise for a long while be­fore he spoke to the dis­ciples, say­ing, “The śāstra mas­ter Saṃgh­abhadra was a young scholar of in­tel­li­gence. In his treat­ise the the­or­ies are not suf­fi­ciently elu­cid­ated but his phras­eo­logy is sharp enough. If I wish to con­fute this treat­ise it would be as easy as point­ing at my palm. Con­sid­er­ing the he re­quest made on his deathbed, and hav­ing no­ticed the words he spoke after real­iz­ing die dif­fi­culties in his at­tempt, I shall com­ply, out of the prin­ciple of right­eous­ness, with his long-cher­ished am­bi­tion; moreover, the views of my school are also ex­pounded in his treat­ise.” Then he changed the title of the treat­ise to the Nyāyānusāra-śāstra.

門人諫曰：「眾賢未沒，大師遠迹，既得其論，又為改題，凡厥學徒，何顏受愧？」世親菩薩欲除眾疑，而說頌曰：

[Vas­ub­andhu’s] dis­ciples re­mon­strated with him, say­ing, “Be­fore Saṃghabadra’s death, you, a great teacher, went far away from him and now, after hav­ing ob­tained his treat­ise, you changed its title. How will any of your dis­ciples be able to bear the shame?” In or­der to clear up their doubt Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva uttered the fol­low­ing stanza:

「如師子王，避豕遠逝，二力勝負，智者應知。」

When a king of lions
Runs away from a pig,
The wise should know
Which is the win­ner in strength.

眾賢死已，焚屍收骨，於伽藍西北二百餘步菴沒羅林中，起窣堵波，今猶現在。

After Saṃgh­abhadra’s death his body was cremated and his ashes were pre­served in a stupa, which is still in ex­ist­ence, built in a mango grove over two hun­dred paces to the north­w­est of the mon­as­tery.

[0892b04] 菴沒羅林側有窣堵波，毘末羅蜜多羅(唐言無垢友)論師之遺身。論師，迦濕彌羅國人也，於說一切有部而出家焉。博綜眾經，研究異論，遊五印度國，學三藏玄文，名立業成，將歸本國。途次眾賢論師窣堵波也，拊而歎曰：「惟論師雅量清高，抑揚大義，方欲挫異部，立本宗業也，如何降年不永！我無垢友猥承末學，異時慕義，曠代懷德。世親雖沒，宗學尚傳，我盡所知，當製諸論，令贍部洲諸學人等絕大乘稱，滅世親名，斯為不朽，用盡宿心。」

Be­side the mango grove there is a stupa con­tain­ing the re­mains of śāstra mas­ter Vimalamitra (known as Wugouyou, “Stain­less Friend,” in Chinese). This śāstra mas­ter was a nat­ive of the coun­try of Kaśmīra and be­came a monk of the Sar­vāstivāda school. He was widely learned in vari­ous scrip­tures and stud­ied the treat­ises of di­verse sects, and he traveled through­out the five parts of In­dia to learn the ab­struse texts of the Tripiṭaka. After he had gained fame and com­pleted his stud­ies he star­ted on his home­ward jour­ney, and on the way he came across the stupa of Saṃgh­abhadra. He pat­ted the stupa and said with a sigh, “You, śāstra mas­ter, were a man of mag­nan­im­ity and em­in­ence and ex­tolled the great teach­ings. Why did you live such a short life and die at the time when you were just about to de­feat the het­ero­dox schools and es­tab­lish your own sect? I, Vimalamitra, am a man of shal­low learn­ing, and al­though we have lived in dif­fer­ent times I ad­mire your right­eous­ness and have al­ways re­membered your vir­tue for many years. Vas­ub­andhu is dead but his the­or­ies are still in vogue. I shall ex­haust my know­ledge to write treat­ises for all the schol­ars in Jam­bud­vīpa to ef­face the fame of the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings and the name of Vas­ub­andhu. This will be an un­end­ing task but I shall do my best to ful­fill it.”

說是語已，心發狂亂，五舌重出，熱血流涌。知命必終，裁書悔曰：「夫大乘教者，佛法之中究竟說也。名味泯絕，理致幽玄。輕以愚昧，駁斥先進，業報皎然，滅身宜矣。敢告學人，厥鑒斯在，各慎爾志，無得懷疑。」大地為震，命遂終焉。當其死處，地陷為坑。同旅焚屍，收骸旌建。時有羅漢見而歎曰：「惜哉！苦哉！今此論師，任情執見，毀惡大乘，墮無間獄。」

After hav­ing said these words, [Vimalamitra] sud­denly be­came de­li­ri­ous and five tongues stuck out of his mouth, which oozed hot blood. Know­ing that he would surely die he wrote a let­ter of re­pent­ance, say­ing, “The Ma­hay­ana doc­trines are the ul­ti­mate truth of the buddha-dharma, which is bey­ond the scope of both con­cep­tion and sub­stance and has deep and ab­struse prin­ciples. I have been so im­prudent as to de­nounce an ad­vanced teacher in my ig­nor­ance. Karmic re­tri­bu­tion is ap­par­ent and it is just and right that I should lose my life. I ven­ture to ad­vise my fel­low stu­dents to con­sider me as an ex­ample. Be care­ful in mak­ing your as­pir­a­tions and do not cher­ish doubt.” At the mo­ment of Vimalamitra’s death the earth quaked and a pit formed at the place where he died. His trav­el­ing com­pan­ions cremated his corpse and col­lec­ted the ashes, over which a me­morial was built. At that time an ar­hat wit­nessed the event and said with a sigh, “What a pity, how sor­row­ful it is! This śāstra mas­ter way­wardly grasped his own views and vil­i­fied the Ma­hay­ana doc­trines, and he fell into the hell of in­cess­ant suf­fer­ing.”

[0892b23] 國西北境殑伽河東岸有摩裕羅城，周二十餘里。居人殷盛，清流交帶，出鍮石、水精、寶器。去城不遠，臨殑伽河，有大天祠，甚多靈異。其中有池，編石為岸，引殑伽水為補，五印度人謂之殑伽河門，生福滅罪之所。常有遠方數百千人，集此澡濯。樂善諸王建立福舍，備珍羞，儲醫藥，惠施鰥寡，周給孤獨。

In the north­w­est of this coun­try of [Ma­tipura], on the east bank of the Ganges, is the city of Mayūra, which is more than twenty li in cir­cuit and has a dense pop­u­la­tion; there are many wa­ter­courses that in­ter­flow with one an­other. It pro­duces brass, crys­tal, and valu­able art­icles. Not far away from the city on the bank of the Ganges River is a great deva temple with many mi­ra­cu­lous mani­fest­a­tions. In­side the shrine com­pound is a pond whose banks are in­laid with slabs of stone. Wa­ter is di­ver­ted from the Ganges to re­plen­ish the pond. People from all the five parts of In­dia call it the Gate of the Ganges and it is a place to per­form mer­it­ori­ous deeds and ex­pi­ate sins. There are al­ways hun­dreds and thou­sands of people flock­ing from afar to bathe them­selves in the pond. Phil­an­thropic kings have con­struc­ted alms­houses to provide isol­ated, sol­it­ary, and needy people with free food and med­ical ser­vice.

[0892c01] 從此北行三百餘里，至婆羅吸摩補羅國(北印度境)。[0892c03] 婆羅吸摩補羅國，周四千餘里，山周四境。國大都城周二十餘里。居人殷盛，家室富饒。土地沃壤，稼穡時播，出鍮石、水精。氣序微寒，風俗剛猛。少學藝，多逐利。人性獷烈，邪正雜信。伽藍五所，僧徒寡少。天祠十餘所，異道雜居。

From here go­ing north for more than three hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Brahmapura (in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Brahmapura, which is over four thou­sand li in cir­cuit, is sur­roun­ded by moun­tains on all four sides and the cap­ital city is more than twenty li in cir­cuit. It is densely pop­u­lated and the in­hab­it­ants are rich and pros­per­ous. The land is fer­tile and crops are sown and reaped in a timely man­ner. It yields brass and crys­tal and the cli­mate is some­what cold. The people are rude and vi­ol­ent by cus­tom and few of them leam arts and crafts; the ma­jor­ity en­gages in busi­ness to gain profits. They be­lieve in both het­ero­dox and or­tho­dox teach­ings. There are five mon­as­ter­ies with a few monks, and more than ten deva temples with heretics liv­ing to­gether.

[0892c08] 此國境北大雪山中，有蘇伐剌°拏瞿呾羅國(唐言金氏)。出上黃金，故以名焉。東西長，南北狹，即東女國也。世以女稱國。夫亦為王，不知政事，丈夫唯征伐，田種而已。土宜宿麥，多畜羊、馬。氣候寒烈，人性躁暴。東接吐蕃國，北接于闐國，西接三波訶國。

In the Great Snow Moun­tains to the north of this coun­try is the coun­try of Suvarṇag­o­tra (known as Jin­shi, “Gold Clan,” in Chinese). It pro­duces gold of the best qual­ity, hence the name of the coun­try. It is long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. This is what is known as the East­ern Wo­man’s Coun­try, as it is has been ruled from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion by a wo­man. Her hus­band is the king but he does not ad­min­is­ter state af­fairs. The men’s only du­ties are is to serve in the army and cul­tiv­ate the fields. The soil is good for grow­ing winter wheat and many sheep and horses are reared. The cli­mate is severely cold and the people are vi­ol­ent by nature. In the east it bor­ders the coun­try of Tubo, in the north it ad­joins the coun­try of Khotan, and in the west it abuts the coun­try of San­bohe.

[0892c13] 從末底補羅東南行四百餘里，至瞿毘霜那國(中印度境)。[0892c16] 瞿毘霜那國，周二千餘里。國大都城周十四五里，崇峻險固，居人殷盛，華林池沼，往往相間。氣序土宜同末底補羅國。風俗淳質，勤學好福。多信外道，求現在樂。伽藍二所，僧眾百餘人，並皆習學小乘法教。天祠三十餘所，異道雜居。

Go­ing from Ma­tipura to the south­east for more than four hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Gov­iṣāṇa (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Gov­iṣāṇa is over two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit. Lofty moun­tains serve as im­preg­nable bar­ri­ers to the city and the in­hab­it­ants are rich and pros­per­ous. Flowery woods and ponds and pools are to be seen every­where, one after the other. The cli­mate and nat­ural products are the same as in the coun­try of Ma­tipura. The people are sin­cere and hon­est by cus­tom and they are as­sidu­ous in learn­ing and fond of do­ing mer­it­ori­ous works. Most of them be­lieve in het­ero­dox teach­ings, seek­ing hap­pi­ness in the present life. There are two mon­as­ter­ies with over one hun­dred monks, all of whom study the Hinay­ana teach­ings. There are more than thirty deva temples where heretics live to­gether.

[0892c21] 大城側故伽藍中，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，高二百餘尺。如來在昔，於此一月說諸法要，傍有過去四佛座及經行遺迹處。其側有如來髮、爪二窣堵波，各高一丈餘。

In an old mon­as­tery be­side the cap­ital city there is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. Formerly the Tathāgata once preached on the vari­ous prin­ciples of the Dharma at this place for one month. Be­side it there are traces where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. Along­side the traces there are two stu­pas, each over ten feet high, con­tain­ing hair and fin­ger­nail rel­ics of the Tathāgata.

[0892c25] 自此東南行四百餘里，至堊醯掣呾邏國(中印度境)。[0892c27] 堊°醯掣呾邏國，周三千餘里。大都城周十七八里，依據險固，宜穀、麥，多林泉。氣序和暢，風俗淳質。翫道篤學，多才博識。伽藍十餘所，僧徒千餘人，習學小乘正量部法。天祠九所，異道三百餘人，事自在天，塗灰之侶也。

Go­ing from here to the south­east for more than four hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Ah­ic­chat­tra (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Ah­ic­chat­tra is more than three thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city, which is built upon strongly for­ti­fied po­s­i­tions, is sev­en­teen or eight­een li in cir­cuit. The coun­try pro­duces rice and wheat and has many woods and springs. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the people are sin­cere and hon­est by cus­tom. They take de­light in study­ing the Way and are di­li­gent in learn­ing, and they pos­sess much tal­ent and ex­tens­ive know­ledge. There are over ten mon­as­ter­ies with more than one thou­sand monks, who study the teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya sect of the Hinay­ana school. There are nine deva temples with more than three hun­dred fol­low­ers who are wor­shipers of Īśvara and smear them­selves with ashes.

[0893a03] 城外龍池側有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。是如來在昔為龍王，七日於此說法。其側有四小窣堵波，是過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

Be­side a dragon pond out­side the city there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Formerly the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for the dragon of this place for seven days. Be­side it there are four smal­ler stu­pas built at places where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down.

自此東行二百六七十里，渡殑伽河，南至毘羅那拏國(中印度境)。[0893a08] 毘羅那拏國，周二千餘里。國大都城周十餘里。氣序土宜，同堊醯掣呾邏國。風俗猛暴，人知學藝。崇信外道，少敬佛法。伽藍二所，僧徒三百人，並皆習學大乘法教。天祠五所，異道雜居。

From here go­ing east for two hun­dred sixty or sev­enty li and cross­ing the Ganges River to the south, I reached the coun­try of Vil­aśāṇa (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Vil­aśāṇa is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is over ten li in cir­cuit. The cli­mate and nat­ural products are the same as in the coun­try of Ah­ic­chat­tra. The people are fierce and vi­ol­ent by cus­tom but they have an in­clin­a­tion for learn­ing. They be­lieve in heretical the­or­ies; only a few of them ven­er­ate the buddha-dharma. There are two mon­as­ter­ies with three hun­dred monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. There are five deva temples, and heretics live to­gether.

[0893a12] 大城中故伽藍內，有窣堵波基，雖傾圮°，尚百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。如來在昔於此七日說《蘊界處經》之所。其側則有過去四佛座及經行遺迹斯在。

In an old mon­as­tery in­side the cap­ital city there is a stupa whose base, though dilap­id­ated, re­mains over one hun­dred feet in height. It was built by King Aśoka at the place where the Tathāgata preached the Skandha-dhātu-āyatana-sūtra for seven days. Be­side it are traces where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down.

從此東南行二百餘里，至劫比他國(舊謂僧迦舍國。中印度境)。[0893a17] 劫比他國，周二千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。氣序土宜，同毘羅那拏國。風俗淳和，人多學藝。伽藍四所，僧徒千餘人，並學小乘正量部法。天祠十所，異道雜居，同共遵事大自在天。

From here go­ing south­east for more than two hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Kapitha (formerly known as the coun­try of Sen­gji­ashe, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Kapitha is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The cli­mate and nat­ural products are the same as in the coun­try of Vil­aśāṇa. The people are hon­est and ami­able by cus­tom and most of them learn han­di­crafts. There are four mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya sect of the Hinay­ana school. There are ten deva temples where heretics live to­gether, all of whom serve and wor­ship Īśvara.

[0893a21] 城西二十餘里有大伽藍，經製輪奐，工窮剞劂，聖形尊像，務極莊嚴。僧徒數百人，學正量部法。數萬淨人，宅居其側。

Over twenty li to the west of the city there is a large, beau­ti­fully con­struc­ted mon­as­tery con­sist­ing of many lofty and spa­cious build­ings ad­orned with ex­quis­ite carvings. The holy im­ages and statues are made in a most stately man­ner. There are sev­eral hun­dred monks who study the teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya sect; sev­eral myri­ads of laypeople, at­tend­ants of the monks, live in their houses be­side the mon­as­tery.

伽藍大垣內有三寶階，南北列，東面下，是如來自三十三天降還也。昔如來起自勝林，上昇天宮，居善法堂，為母說法，過三月已，將欲下降。天帝釋乃縱神力，建立寶階，中階黃金，左水精，右白銀。如來起善法堂，從諸天眾，履中階而下；大梵王執白拂，履銀階而右侍；天帝釋持寶蓋，蹈水精階而左侍；天眾凌虛，散華讚德。

In­side the great wall of the mon­as­tery there are three stair­ways [made of pre­cious sub­stances] stand­ing in a row from south to north and slop­ing down to the east. This was the place where the Tathāgata des­cen­ded from Trayas- trimśa Heaven and re­turned to earth. Formerly the Tathāgata set out from Jetavana Garden and as­cen­ded to Devapura (the res­id­ence of In­dra); he stayed in the Hall of the Good Dharma, where he preached the Dharma for his mother. At the end of three months he wished to des­cend, so In­dra em­ployed his di­vine power to con­struct the stair­ways. The middle flight of stairs was made of gold, the left one of crys­tal, and the right one of sil­ver. The Tathāgata star­ted from the Hall of the Good Dharma and, ac­com­pan­ied by a mul­ti­tude of heav­enly be­ings, he walked down the middle flight of stairs. Brahmā, hold­ing a white fly-whisk, walked down the sil­ver stairs, at­tend­ing the Buddha at his right, while In­dra, car­ry­ing a pre­cious can­opy, walked down the crys­tal stairs, at­tend­ing the Buddha at his left. The mul­ti­tude of heav­enly be­ings fly­ing high in the air scattered flowers and praised the vir­tues of the Buddha.

數百年前，猶有階級，逮至今時，陷沒已盡。諸國君王悲慨不遇，疊以塼石，飾以珍寶，於其故基，擬昔寶階，其高七十餘尺，上起精舍。中有石佛像，而左右之階有釋、梵之像，形擬厥初，猶為下勢。傍有石柱，高七十餘尺，無憂王所建。色紺光潤，質堅密理，上作師子，蹲踞向階，雕鏤奇形，周其方面，隨人罪福，影現柱中。

A few hun­dred years ago the stair­ways were still there but they have now com­pletely sunk down. The kings of vari­ous coun­tries, re­gret­ting that they had not seen the holy struc­tures, piled up bricks and stones on the old base, or­na­men­ted with gems and jew­els, to the height of sev­enty feet to im­it­ate the ori­ginal pre­cious stair­ways. A shrine room was built on top with a stone im­age of the Buddha in­stalled in it, while on the left and right flights of stairs there are the statues of In­dra and Brahmā re­spect­ively, in the forms of their ori­ginal pos­tures, as if they were walk­ing down. Be­side the stairs is a stone pil­lar more than sev­enty feet high erec­ted by King Aśoka. Dark purple in color, it is made of lus­trous hard stone with a fine grain and on top there is a carved lion crouch­ing and fa­cing to­ward the stairs. On the sur­face all around the pil­lar vari­ous kinds of strange fig­ures are carved, which ap­pear in a shad­owy way to view­ers ac­cord­ing to their good or evil deeds.

[0893b11] 寶階側不遠有窣堵波，是過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。其側窣堵波，如來在昔於此澡浴。其側精舍，是如來入定之處。[0893b14] 精舍側有大石，基長五十步，高七尺，是如來經行之處。足所履迹皆有蓮華之文。基左右各有小窣堵波，帝釋、梵王之所建也。

Not far away from the pre­cious stairs is a stupa built at a place where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down, and be­suide it is an­other stupa built at a place where the Tathāgata bathed. The temple be­side the stupa was built where the Tathāgata sat in med­it­a­tion. Be­side the temple there is a great stone ter­race, fifty paces long and seven feet high, at the place where the Tathāgata walked up and down. The foot­prints have the shapes of lo­tus flowers. On the left and right sides of the ter­race there are two small stu­pas, one built by In­dra and the other by Brahmā.

[0893b17] 釋、梵窣堵波前，是蓮華色苾芻尼欲先見佛，化作轉輪王處。如來自天宮還贍部洲也，時蘇部底(唐言善現。舊曰須扶提，或曰須菩提，譯曰善吉，皆訛也)宴坐石室，竊自思曰：「今佛還降，人、天導從，如我今者，何所宜行？甞聞佛說，知諸法空，體諸法性，是則以慧眼觀法身也。」

In front of the stu­pas built by In­dra and Brahmā is the place where the bhikṣuṇī Ut­pa­lav­arṇā, wish­ing to be the first one to see the Buddha, ap­peared in the form of a uni­ver­sal mon­arch (cakrav­artin). When the Tathāgata re­turned from Devapura to Jam­bud­vīpa, Sub­hūti (known as Shanxian, “Good Mani­fest­a­tion,” in Chinese, formerly tran­scribed as Xu­futi or Xuputi and trans­lated as “Good Aus­pices,” all er­ro­neously) was sit­ting in med­it­a­tion in a cave. He re­flec­ted, “Now the Buddha, at­ten­ded by hu­man and heav­enly be­ings, is re­turn­ing to earth. Be­ing such as I am, what should I do? I have heard the Buddha say that know­ing the empti­ness of all things and un­der­stand­ing the nature of all things are to see the Buddha’s spir­itual body with the eye of wis­dom.”

時蓮華色苾芻尼欲初見佛，化為轉輪王，七寶導從，四兵警衛，至世尊所，復苾芻尼。如來告曰：「汝非初見。夫善現者，觀諸法空，是見法身。」

At that time the bhikṣuṇī Ut­pa­lav­arṇā, wish­ing to be the first to see the Buddha, ap­peared in the form of a uni­ver­sal mon­arch ac­com­pan­ied by at­tend­ants hold­ing the seven kinds of pre­cious ob­jects and guarded by the four di­vi­sions of troops. When she came to the place of the Tathāgata she re­sumed the form of a bhikṣuṇī. The Tathāgata told her, “You are not the first per­son to see me. Sub­hūti, who has in­sight into the empti­ness of all things, has already seen my spir­itual body.”

[0893b26] 聖迹垣內，靈異相繼。其大窣堵波東南有一池龍，恒護聖迹。既有冥衛，難以輕犯，歲久自壞，人莫能毀。

Within the en­clos­ure of the holy traces di­vine mani­fest­a­tions oc­curred in suc­ces­sion. To the of the great stupa there is a pond in which a dragon al­ways pro­tec­ted the holy traces, and un­der its di­vine pro­tec­tion they were not eas­ily vi­ol­ated. The ship and pond be­came dilap­id­ated through erosion over time but no hu­man ef­fort could des­troy them.

[0893b28] 從此東南行，減二百里，至羯若鞠闍國(唐言曲女城國。中印度境)。

From here go­ing south­east for less than two hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Kanyākubja known as Qu­nucheng­guo, “Coun­try of Hunch­backed Maid­ens,” in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第四

End of Fas­cicle IV of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第五(六國)

Fas­cicle V: Six Coun­tries, from Kanyākubja to Vi­saka

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

羯若鞠闍國

1. The Coun­try of Kanyākubja

阿踰陀國

2. The Coun­try of Ay­od­hyā

阿耶穆佉國

3. The Coun­try of Ayamukha

鉢邏耶伽國

4. The Coun­try of Prayāga

憍賞彌國

5. The Coun­try of Kauśāmbī

鞞索(山格反)迦國

6. The Coun­try of Viṣaka

[0893c11] 羯若鞠闍國，周四千餘里。國大都城西臨殑伽河，其長二十餘里，廣四五里。城隍堅峻，臺閣相望，花林池沼，光鮮澄鏡。異方奇貨，多聚於此。居人豐樂，家室富饒。華菓具繁，稼穡時播。氣序和洽，風俗淳質。容貌妍雅，服飾鮮綺。篤學遊藝，談論清遠。邪正二道，信者相半。伽藍百餘所，僧徒萬餘人，大小二乘，兼功習學。天祠二百餘所，異道數千餘人。

The coun­try of Kanyākubja is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city, with the Ganges River at the west, is over twenty li in length and four or five li in breadth. The city wall and moat are strongly built and ter­races and pa­vil­ions are to be seen every­where. Flowery woods are bril­liant in color and the ponds are filled with trans­par­ent wa­ter, like a mir­ror. Rare goods of dif­fer­ent places are col­lec­ted here. The in­hab­it­ants live hap­pily in abund­ance and their fam­il­ies are rich and pros­per­ous. There are many kinds of flowers and fruit and crops are sown and reaped in good time. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the people are simple and hon­est by cus­tom. Their fea­tures are hand­some and grace­ful and their clothes and ad­orn­ments are bright and resplen­dent. They earn­estly study arts and lit­er­at­ure and talk in a lu­cid and far-sighted man­ner. Het­ero­doxy and or­tho­doxy are each each by half of the pop­u­la­tion and both Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana teach­ings are stud­ied by the people. There are more than two hun­dred deva temples with sev­eral thou­sand heretics.

[0893c19] 羯若鞠闍國人長壽時，其舊王城號拘蘇磨補羅(唐言花宮)。王號梵授，福智宿資，文武允備，威懾贍部，聲震隣國。具足千子，智勇弘毅，復有百女，儀貌妍雅。

In the age when the hu­man life span was very long, the old cap­ital city of the coun­try of Kanyākubja was called Kusumapura (known as Huagong, “Flowery Palace,” in Chinese). The king, named Brahmad­atta, was a per­son en­dowed with both bliss and wis­dom; he was well versed in lit­er­at­ure and the arts of war. His prestige kept Jam­bud­vīpa in awe of him and his renown spread to the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. He had one thou­sand sons, all of whom pos­sessed the qual­it­ies of wis­dom and bravery as well as mag­nan­im­ity and res­ol­ute­ness. He also had one thou­sand daugh­ters who were beau­ti­ful in fea­tures and had re­fined man­ners.

時有仙人居殑伽河側，棲神入定，經數萬歲，形如枯木，遊禽棲集，遺尼拘律果於仙人肩上，暑往寒來，垂蔭合拱。多歷年所，從定而起，欲去其樹，恐覆鳥巢，時人美其德，號大樹仙人。

There was then a ṛṣi (sage) who lived by the banks of the Ganges. He con­cen­trated his mind in med­it­a­tion for sev­eral myri­ads of years and his form be­came like that of a dried-up tree. Some mi­grat­ory birds alighted upon him and dropped a fruit of the nyagrodha (ban­yan) tree on his shoulder. With the pas­sage of many hot and cold sea­sons the fruit grew into a big tree with branches grow­ing down­ward to form a vault. After many years the ṛṣi rose from his med­it­a­tion and wished to shake off the tree but he feared that he might over­turn the nests of the birds. The people ap­pre­ci­ated his vir­tue and called him the Ŗṣi of the Big Tree.

仙人寓目河濱，遊觀林薄，見王諸女相從嬉戲，欲界愛起，染著心生，便詣華宮，欲事禮請。王聞仙至，躬迎慰曰：「大仙棲情物外，何能輕舉？」仙人曰：「我棲林藪，彌積歲時，出定遊覽，見王諸女，染愛心生，自遠來請。」王聞其辭，計無所出，謂仙人曰：「今還所止，請俟嘉辰。」仙人聞命，遂還林藪。

One day, as the ṛṣi was en­joy­ing the view of the river­side, he made a pleas­ure trip into the dense wood, where he saw the king’s daugh­ters play­ing and frol­ick­ing mer­rily. His sexual pas­sion was aroused and his mind be­came stained. So he went to Kusumapura to ask to marry one of the king’s daugh­ters. On hear­ing of the ṛṣVs ar­rival, the king re­ceived him in per­son and greeted him, say­ing, “As Your Rev­er­ence lives out­side the scope of the hu­man world, why do you con­des­cend to pay me a visit?” The ṛṣi said, “I have lived in the woods and near the lakes for many long years. When I came out of med­it­a­tion I made a pleas­ure trip and saw your daugh­ters, and a mind of con­tam­in­a­tion has arisen in me. I have come from afar to pro­pose mar­riage.” On hear­ing these words the king did not know what to do and said to the ṛṣi, “Re­turn to your place and wait for an aus­pi­cious time.” Heed­ing the king’s or­der, the ṛṣi went back to the woods.

王乃歷問諸女，無肯應娉。王懼仙威，憂愁毀悴。其幼稚女候王事隙，從容問曰：「父王千子具足，萬國慕化，何故憂愁，如有所懼？」王曰：「大樹仙人幸顧求婚，而汝曹輩莫肯從命。仙有威力，能作災祥，儻不遂心，必起瞋怒，毀國滅祀，辱及先王。深惟此禍，誠有所懼。」稚女謝曰：「遺此深憂，我曹罪也。願以微軀，得延國祚。」王聞喜悅，命駕送歸。

The king then con­sul­ted with his daugh­ters about the mat­ter but none of them would con­sent to ac­cept the of­fer. Fear­ing the ṛṣi’s di­vine power, he be­came heavy-hearted and weighed down with worry. One day when the king was at leis­ure, his young­est daugh­ter calmly asked him, “Father, you have a thou­sand sons and you are ad­mired by all coun­tries. Why do you look so wor­ried as if you have fear in your mind?” The king said, “The Ŗṣi of the Big Tree has come to pro­pose mar­riage but none of your sis­ters con­sen­ted to be mar­ried to him. The ṛṣi has di­vine power and could cause either dis­aster or bliss. If I can­not ful­fill his de­sire he will cer­tainly be­come angry with me and des­troy our coun­try and ter­min­ate our an­ces­tral line, caus­ing in­sult to our fore­fath­ers. This is why I am deeply wor­ried; this is really my fear.” The king’s young­est daugh­ter said apo­lo­get­ic­ally, “It is our sin to have caused you such deep worry. I wish to of­fer my humble self to lengthen the trans­mis­sion of the royal line.” The king was de­lighted to hear this and ordered a car­riage to take his young­est daugh­ter to her [new] home.

既至仙廬，謝仙人曰：「大仙俯方外之情，垂世間之顧，敢奉稚女，以供灑掃。」仙人見而不悅，乃謂王曰：「輕吾老叟，配此不妍。」王曰：「歷問諸女，無肯從命。唯此幼稚，願充給使。」仙人懷怒，便惡呪曰：「九十九女，一時腰曲，形既毀弊，畢世無婚。」王使往驗，果已背傴。從是之後，便名曲女城焉。

Upon ar­riv­ing at the ṛṣi’s her­mit­age the king apo­lo­gized to him, say­ing, ‘‘Great Ŗṣi, you com­ply with supra­mundane sen­ti­ments and you also stoop to care for worldly af­fec­tion. I ven­ture to of­fer my young­est daugh­ter to be at your ser­vice.” The ṛṣi, dis­pleased at the sight of the girl, said to the king, “You must des­pise me as an old man to give me such an ill-look­ing girl in mar­riage.” The king said, “I have asked all my other daugh­ters but none of them would obey my or­der. Only this young­est one con­sen­ted to serve you.” The ṛṣi was en­raged and called down evil on the king’s other daugh­ters, say­ing, “Let all ninety-nine (sic) girls im­me­di­ately be­come hunch­backed! With their dis­figured shapes let them re­main un­mar­ried their whole lives long!” The king’s mes­sen­ger went back to check the ef­fic­acy of the curse and found that the girls had ac­tu­ally be­come hunch­backed. There­after the place was called the City of Hunch­backed Maid­ens.

[0894a20] 今王，本吠奢種也，字曷利沙伐彈那(唐言喜增)。君臨有土，二世三王。父字波羅羯羅伐彈那(唐言作光增)，兄字曷邏闍伐彈那(唐言王增)。王增以長嗣位，以德治政。時東印度羯羅拏蘇伐剌那(唐言金耳)國設賞迦王(唐言月)，每謂臣曰：「隣有賢主，國之禍也。」於是誘請，會而害之。人既失君，國亦荒亂。

The present king, named Harṣav­ard­hana (known as Xiz­eng, “In­cre­ment of Hap­pi­ness”), is a des­cend­ant of the vaiśya caste. His fam­ily had three kings that ruled over the coun­try for two gen­er­a­tions. His father was named Prab­hākara­v­ard­hana (known as Guang­z­eng, “In­cre­ment of Light”) and his elder brother was Rājyav­ard­hana (known as Wang­z­eng, “In­cre­ment of the King­dom”). As Rājyav­ard­hana was the senior prince he suc­ceeded to the throne and ad­min­istered state af­fairs in a vir­tu­ous man­ner. At that time, King Saśāṅka (known as Yue, “Moon,” in Chinese) of the coun­try of Karṇas­uvarṇa (known as Jiner, “Golden Ear,” in Chinese) in East In­dia of­ten said to his min­is­ters, “A saga­cious king in a neigh­bor­ing coun­try might be the cause of dis­aster to our own coun­try.” So he lured Rājyav­ard­hana to his coun­try and murdered him. Since the people lost their lord the coun­try of [Kanyākubja] fell into a chaos.

時大臣婆尼(唐言辯了)，職望隆重，謂僚庶曰：「國之大計，定於今日。先王之子，亡君之弟，仁慈天性，孝敬因心，親賢允屬，欲以襲位。於事何如？各言爾志。」眾咸仰德，嘗無異謀。於是輔臣執事咸勸進曰：「王子垂聽，先王積功累德，光有國祚。嗣及王增，謂終壽考；輔佐無良，棄身讎手，為國大恥，下臣罪也。物議時謠，允歸明德。光臨土宇，克復親讎，雪國之恥，光父之業，功孰大焉？幸無辭矣！」

At that time, the min­is­ter Bhaṇdi, a man of high po­s­i­tion and good re­pute, said to his col­leagues, “Today we should make a de­cision about a mat­ter of fun­da­mental im­port­ance for the na­tion. The son of the former king and younger brother of the late mon­arch is a kind and be­ne­vol­ent man who has fi­lial piety to­ward his par­ents and an af­fec­tion­ate mind; he re­spects the sages and treats his sub­or­din­ates with equal­ity. I wish to pro­pose him for the throne. What do you think of this? Please state your views.” The min­is­ters all ad­mired the vir­tue of the late king’s younger brother and had no ob­jec­tion to him. Thus the as­sist­ant min­is­ters and other of­fi­cials ex­hor­ted him to be king, say­ing, “May the prince listen to us. By ac­cu­mu­lat­ing mer­its and cul­tiv­at­ing vir­tues the former king pos­sessed the throne and ruled over the coun­try ex­tens­ively. When the throne was handed down to Rājyav­ard­hana he should have lived to an old age, but due to the in­cap­ab­il­ity of his as­sist­ant min­is­ters he was killed by his en­emy. This is a great shame to our coun­try and it is also the fault of the humble min­is­ters. Cur­rent pub­lic opin­ion and folk rhymes say that you, a saga­cious prince, should suc­ceed to the throne in or­der to avenge your de­ceased brother and wipe out the na­tional hu­mi­li­ation, as well as glor­ify the deeds of your father. This is really a great ex­ploit, so we hope you will not de­cline the of­fer.”

王子曰：「國嗣之重，今古為難，君人之位，興立宜審。我誠寡德，父兄遐棄，推襲大位，其能濟乎？物議為宜，敢忘虛薄？今者殑伽河岸，有觀自在菩薩像，既多靈鑒，願往請辭。」即至菩薩像前，斷食祈請。菩薩感其誠心，現形問曰：「爾何所求，若此勤懇？」王子曰：「我惟積禍，慈父云亡；重茲酷罰，仁兄見害。自顧寡德，國人推尊，令襲大位，光父之業。愚昧無知，敢希聖旨！」菩薩告曰：「汝於先身，在此林中為練若苾芻，而精勤不懈。承茲福力，為此王子。金耳國王既毀佛法，爾紹王位，宜重興隆，慈悲為志，傷愍居懷，不久當王五印度境。欲延國祚，當從我誨，冥加景福，隣無強敵。勿昇師子之座，勿稱大王之號。」於是受教而退，即襲王位，自稱曰王子，號尸羅阿迭多(唐言戒日)。

The prince said, “From an­cient times up to the present it has al­ways been an im­port­ant af­fair for one to suc­ceed to the throne, so we should be prudent in es­tab­lish­ing a man in the po­s­i­tion of a mon­arch. I am in­deed poor in vir­tue and both my father and my elder brother have de­par­ted. Al­though you re­com­mend me to suc­ceed to the throne, do you think I am a com­pet­ent can­did­ate for the po­s­i­tion? Des­pite pub­lic opin­ion I dare not for­get my own un­sub­stan­ti­al­ity and shal­low­ness. Now, on the bank of the Ganges River there is an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva that has shown many spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions. I wish to go there to con­sult the or­acle of the bod­hisat­tva.” So he went to the im­age of the bod­hisat­tva and prayed be­fore it after hav­ing ob­served the ap­pro­pri­ate fast. Mmoved by his sin­cer­ity, the bod­hisat­tva re­vealed his true fea­tures and in­quired of him, “For what do you seek with such sin­cer­ity and earn­est­ness?” The prince said, “My ac­cu­mu­lated ill for­tune caused the death of my father and the murder of my elder brother was a heavy pun­ish­ment in­flic­ted upon me. I am aware of my own lack of vir­tue but the people wish to elect me to suc­ceed to the throne to glor­ify the deeds of my de­par­ted father. Be­ing ig­nor­ant of what to do, I hope to hear your holy man­date.” The bod­hisat­tva told him, “In your pre­vi­ous life you were a forest-dwell­ing bhikṣu in this wood and prac­ticed the Way di­li­gently. By the power of this mer­it­ori­ous ac­tion you are now a prince in this life. Since the king of the coun­try of Karṇas­uvarṇa des­troyed the buddha-dharma you should as­cend the throne to work for its re­vival. With a mind of great com­pas­sion and sym­pathy for the people you will soon be­come king of all the five parts of In­dia. If you wish to pro­long the sov­er­eignty of your coun­try you should fol­low my ad­vice, and then you will be blessed by the gods and have no power­ful en­emy in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. You should not as­cend the lion seat nor should you as­sume the title of king.” With this in­struc­tion the prince left the im­age and as­cen­ded the throne with the ap­pel­la­tion of prince and the name Sīlāditya (known as Jieri, “Sun of Mor­al­ity”).

於是謂臣曰：「兄讎未報，隣國不賓，終無右手進食之期。凡爾庶僚，同心勠力。」遂總率國兵，講習戰士。象軍五千，馬軍二萬，步軍五萬，自西徂東，征伐不臣。象不解鞍，人不釋甲，於六年中，臣五印度。既廣其地，更增甲兵。象軍六萬，馬軍十萬。

Prince Sīlāditya said to his min­is­ters, “For as long as my elder brother is not avenged and neigh­bor­ing coun­tries have not pledged al­le­gi­ance to me, I will not take food with my right hand. I hope you court of­fi­cials will work to­gether with one heart.” Then he took com­mand of all his troops in the whole coun­try and trained the fight­ers, who con­sisted of five thou­sand ele­phant-moun­ted sol­diers, twenty thou­sand cav­alry­men, and fifty thou­sand in­fan­try­men. He marched from west to east to at­tack those who re­fused to ac­know­ledge al­le­gi­ance to him. With his ele­phants un­re­leased and his men fully armed, for six years he sub­jug­ated all the five parts of In­dia. He not only ex­pan­ded his ter­rit­ory but also en­larged his mil­it­ary forces, hav­ing in­creased his ele­phant corps to sixty thou­sand men and his cav­alry­men to one hun­dred thou­sand strong.

垂三十年，兵戈不起，政教和平，務修節儉，營福樹善，忘寢與食。令五印度不得噉肉，若斷生命，有誅無赦。於殑伽河側建立數千窣堵波，各高百餘尺。於五印度城邑、鄉聚、達巷、交衢，建立精廬，儲飲食，止醫藥，施諸羈貧，周給不殆。聖迹之所，並建伽藍。五歲一設無遮大會，傾竭府庫，惠施群有，唯留兵器，不充檀捨。歲一集會諸國沙門，於三七日中，以四事供養，莊嚴法座，廣飾義筵，令相摧論，校其優劣，褒貶淑慝，黜陟幽明。若戒行貞固，道德淳邃，推昇師子之座，王親受法；戒雖清淨，學無稽古，但加敬禮，示有尊崇；律儀無紀，穢德已彰，驅出國境，不願聞見。

For thirty years no weapon was raised for fight­ing and the prince ad­min­istered the coun­try in peace and prac­ticed frugal­ity. He sought blessed­ness and per­formed good deeds so sed­u­lously that he for­got about eat­ing and sleep­ing. He ordered that within the five parts of In­dia no was al­lowed to eat meat and if any­one killed any liv­ing creature the cul­prit would be ex­ecuted without par­don. Along­side the Ganges River he built sev­eral thou­sand stu­pas, each over one hun­dred feet high. Temples were con­struc­ted in towns and vil­lages and at thor­ough­fares and cross­roads in the five parts of In­dia, where food and drink were stored and medi­cines laid in to be dis­trib­uted as alms to way­farers and the poor, without neg­li­gence. Mon­as­ter­ies were con­struc­ted at sac­red sites and once every five years a great con­greg­a­tion was con­vened, in which everything in the royal treas­ury, ex­cept weaponry, was given away as alms. Every year śramaṇas of dif­fer­ent coun­tries were in­vited to at­tend a meet­ing for twenty-one days, dur­ing which time they were provided with the four mon­astic re­quis­ites, and seats were pre­pared on well-dec­or­ated mats so that they might carry out de­bates and ar­gu­ments about the teach­ings of Buddhism, to see who was su­per­ior and who in­ferior in learn­ing. The good ones were praised and the bad ones cen­sured, while the ig­nor­ant were dis­missed and the bril­liant ones pro­moted. Those who strictly ob­served the dis­cip­lin­ary rules and were pure in mor­al­ity were se­lec­ted to as­cend the lion seat and the king re­ceived the Dharma from them in per­son. Those who were pure in ob­serving the dis­cip­lin­ary rules but lacked learn­ing were merely sa­luted to show re­spect to them. Those who vi­ol­ated the dis­cip­lin­ary rules and whose im­mor­al­ity was ob­vi­ous were ban­ished from the coun­try, never to be seen or heard of again.

隣國小王、輔佐大臣，殖福無殆，求善忘勞，即携手同座，謂之善友；其異於此，面不對辭，事有聞議，通使往復。而巡方省俗，不常其居，隨所至止，結廬而舍。唯雨三月，多雨不行。每於行宮日修珍饌，飯諸異學，僧眾一千，婆羅門五百。每以一日分作三時，一時理務治政，二時營福修善，孜孜不倦，竭日不足矣。

If the lords and their as­sist­ant min­is­ters of the small neigh­bor­ing coun­tries per­formed mer­it­ori­ous deeds tire­lessly and sought good­ness without wear­i­ness, the king would take them by the hand to sit to­gether with him and call them “good friends.” He never spoke to those kings who were dif­fer­ent in char­ac­ter, and if a ne­go­ti­ation was re­quired to settle a mat­ter an en­voy was sent to deal with it. Whenever he went on an in­spec­tion tour he would not stay at any one place but would have a hut made for his lodging wherever he stopped on the way. Dur­ing the three months of the rainy sea­son he would not travel about be­cause of the rain. At his tem­por­ary res­id­ence he al­ways had de­li­cious food pre­pared every day to feed one thou­sand monks of dif­fer­ent schools and five hun­dred brah­mans. He al­ways di­vided a day into three peri­ods: one was spent at­tend­ing to state af­fairs and two were de­voted to per­form­ing mer­it­ori­ous deeds and do­ing good work. He lived as­sidu­ously and the day was too short for him.

[0894c19] 初，受拘摩羅王請曰，自摩揭陀國往迦摩縷波國。時戒日王巡方在羯°朱嗢祇羅°國，命拘摩羅王曰：「宜與那爛陀遠客沙門速來赴會。」於是遂與拘摩羅王往會見焉。戒日王勞苦已曰：「自何國來，將何所欲？」對曰：「從大唐國來，請求佛法。」王曰：「大唐國在何方？經途所亘，去斯遠近？」對曰：「當此東北數萬餘里，印度所謂摩訶至那國是也。」

At first I was in­vited by King Kumāra to pro­ceed from the coun­try of Magadha to the coun­try of Kā­marūpa. At that time King Śīlāditya was mak­ing an in­spec­tion tour in the coun­try of Kajuṅghira, and he sent an or­der to King Kumāra, say­ing, “It be­fits you to come promptly with the śramaṇa, a guest from a dis­tant land, to Nālandā, to at­tend an as­sembly.” Thus I went to­gether with King Kumāra to meet him. After ex­chan­ging greet­ings, King Śīlāditya in­quired of me, “Which coun­try do you come from? What is the pur­pose of your jour­ney?” I said in reply, “I come from the coun­try of Great Tang to seek the buddha-dharma.” The king said, “Where is the coun­try of Great Tang loc­ated, by what route did you travel, and how far is it from here?” I replied, “It is situ­ated to the north­east at a dis­tance of sev­eral myri­ads of li, and it is the coun­try known in In­dia as Mahācīna.”

王曰：「嘗聞摩訶至那國有秦王天子，少而靈鑒，長而神武。昔先代喪亂，率土分崩，兵戈競起，群生荼毒，而秦王天子早懷遠略，興大慈悲，拯濟含識，平定海內，風教遐被，德澤遠洽，殊方異域，慕化稱臣。民庶荷其亭育，咸歌《秦王破陣樂》。聞其雅頌，于茲久矣。盛德之譽，誠有之乎？大唐國者，豈此是耶？」對曰：「然。至那者，前王之國號；大唐者，我君之國稱。昔未襲位，謂之秦王；今已承統，稱曰天子。前代運終，群生無主，兵戈亂起，殘害生靈。秦王天縱含弘，心發慈愍，威風鼓扇，群凶殄滅，八方靜謐，萬國朝貢。愛育四生，敬崇三寶，薄賦斂，省刑罰，而國用有餘，氓俗無穴，風猷大化，難以備舉。」戒日王曰：「盛哉！彼土群生，福感聖主。」

The king re­marked, “I have heard that in the coun­try of Mahācīna the Prince of Qin has been an in­tel­li­gent man since his youth, and that now that he has grown up he is a man of un­usual bravery. The gen­er­a­tion be­fore his was a time of chaos and the coun­try dis­in­teg­rated. Wars were waged one after an­other, caus­ing the people to suf­fer bit­terly. But the Prince of Qin, who was far-sighted from an early age, cher­ished the mind of great com­pas­sion to save liv­ing be­ings and he re­stored or­der in his coun­try. His moral in­flu­ence spread widely and his be­ne­fi­cence ex­ten­ded far. People of dif­fer­ent loc­al­it­ies and re­gions ad­mire him and serve him as his sub­jects. Out of grat­it­ude for his edi­fic­a­tion and main­ten­ance, all the com­mon people chant the Mu­sic of Prince Qin’s Vic­tory in praise of him. It has been a long time since we heard this el­eg­ant eu­logy be­stowed on him. Is the good re­pute heaped on him for his great vir­tue true to the facts? Is such the ac­tual con­di­tion of the coun­try of Great Tang?” I said in reply, “Yes. Cīna is the name of the coun­try [now and] dur­ing the reign of the former king, while Great Tang is the na­tional title of the reign­ing sov­er­eign. Be­fore his ac­ces­sion to the throne he was called the Prince of Qin, and after as­cend­ing the throne he is now en­titled the Son of Heaven. When the for­tune of the pre­vi­ous mon­arch came to an end the people lost their lord and the coun­try fell into a chaos caused by war and cruel harm and in­jur­ies were in­flic­ted on the people. The Prince of Qin, en­dowed with in­nate am­bi­tion, had the mind of com­pas­sion and by ex­ert­ing the in­flu­ence of his prestige he an­ni­hil­ated all his en­emies. Peace pre­vailed over all the eight quar­ters and vari­ous coun­tries presen­ted trib­utes. He loves and tends creatures of the four kinds of birth and re­spects the Triple Gem with ven­er­a­tion. He has re­duced tax­a­tion and mit­ig­ated pen­al­ties yet he has sur­plus funds in the state treas­ury, and no one at­tempts to vi­ol­ate the law. Con­cern­ing his moral in­flu­ence and his pro­found edi­fic­a­tion of the people, it is dif­fi­cult for me to nar­rate all of this in de­tail.” King Sīlāditya re­marked, “How grand it is! The people of that land have per­formed good deeds that caused them to have a saintly lord.”

[0895a18] 時戒日王將還曲女城設法會也，從數十萬眾，在殑伽河南岸。拘摩羅王從數萬之眾，居北岸。

When King Sīlāditya was about to re­turn to the city of Kanyākubja to con­voke a re­li­gious as­sembly, hun­dreds of thou­sands of his fol­low­ers gathered on the south­ern bank of the Ganges, while King Kumāra, fol­lowed by a mul­ti­hide of tens of thou­sands of people, was on the north­ern bank of the river.

分河中流，水陸並進。二王導引，四兵嚴衛，或泛舟，或乘象，擊鼓鳴螺，拊弦奏管。經九十日，至曲女城，在殑伽河西大花林中。是時諸國二十餘王，先奉告命，各與其國髦俊沙門及婆羅門、群官、兵士，來集大會。

Di­vided by the stream, the two ret­inue groups pro­ceeded by land and wa­ter sim­ul­tan­eously, with the two kings lead­ing their four di­vi­sions of troops, who sailed in boats and rode ele­phants, beat­ing drums and blow­ing conches, pluck­ing strings and play­ing pipes. After trav­el­ing for ninety days they reached the city of Kanyākubja. In a great flowery wood to the west of the Ganges more than twenty kings of vari­ous coun­tries, who had been in­formed be­fore­hand, came with in­tel­li­gent śramaṇas and brah­mans as well as of­fi­cials and sol­diers of their re­spect­ive coun­tries to at­tend the great as­sembly.

王先於河西建大伽藍；伽藍東起寶臺，高百餘尺，中有金佛像，量等王身；臺南起寶壇，為浴佛像之處；從此東北十四五里，別築行宮。是時，仲春月也。從初一日，以珍味饌諸沙門、婆羅門，至二十一日。自行宮屬伽藍，夾道為閣，窮諸瑩飾，樂人不移，雅聲遞奏。王於行宮出一金像，虛中隱起，高餘三尺，載以大象，張以寶幰。戒日王為帝釋之服，執寶蓋以左侍，拘摩羅王作梵王之儀，執白拂而右侍。各五百象軍，被鎧周衛，佛像前後各百大象，樂人以乘，鼓奏音樂。戒日王以真珠雜寶及金銀諸花，隨步四散，供養三寶。先就寶壇，香水浴像，王躬負荷，送上西臺，以諸珍寶、憍奢耶衣數十百千，而為供養。是時唯有沙門二十餘人預從，諸國王為侍衛。饌食已訖，集諸異學，商確微言，抑揚至理。日將曛暮，迴駕行宮。如是日送金像，導從如初，以至散日。

King [Śīlāditya] had pre­vi­ously con­struc­ted a large mon­as­tery on the west bank of the river, with a pre­cious ter­race erec­ted at the east to the height of over one hun­dred feet, on which was placed a golden im­age of the Buddha of the same size as the king. At the south of the ter­race was erec­ted a pre­cious al­tar, which was the place for bathing the Buddha’s im­age. At a dis­tance of four­teen or fif­teen li to the north­east from here a tem­por­ary palace was built. It was in the second month of spring, and from the first day up to the twenty-first of the month the śramaṇas and brah­mans were feted with de­li­cious food. From the tem­por­ary palace up to the mon­as­tery pa­vil­ions ad­orned with count­less jew­els were erec­ted along the road on both sides, and mu­si­cians stand­ing mo­tion­less per­formed el­eg­ant mu­sic un­in­ter­rup­tedly. From the tem­por­ary palace the king, with a con­cen­trated mind, took out a dimly vis­ible golden im­age that was more than three feet tall. It was car­ried on a big ele­phant screened by a pre­cious cur­tain. King Śīlāditya, dressed as In­dra, held a pre­cious can­opy and at­ten­ded on the left side, while King Kumāra, dressed as Brahma, car­ried a white fly-whisk and at­ten­ded on the right side. On each side there were five hun­dred ele­phant-moun­ted sol­diers, clad in ar­mor and guard­ing the buddha im­age be­fore and be­hind, and on each side were one hun­dred ele­phants that car­ried mu­si­cians to per­form mu­sic. As he walked King Śīlāditya scattered pearls and mis­cel­laneous jew­els, as well as pieces of gold and sil­ver and flowers as of­fer­ings to the Triple Gem. He first bathed the im­age with per­fumed wa­ter on the pre­cious al­tar. Then the king per­son­ally car­ried the im­age to the west ter­race and offered hun­dreds and thou­sands of jew­els and gems and pieces of kauśeya cloth to it. At that time there were only about twenty śramaṇas par­ti­cip­at­ing in the func­tion with the king, while the kings of other coun­tries ac­ted as at­tend­ant guards. After the meal was over the monks of dif­fer­ent schools as­sembled to dis­cuss the subtle the­or­ies and de­lib­er­ate on the ul­ti­mate truth. When the sun was about to set the king re­turned to the tem­por­ary palace. In this man­ner the golden im­age was taken out every day in the same kind of pro­ces­sion as on the first day, un­til the con­voc­a­tion was dis­persed.

其大臺忽然火起，伽藍門樓煙焰方熾。王曰：「罄捨國珍，奉為先王，建此伽藍，式昭勝業，寡德無祐，有斯災異，咎徵若此，何用生為！」乃焚香禮請而自誓曰：「幸以宿善，王諸印度，願我福力，禳滅火災，若無所感，從此喪命！」尋即奮身，跳履門閫，若有撲滅，火盡煙消。諸王覩異，重增祇懼。已而顏色不動，辭語如故，問諸王曰：「忽此災變，焚燼成功，心之所懷，意將何謂？」諸王俯伏悲泣，對曰：「成功勝迹，冀傳來葉，一旦灰燼，何可為懷？況諸外道，快心相賀！」王曰：「以此觀之，如來所說誠也。外道異學守執常見，唯我大師無常是誨。然我檀捨已周，心願諧遂，屬斯變滅，重知如來誠諦之說，斯為大善，無可深悲。」

Sudenly the great ter­race caught fire and the mon­as­tery and its en­trance arch were set ablaze. The king said, “I have spent all the valu­ables of the na­tional treas­ury to con­struct this mon­as­tery in the name of my late father in or­der to glor­ify his su­per­ior deeds. Ow­ing to my lack of vir­tue I could not evoke spir­itual pro­tec­tion but caused this calam­ity. Un­lucky man that I am, what use is it for me to live any longer?” Then he burned in­cense to wor­ship [the Buddha] and made a pledge, say­ing, “Due to my good deeds in the past I be­came a king rul­ing over all parts of In­dia. May the power of my blessed­ness ex­tin­guish this dis­astrous con­flag­ra­tion. If no spir­itual re­sponse arises I will give up my life right now.” While say­ing this, he jumped down and landed on the doorsill. The fire was im­me­di­ately ex­tin­guished, just as if someone had put it out, and the smoke van­ished. The vari­ous kings, wit­ness­ing this strange event, felt in­creased awe and re­spect for him. Without chan­ging his coun­ten­ance and speak­ing in his nor­mal tone, King Sīlāditya in­quired of the vari­ous kings, “What would you think if this dis­aster had ac­tu­ally con­sumed all that I had achieved?” The kings pros­trated them­selves on the ground, weep­ing piteously, and said, “We ex­pec­ted that this su­per­ior site achieved by you would be handed down to pos­ter­ity. If it had been com­pletely con­sumed noth­ing else would have been mem­or­able. Only the heretics would have felt de­lighted and re­joiced over the dis­aster.” The king said, “In view of this ac­ci­dent, what the Tathāgata has taught is hue. The heretical and het­ero­dox schools per­sist in the view of per­man­ence but our great teacher alone in­cul­cated the the­ory of im­per­man­ence. I have given in alms what I could af­ford, to my mind’s sat­is­fac­tion. But all of this is tran­si­ent and de­struct­ible and it proves the truth as taught by the Tathāgata. [The ac­ci­dent] is a great be­ne­fi­cence and there is no reason to be deeply re­gret­ful about it.”

[0895b28] 於是從諸王東上大窣堵波，登臨觀覽。方下階陛，忽有異人持刃逆王，王時窘迫，却行進級，俯執此人，以付群官。是時群官惶遽，不知進救。諸王咸請誅戮此人，戒日王殊無忿色，止令不殺。王親問曰：「我何負汝，為此暴惡？」對曰：「大王德澤無私，中外荷負。然我狂愚，不謀大計，受諸外道一言之感，輒為刺客，首圖逆害。」王曰：「外道何故興此惡心？」對曰：「大王集諸國，傾府庫，供養沙門，鎔鑄佛像，而諸外道自遠召集，不蒙省問，心誠愧恥。乃令狂愚，敢行凶詐。」於是究問外道徒屬。有五百婆羅門，並諸高才，應命召集，嫉諸沙門蒙王禮重，乃射火箭，焚燒寶臺，冀因救火，眾人潰亂，欲以此時殺害大王，既無緣隙，遂雇此人，趨隘行刺。是時諸王、大臣請誅外道，王乃罰其首惡，餘黨不罪，遷五百婆羅門出印度之境。於是乃還都也。

He the fol­lowed the vari­ous kings and went up to the great stupa in the east to have a view of the scenery. When he was des­cend­ing the steps after hav­ing viewed the en­virons, a stranger sud­denly ap­peared and at­temp­ted to at­tack him with a knife. The king, cornered by the as­sail­ant, re­treated to a higher step and, bend­ing down back­ward he got ahold of the man and handed him over to his of­fi­cials. At that time the of­fi­cials were so alarmed with fright that they failed to come to the king’s res­cue. The vari­ous kings de­man­ded that the man be put to death but King Śīlāditya, without any re­sent­ment, ordered that he not be killed and per­son­ally in­ter­rog­ated him, ask­ing, “What wrong did I do to you that you at­temp­ted to com­mit such a vi­ol­ent at­ro­city?” The man said in reply, “Your Majesty’s vir­tu­ous be­ne­vol­ence is im­par­tial and all people, both in your coun­try and abroad, are the re­cip­i­ents of your be­ne­fi­cence. I am a wild idiot who does not know what is of great im­port­ance. At the in­stig­a­tion in one word from the heretics I ac­ted as an as­sas­sin and at­temp­ted to murder you.” The king said, “Why did the heretics cher­ish such an evil in­ten­tion?” In reply, the man said, “Your Majesty as­sembled [the śramaṇas] of dif­fer­ent coun­tries, emp­tied the treas­ury for their main­ten­ance, and cast im­ages of the Buddha, while the heretics summoned from dis­tant places were not prop­erly cared for. Thus they felt hu­mi­li­ated and ordered me, a wild idiot, to com­mit this ma­li­cious act in a de­ceit­ful way.” Through fur­ther in­vest­ig­a­tion into the heretical ad­her­ents it was found that five hun­dred brah­mans and other people of high tal­ent who were as­sembled un­der the king’s or­der felt en­vi­ous of the hos­pit­al­ity and ven­er­a­tion en­joyed by the śramaṇas and they had shot a burn­ing ar­row to set fire to the pre­cious ter­race in the hope of mur­der­ing the great king amid the tur­moil of people try­ing to put out the fire. As [the plot had not suc­ceeded] they hired this man to carry out the as­sas­sin­a­tion at a stra­tegic point. At that time the vari­ous kings and min­is­ters pro­posed to put the heretics to death but the king pun­ished only the chief crim­in­als, while the rest of the party were pardoned and the five hun­dred brah­mans were ban­ished from the do­main of In­dia. Af­ter­ward the king re­turned to his cap­ital city.

[0895c16] 城西北窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。如來在昔，於此七日說諸妙法。其側則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。復有如來髮、爪小窣堵波。[0895c19] 說法窣堵波南，臨殑伽河，有三伽藍，同垣異門，佛像嚴麗，僧徒肅穆，役使淨人數千餘戶。[0895c21] 精舍寶函中有佛牙，長餘寸半，殊光異色，朝變夕改。遠近相趨，士庶咸集，式修瞻仰，日百千眾。監守者繁其諠雜，權立重稅，宣告遠近：欲見佛牙，輸大金錢。然而瞻禮之徒，寔繁其侶，金錢之稅，悅以心競。每於齋日，出置高座，數百千眾，燒香散華，華雖盈積，牙函不沒。伽藍前左、右各有精舍，高百餘尺，石基塼室，其中佛像，眾寶莊飾，或鑄金、銀，或鎔鍮石。二精舍前各有小伽藍。

The stupa at the north­w­est of the city was con­struc­ted by King Aśoka at the site where the Tathāgata had once spoken on vari­ous won­der­ful doc­trines for seven days. Be­side it were places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. There is also a small stupa con­tain­ing hair and nail rel­ics of the Tathāgata. The stupa built at the place where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma faces the Ganges River on the south. There are three mon­as­ter­ies built in one en­clos­ure, with sep­ar­ate en­trances. The im­ages of the Buddha are mag­ni­fi­cent and beau­ti­ful and the monks are quiet and aus­tere. There are sev­eral thou­sand fam­il­ies of mon­astic ser­vit­ors. In a pre­cious cas­ket in the temple there is a tooth relic of the Buddha, about one and a half inches long, with a spe­cial luster that changes color between morn­ing and even­ing. Hun­dreds and thou­sands of people, both of­fi­cials and com­mon­ers, come every day from far and near to see it and pay homage to it. Its guard­i­ans, who did not like the din and hub­bub caused by the crowd, star­ted de­mand­ing a heavy en­trance fee from the wor­shipers and an­nounced far and near that those who wished to see the Buddha’s tooth relic would have to pay a large amount of money. Wor­shipers were dis­pleased with these monks, think­ing that they de­lighted in col­lect­ing money in the form of the en­trance fee. On each fast day the relic was ex­posed on a high cush­ion and hun­dreds and thou­sands of people burned in­cense and scattered flowers. No mat­ter how many flowers were piled up high [be­fore it], the relic cas­ket was never covered over. At each side and in front of the mon­as­ter­ies there is a temple more than one hun­dred feet high built with brick on stone bases. The buddha im­ages in them, cast either in gold and sil­ver or brass, were ad­orned with vari­ous kinds of gems. In front of each of the two temples there is a small mon­as­tery.

[0896a02] 伽藍東南不遠，有大精舍，石基塼室，高二百餘尺，中作如來立像，高三十餘尺，鑄以鍮石，飾諸妙寶。精舍四周石壁之上，雕畫如來修菩薩行所經事迹，備盡鐫鏤。[0896a06] 石精舍南不遠，有日天祠。祠南不遠，有大自在天祠。並瑩青石，俱窮雕刻，規摹度量，同佛精舍。各有千戶充其灑掃，鼓樂絃歌晝夜無徙。

Not far to the south­east of the mon­as­ter­ies there is a large temple more than two hun­dred feet high built out of brick on stone bases, hous­ing a stand­ing statue of the Buddha over thirty feet tall, which was cast in brass and ad­orned with vari­ous kinds of gems. On the stone walls of the temple there are carvings de­pict­ing in full de­tail the acts of the Tathāgata when he was prac­ti­cing the way of a bod­hisat­tva. Not far to the south of the stone temple is a temple of Sūrya (the sun god), and not far fur­ther to the south there is an­other temple ded­ic­ated to Ma­heśvara (Śiva), both of which were built with blue­stone and fully carved with sculp­tures. They are the same size as the Buddhist temple and each has one thou­sand fam­il­ies to serve as scav­engers to keep the place clean. Mu­sic from drums and voices is per­formed day and night without cease.

[0896a10] 大城東南六七里，殑伽河南，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。在昔如來於此六月說身無常、苦、空、不淨。其側則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。又有如來髮、爪小窣堵波，人有染疾，至誠旋繞，必得痊愈，蒙其福利。

At a dis­tance of six or seven li to the south­east of the great city there is a stupa over two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka at the site where the Tathāgata once preached on the doc­trine that the phys­ical body is im­per­man­ent, sor­row­ful, empty, and im­pure. Be­side it is a site where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. There is also a small stupa con­tain­ing hair and nail rel­ics of the Tathāgata. Any­one who suf­fers from an ill­ness can surely be cured and be­nefited if he or she cir­cum­am­bu­lates the stupa with a pi­ous mind.

[0896a15] 大城東南行百餘里，至納縛提婆矩羅城，據殑伽河東岸，周二十餘里。華林清池，互相影照。[0896a18] 納縛提婆矩羅城西北，殑伽河東，有一天祠，重閣層臺，奇工異製。城東五里有三伽藍，同垣異門，僧徒五百餘人，並學小乘說一切有部。伽藍前二百餘步，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。基雖傾陷，尚高百餘尺，是如來昔於此處七日說法。中有舍利，時放光明。其側則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。[0896a25] 伽藍北三四里，臨殑伽河岸，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。昔如來在此七日說法，時有五百餓鬼來至佛所，聞法解悟，捨鬼生天。

Go­ing south­east from the great city for more than one hun­dred li, I reached the city of Navadevak­ula, which is situ­ated on the east­ern bank of the Ganges River and is over twenty li in cir­cuit, with and pure ponds sur­roun­ded by flowery woods that are re­flec­ted in the wa­ter. To the north­w­est of the city of Navadevak­ula at the east of the Ganges is a deva temple con­sist­ing of stor­ied pa­vil­ions and mul­ti­t­iered ter­races, which were ex­quis­itely con­struc­ted. Five li to the east of the city there are three mon­as­ter­ies built in one en­clos­ure but with sep­ar­ate gates. There are over five hun­dred monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana Sar­vāstivāda school. More than two hun­dred paces in front of the mon­as­ter­ies there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Al­though the found­a­tions have col­lapsed the struc­ture is still more than one hun­dred feet high. It was built at the site where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for seven days. In the mon­as­ter­ies there is a piece of a śarīra (relic) that emits a light from time to time. Be­side them are places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. Three or four li to the north of the mon­as­ter­ies and on the bank of the Ganges is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high that was built by King Aśoka at the site where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for seven days. Five hun­dred hungry ghosts then came to the Buddha and be­came awakened after hear­ing the Dharma; hav­ing been re­leased from the realm of hungry ghosts they were re­born in the heav­ens.

[0896a29] 說法窣堵波側有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。其側復有如來髮、爪窣堵波。

Be­side the stupa at the place where the Buddha preached the Dharma is a site where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. Be­side it is a stupa con­tain­ing the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics.

[0896b01] 自此東南行六百餘里，渡殑伽河，南至阿踰陀國(中印度境)。[0896b04] 阿踰陀國，周五千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。穀稼豐盛，華菓繁茂。氣序和暢，風俗善順，好營福，勤學藝。伽藍百有餘所，僧徒三千餘人，大乘、小乘，兼功習學。天祠十所，異道寡少。[0896b08] 大城中有故伽藍，是伐蘇畔度菩薩(唐言世親。舊曰婆藪盤豆，譯曰天親。訛謬也)數十年中於此製作大小乘諸異論。其側故基，是世親菩薩為諸國王、四方俊彥、沙門、婆羅門等講義說法堂也。

From here go­ing to the south­east for over six hun­dred li, I crossed the Ganges to the south and reached the coun­try of Ay­od­hyā (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Ay­od­hyā is more than five thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. This coun­try abounds in cer­eal crops and has plenty of flowers and fruit. The cli­mate is mild and the people are be­nign by cus­tom. They have an in­clin­a­tion for per­form­ing mer­it­ori­ous deeds and are di­li­gent in learn­ing the arts and crafts. There are more than one hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with over three thou­sand monks, who study both Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana doc­trines. There are ten deva temples with a few heretics. In the great city there is an old mon­as­tery that was the place where Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva (known as Shiqin in Chinese, and formerly called Poshubandu, wrongly trans­lated as “Heav­enly Kins­man”) spent sev­eral dec­ades com­pos­ing vari­ous treat­ises on both Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana doc­trines. The old found­a­tions be­side it are the ru­ins of a hall in which Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva ex­pounded Buddhist the­or­ies and spoke on the Dharma for the kings of dif­fer­ent coun­tries, as well as for prom­in­ent śramaṇas and brah­mans com­ing from the four quar­ters.

[0896b13] 城北四五里，臨殑伽河岸，大伽藍中，有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。是如來為天、人眾，於此三月說諸妙法。其側窣堵波，過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。伽藍西四五里，有如來髮、爪窣堵波。[0896b18] 髮、爪窣堵波北，伽藍餘趾，昔經部室利邏多(唐言勝受)論師於此製造經部《毘婆沙論》。

Four or five li to the north of the city, in a great mon­as­tery on the bank of the Ganges is a stupa over two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka, mark­ing the place where the Tathāgata spoke on the vari­ous won­der­ful doc­trines to heav­enly and hu­man be­ings for three months. The stupa be­side it marks a place where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. Four or five li to the west of the mon­as­tery is a stupa con­tain­ing the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics. To the north of the stupa con­tain­ing hair and nail rel­ics are the ru­ins of a mon­as­tery in which the śāstra mas­ter Śrīlabdha (known as Sheng­shou, “Re­ceived in Vic­tory,” in Chinese) of yore com­posed the Vibhāṣā-śāstra of the Sautrāntika school.

[0896b20] 城西南五六里大菴沒羅林中，有故伽藍，是阿僧伽(唐言無著)菩薩請益導凡之處。無著菩薩夜昇天宮，於慈氏菩薩所受《瑜伽師地論》、《莊嚴大乘經論》、《中邊分別論》等，晝為大眾講宣妙理。菴沒羅林西北百餘步，有如來髮、爪窣堵波。其側故基，是世親菩薩從覩史多天下見無著菩薩處。

In a great mango grove five or six li to the south­w­est of the city there is an old mon­as­tery where As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva (known as Wushuo, “No At­tach­ment,” in Chinese) re­ceived in­struc­tions and guided the com­mon people. At night he as­cen­ded to the place of Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva in [Tuṣita] Heaven to learn the Yogācār­ab­hūmi-śāstra, the Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra-śāstra, the Mad­hyānta- vibhāga-śāstra, [and other texts]; in the day­time he lec­tured on the mar­velous prin­ciples to a large audi­ence. More than one hun­dred paces to the north­w­est of the mango grove is a stupa con­tain­ing hair and nail rel­ics of the Tathāgata. The old found­a­tions be­side it mark the place where Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva des­cen­ded from Tuṣita Heaven to see As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva.

[0896b26] 無著菩薩，健馱邏國人也，佛去世後一千年中，誕靈利見，承風悟道，從彌沙塞部出家修學，頃之迴信大乘。其弟世親菩薩於說一切有部出家受業，博聞強識，達學研機。無著弟子佛陀僧訶(唐言師子覺)者，密行莫測，高才有聞。二三賢哲每相謂曰：「凡修行業，願覲慈氏，若先捨壽，得遂宿心，當相報語，以知所至。」其後師子覺先捨壽命，三年不報。世親菩薩尋亦捨壽，時經六月，亦無報命。時諸異學咸皆譏誚，以為世親菩薩及師子覺，流轉惡趣，遂無靈鑒。

As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva, a nat­ive of the coun­try of Gand­hāra, was a man of vir­tue born one thou­sand years after the de­mise of the Buddha and real­ized the Way after re­ceiv­ing edi­fic­a­tion. He be­came a monk of the Mahīśā­saka school to leam its teach­ings, but soon af­ter­ward he filmed his mind to­ward the Ma­hay­ana doc­trines. His younger brother, Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva, be­came a monk of the Sar­vāstivāda school to re­ceive an edu­ca­tion. He was a man of wide learn­ing with a re­tent­ive memory, and he pos­sessed com­pre­hens­ive know­ledge and probed into its es­sence. As­aṅga’s dis­ciple Buddhasimha (known as Shizijue, “Buddha Lion”) was a monk who ob­served the dis­cip­lin­ary rules im­macu­lately and was well known for his high tal­ents. These two or three sagely per­sons of­ten said among them­selves that since the pur­pose of their spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion was to see Maitreya in per­son [in their next re­birth], who­ever among them died first and ful­filled his long-cher­ished wish should come back to in­form the oth­ers where he had been re­born. Buddhasimha died first but he did not come back to re­port his where­abouts for three years. Later Vas­ub­andhu passed away but he too did not re­port back after six months. The heretics sneered at them, deem­ing that Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva and Buddhasimha had been re­born in an evil state and so they could not show any spir­itual re­sponse.

其後無著菩薩於夜初分，方為門人教授定法，燈光忽翳，空中大明，有一天仙乘虛下降，即進階庭敬禮無著。無著曰：「爾來何暮？今名何謂？」對曰：「從此捨壽命，往覩史多天慈氏內眾蓮華中生，蓮華纔開，慈氏讚曰：『善來廣慧，善來廣慧。』旋繞纔周，即來報命。」無著菩薩曰：「師子覺者，今何所在？」曰：「我旋繞時，見師子覺在外眾中，耽著欲樂，無暇相顧，詎能來報？」無著菩薩曰：「斯事已矣。慈氏何相？演說何法？」曰：「慈氏相好，言莫能宣。演說妙法，義不異此。然菩薩妙音，清暢和雅，聞者忘倦，受者無厭。」

As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva was in­struct­ing his dis­ciples in the meth­ods of prac­ti­cing med­it­a­tion one night when the lamp­light sud­denly faded out and a great bright­ness ap­peared in the sky. A heav­enly be­ing des­cen­ded from the air and entered the court­yard to wor­ship As­aṅga, who asked him, “Why do you come so late? What is your name now?” [The heav­enly be­ing] said in reply, “After my death here I re­paired to Tuṣita Heaven, where I was born from a lo­tus flower in the in­ner de­part­ment of the heaven. When the lo­tus flower opened Maitreya said to me with praise, ‘Wel­come, Guanghui (“Vast Wis­dom”)! Wel­come, Guanghui! ’ As soon as I had just fin­ished cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing him once, I des­cen­ded to re­port this to you.” As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva asked, “Where is Buddhasimha now?” The reply was, “When I was cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing [Maitreya] I saw Buddhasimha in the outer de­part­ment in­dul­ging him­self in sen­sual pleas­ures, and he was so busy that he had scarcely any time to look at me, nmuch less come down to re­port to you!” As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva said, “Let it be so. Now what does Maitreya look like? What Dharma does he preach?” The reply was, “His fea­tures are so beau­ti­ful that they are bey­ond de­scrip­tion. He preached on the won­der­ful Dharma, of which the pur­ports were the same as you have ex­plained here. The bod­hisat­tva has a me­lodi­ous voice, so flu­ent and el­eg­ant that those who hear it for­get about fa­tigue and his stu­dents never feel bored.”

[0896c20] 無著講堂故基西北四十餘里，至故伽藍，北臨殑伽河，中有塼窣堵波，高百餘尺，世親菩薩初發大乘心處。世親菩薩自北印度至於此也，時無著菩薩命其門人，令往迎候。至此伽藍，遇而會見。無著弟子止戶牖外，夜分之後，誦《十地經》。世親聞已，感悟追悔：「甚深妙法，昔所未聞，誹謗之愆，源發於舌，舌為罪本，今宜除斷。」即執銛刀，欲自斷舌。乃見無著住立告曰：「夫大乘教者，至真之理也，諸佛所讚，眾聖攸宗。吾欲誨爾，爾今自悟。悟其時矣，何善如之？諸佛聖教，斷舌非悔。昔以舌毀大乘，今以舌讚大乘，補過自新，猶為善矣，杜口絕言，其利安在？」作是語已，忽不復見。世親承命，遂不斷舌。旦詣無著，諮受大乘。於是研精覃思，製大乘論，凡百餘部，並盛宣行。

More than forty li to the north­w­est of the old found­a­tions of As­aṅga’s lec­ture hall I came to an old mon­as­tery with the Ganges River at its north, where there is a brick stupa over one hun­dred feet high. This was the place where Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva began to cher­ish a mind to ac­cept the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. When he was trav­el­ing here from North In­dia As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva sent a dis­ciple to greet him at the mid­way point, and it was at this mon­as­tery where they met each other. As­aṅga’s dis­ciple stayed out­side the house and at night he re­cited the Daś­ab­hūmi-sūtra. Upon hear­ing the re­cit­a­tion Vas­ub­andhu be­came awakened and re­pen­ted that he had not be­fore heard the very pro­found and won­der­ful Dharma. Think­ing that the source of the fault of slander is the tongue, he in­ten­ded to cut off [his own tongue]. As he grasped a scrap­ing knife to slice off his tongue he saw As­aṅga ap­pear­ing be­fore him, who told him, “The sys­tem of Ma­hay­ana teach­ings is the ul­ti­mate truth, praised by all the buddhas and re­garded as the or­tho­dox school by vari­ous saints. I in­ten­ded to ad­mon­ish you but now you have be­come awakened by your­self. Noth­ing is bet­ter than a timely awaken­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the teach­ings of the buddhas, cut­ting off one’s tongue is not a way of re­pent­ance. In by­gone days you in­sul­ted the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings with your tongue, so it would be bet­ter for you to amend your ways by prais­ing the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings, also with your tongue. What would be the be­ne­fit of be­com­ing mute?” After hav­ing said this, [the il­lu­sion] dis­ap­peared. Fol­low­ing this ad­vice, Vas­ub­andhu did not cut off his tongue and went to As­aṅga to study the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings with him. He en­gaged in care­ful learn­ing with pro­found spec­u­la­tion and wrote more than a hun­dred treat­ises on Ma­hay­ana the­or­ies, all of which are very pop­u­lar works.

[0897a06] 從此東行三百餘里，渡殑伽河，北至阿耶穆佉國(中印度境)。[0897a08] 阿耶穆佉國，周二千四五百里。國大都城臨殑伽河，周二十餘里。其氣序土宜，同阿踰陀國。人淳俗質，勤學好福。伽藍五所，僧徒千餘人，習學小乘正量部法。天祠十餘所，異道雜居。

From here go­ing to the east for more than three hun­dred li, I crossed the Ganges to the north and reached the coun­try of Ayamukha (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Ayamukha is two thou­sand four hun­dred or five hun­dred li in cir­cuit. The cap­ital city bor­ders on the Ganges River and is more than twenty li in cir­cuit. The cli­mate and local products of this coun­try are the same as in the coun­try of Ay­od­hyā. The people are hon­est and their cus­tom is plain and simple. They are di­li­gent in learn­ing and like to per­form mer­it­ori­ous deeds. There are five mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks who study the Hinay­ana teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya school. There are more than ten deva temples, where heretics live to­gether.

[0897a13] 城東南不遠，臨殑伽河岸，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，高二百餘尺，是如來昔於此處三月說法。其側則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。復有如來髮、爪青石窣堵波。其側伽藍，僧徒二百餘人，佛像莊飾，威嚴如在。臺閣宏麗，奇製欝起，是昔佛陀馱婆(唐言覺使)論師於此製說一切有部《大毘婆沙論》。

Not far away to the south­w­est of the city there is a stupa at the bank of the Ganges. Built by King Aśoka, it is two hun­dred feet high, mark­ing the place where in olden times the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for three months. Be­side it there is a place where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down, and there is also a stupa con­tain­ing the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics. Over two hun­dred monks live in the mon­as­tery be­side the stupa. The Buddha’s im­age is well ad­orned and has an aus­tere ap­pear­ance, as if he were still alive. The ter­races and pa­vil­ions of the mon­as­tery are grand and beau­ti­fully built in a spe­cial style, rising high up into the air. This was the place where in olden times the śāstra mas­ter Buddhadāsa (known as Jue­shi, “Buddha Ser­vant”) com­posed the Mahāvibhāṣā śāstra of the Sar­vāstivāda school.

從此東南行七百餘里，渡殑伽河南、閻牟那河北，至鉢邏耶伽國(中印度境)。[0897a22] 鉢邏耶伽國，周五千餘里。國大都城據兩河交，周二十餘里。稼穡滋盛，菓木扶疎。氣序和暢，風俗善順。好學藝，信外道。伽藍兩所，僧徒寡少，並皆習學小乘法教。天祠數百，異道寔多。

From here go­ing to the south­east for more than seven hun­dred li, I crossed the Ganges to the south and reached the coun­try of Prayāga, north of the Jumna River (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Prayāga is more than five thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city, situ­ated at the con­flu­ence of the two rivers, is over twenty li in cir­cuit. It abounds in cer­eal crops and fruit trees are lux­uri­ant. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the people are kind and agree­able by cus­tom. They take pleas­ure in learn­ing arts and crafts and be­lieve in heretical re­li­gions. There are two mon­as­ter­ies with few monks, all of whom study Hinay­ana teach­ings. Deva temples amount to sev­eral hun­dreds and they have a large num­ber of heretics.

[0897a27] 大城西南瞻博迦華林中，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。基雖傾陷，尚百餘尺，在昔如來於此處降伏外道。其側則有髮、爪窣堵波、經行遺迹。

In the wood of cam­paka flowers to the south of the great city is a stupa built by King Aśoka, which is still more than one hun­dred feet high though the found­a­tions have col­lapsed. Formerly the Tathāgata sub­dued heretics at this place. Be­side it is a stupa con­tain­ing hair and nail rel­ics and there is also a site where he used to walk up and down. Be­side the stupa of hair and nail rel­ics is an old mon­as­tery where Deva (known as Tian, “God”) Bod­hisat­tva com­posed the Sataśāstra-vaip­ulya to frus­trate Hinay­ana ad­her­ents and con­quer heretics.

[0897b02] 髮、爪窣堵波側，有故伽藍，是提婆(唐言天受)菩薩作《廣百論》挫小乘、伏外道處。初，提婆菩薩自南印度至此伽藍，城中有外道婆羅門，高論有聞，辯才無礙，循名責實，反質窮辭。雅知提婆博究玄奧，欲挫其鋒，乃循名問曰：「汝為何名？」提婆曰：「名天。」外道曰：「天是誰？」

When Deva Bod­hisat­tva first came to this mon­as­tery from South In­dia there was in the city a heretical brah­man who was learned in de­bate and elo­quent in dis­cus­sion without im­ped­i­ment. He in­sisted on the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of names and facts and he would re­fute his op­pon­ents to their wits’ end. Know­ing that Deva was widely learned in pro­found doc­trines and wish­ing to break his spirit, the brah­man star­ted a con­ver­sa­tion by in­quir­ing his name, say­ing, “What is your name?” Deva said, “Deva.” The heretic said, “Who is Deva?”

提婆曰：「我。」外道曰：「我是誰？」提婆曰：「狗。」外道曰：「狗是誰？」提婆曰：「汝。」外道曰：「汝是誰？」提婆曰：「天。」外道曰：「天是誰？」提婆曰：「我。」外道曰：「我是誰？」提婆曰：「狗。」外道曰：「誰是狗？」提婆曰：「汝。」外道曰：「汝是誰？」提婆曰：「天。」如是循環，外道方悟。自時厥後，深敬風猷。

Deva said, “I am.” The heretic said, “Who is I?” Deva said, “A dog.” The heretic said, “Who is the dog?” Deva said, “You.” The heretic said, “Who are you?” Deva said, “Deva.” The heretic said, “Who is Deva?” [Deva said,] “I am.” The heretic said, “Who is I?” Deva said, “A dog.” The heretic said, “Who is the dog?” Deva said, “You.” The heretic said, “Who are you?” Deva said, “Deva.” In this man­ner they ar­gued in a circle and the heretic began to un­der­stand [that Deva was ir­re­fut­able]. Since then he deeply re­spec­ted Deva’s mor­al­iz­ing edi­fic­a­tion.

[0897b13] 城中有天祠，瑩飾輪煥，靈異多端。依其典籍，此處是眾生殖福之勝地也，能於此祠捐捨一錢，功踰他所惠施千金。復能輕生，祠中斷命，受天福樂，悠永無窮。[0897b18] 天祠堂前有一大樹，枝葉扶疎，陰影蒙密，有食人鬼依而棲宅，故其左右多有遺骸。若人至此祠中，無不輕捨身命，既怵邪說，又為神誘，自古迄今，習謬無替。

In the city there is a deva temple con­sist­ing of many lofty and beau­ti­fully dec­or­ated build­ings, which showed spir­itual signs in vari­ous ways. Ac­cord­ing to the re­cords of the temple it is the best place for people to plant mer­it­ori­ous seeds. The merit of donat­ing one coin at this temple is greater than that of giv­ing one thou­sand pieces of gold in alms at other places, and [it is be­lieved that] someone who com­mits sui­cide and dies in this temple will en­joy eternal bliss in the heav­ens. In front of the temple is a big tree with lux­uri­ant branches and leaves that cast dark shad­ows on the ground. A man-eat­ing ghost made his abode in the tree and skel­et­ons were scattered about to the left and right sides. People com­ing to this temple are li­able to give up their lives, as they are sim­ul­tan­eously frightened by the hor­rible tra­di­tion and al­lured by the evil spir­its. This ab­surd prac­tice has been car­ried out without al­ter­a­tion from an­cient times up to the present.

近有婆羅門，族姓子也，闊達多智，明敏高才，來至祠中，謂眾人曰：「夫曲俗鄙志，難以導誘，吾方同事，然後攝化。」亦既登臨，俯謂友曰：「吾有死矣。昔謂詭妄，今驗真實，天仙伎樂依空接引，當從勝境捐此鄙形。」尋欲投身，自取殞絕，親友諫喻，其志不移。遂布衣服，遍周樹下，及其自投，得全軀°命。久而醒曰：「唯見空中諸天召命，斯乃邪神所引，非得天樂也。」

Re­cently there was a young man of the brah­man caste who was in­tel­li­gent and mag­nan­im­ous in char­ac­ter and en­dowed with bril­liant wis­dom and high tal­ent. He came to the temple and said to the people, “Crooked cus­toms and cor­rupt de­sires are hard to mend by dis­sua­sion and guid­ance. I must prac­tice the same in or­der to cor­rect them.” He climbed up into the tree and said to his friends gathered be­low, “I am go­ing to die to testify to the truth of what is de­ceit­ful. Heav­enly maid­ens and mu­si­cians are in the air to greet me. I shall for­sake this humble body of mine at the best place for do­ing so.” When he was about to throw him­self down to end his life his re­l­at­ives and friends tried to dis­suade him from do­ing so, but he would not change his mind. They spread their gar­ments on the ground be­low the tree and saved his life when he dropped to the ground. After a long while he came to his senses and said, “I only saw some evil spir­its in the air beck­on­ing to me and there was noth­ing of heav­enly bliss.”

[0897c02] 大城東，兩河交，廣十餘里，土地爽塏，細沙彌漫。自古至今，諸王、豪族，凡有捨施，莫不至止，周給不計，號大施場。

To the east of the great city and at the junc­tion of the two rivers there is a dune more than ten li wide, dry and covered with fine sand. From an­cient times up to now vari­ous kings and people of great wealth have al­ways come here whenever they wished to give alms. This place is called the Grand Place of Alms­giv­ing, where gifts are dis­trib­uted without count­ing.

今戒日王者，聿修前緒，篤述惠施，五年積財，一旦傾捨，於其施場，多聚珍貨。初第一日，置大佛像，眾寶莊嚴，即持上妙奇珍，而以奉施；次常住僧；次見前眾；次高才碩學、博物多能；次外道學徒，隱淪肥遁；次鰥寡孤獨，貧窮乞人。備極珍玩，窮諸上饌，如是節級，莫不周施。府庫既傾，服玩都盡，髻中明珠，身諸瓔珞，次第施與，初無所悔。既捨施已，稱曰：「樂哉！凡吾所有，已入金剛堅固藏矣。」從此之後，諸國君王各獻珍服。嘗不踰旬，府庫充仞。

At present, King Sīlāditya fol­lows the ex­ample of his pre­de­cessors in prac­ti­cing alms­giv­ing. He spends all the wealth he has ac­cu­mu­lated in five years on alms­giv­ing in a single day and piles up pre­cious things at the [Grand] Place of Alms­giv­ing. On the first day he in­stalled a large im­age of the Buddha ad­orned with vari­ous gems, to which he offered the best rare jew­els. Next he gave of­fer­ings to the res­id­ent monks, then to those who were present in the as­sembly, then to the highly tal­en­ted, learned, eru­dite, and ver­sat­ile schol­ars, then to the heretical stu­dents, her­mits, and re­cluses, and fi­nally to the kin­less and the poor. Vari­ous kinds of pre­cious ob­jects and the best de­li­cious food were dis­trib­uted to them all in a per­fect man­ner ac­cord­ing to their grades and ranks. When the treas­ury was emp­tied and the cloth­ing and other ob­jects were ex­hausted, [the king’s] lus­trous pearl in his top­knot and the neck­lace on his body were given away one after the other, without the least re­luct­ance. When King Sīlāditya had com­pleted the alms­giv­ing he said, “How happy I am! I have placed all I had in the adam­antine and in­des­truct­ible store­house!” After that the lords and kings of vari­ous coun­tries offered pre­cious jew­els and gar­ments to him, and in less than ten days his treas­ury was re­plen­ished.

[0897c15] 大施場東合流口，日數百人自溺而死。彼俗以為欲求生天，當於此處絕粒自沈，沐浴中流，罪垢消滅。是以異國遠方，相趁萃止，七日斷食，然後絕命。至於山猨、野鹿，群遊水濱，或濯流而返，或絕食而死。當戒日王之大施也，有一獼猴，居河之濱，獨在樹下屏迹絕食，經數日後自餓而死。故諸外道修苦行者，於河中立高柱，日將旦也，便即昇之，一手一足執柱端，躡傍杙，一手一足虛懸外申，臨空不屈，延頸張目，視日右轉，逮乎曛暮，方乃下焉。若此者，其徒數十，冀斯勤苦，出離生死，或數十年未嘗懈息。

Sev­eral hun­dred people drown them­selves every day at the con­flu­ence of the two rivers to the east of the Grand Place of Alms­giv­ing. It is pop­u­lar cus­tom as the people be­lieve that in or­der to be re­born in the heav­ens they should starve [them­selves] and drown in the river at this spot. The people bathe in mid­stream to wash away their sins and de­file­ments. Thus people from dif­fer­ent coun­tries come to this place from dis­tant re­gions to starve for seven days and die. Even moun­tain apes and wild mon­keys come in groups to the river­side. Some of them take a bath and go back, while oth­ers starve them­selves to death. When King Sīlāditya was per­form­ing the great alms­giv­ing a mon­key stayed alone un­der a tree at the river­side, without go­ing any­where, and fas­ted. After a few days it died of star­va­tion. Some heretical as­cet­ics plant long poles in the river; at dawn they climb up the poles and stand with one hand hold­ing the top of the pole and one foot on a peg, while stretch­ing out the other hand and foot into the air. Cran­ing their necks, with eyes wide open, they gaze at the sun mov­ing to the right and do not come down un­til dusk. There are sev­eral scores of such as­cet­ics, who hope to es­cape the wheel of re­birth by prac­ti­cing such rig­or­ous aus­ter­it­ies. Some of them have never re­laxed their self-mor­ti­fic­a­tion for sev­eral dec­ades.

[0897c27] 從此西南入大林中，惡獸、野象，群暴行旅，非多徒黨，難以°經涉。行五百餘里，至憍賞彌國(舊曰拘睒彌國，訛也。中印度境)。

From here I entered a great forest in the south­w­est, where fe­ro­cious an­im­als and wild ele­phants in groups at­tack way­farers. Un­less ac­com­pan­ied by a large num­ber of com­pan­ions it is dif­fi­cult for a trav­eler to cross this re­gion alone.

[0898a01] 憍賞彌國，周六千餘里。國大都城周三十餘里。土稱沃壤，地利豐植，粳稻多，甘蔗茂。氣序暑熱，風俗剛猛。好學典藝，崇樹福善。伽藍十餘所，傾頓荒蕪，僧徒三百餘人，學小乘教。天祠五十餘所，外道寔多。

After go­ing for more than five hun­dred li, I came to the coun­try of Kauśāmbī (formerly known as Jush­anmi er­ro­neously, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Kauśāmbī is over six thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is more than thirty li in cir­cuit. The land is fer­tile and good for ag­ri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion. The coun­try abounds in non­glu­tin­ous rice and yields plenty of sug­ar­cane. The cli­mate is hot and the people are bold and furi­ous by cus­tom. They love to learn clas­sical texts and arts and ad­voc­ate the per­form­ance of good and mer­it­ori­ous deeds. There are about ten mon­as­ter­ies ly­ing in a dilap­id­ated and deser­ted con­di­tion, with more than three hun­dred monks who study the Hinay­ana teach­ings. There are over fifty deva temples with nu­mer­ous heretics.

[0898a06] 城內故宮中有大精舍，高六十餘尺，有刻檀佛像，上懸石蓋，鄔陀衍那王(唐言出愛。舊云優填王，訛也)之所作也。靈相間起，神光時照。諸國君王恃力欲舉，雖多人眾，莫能轉移。遂圖供養，俱言得真，語其源迹，即此像也。初，如來成正覺已，上昇天宮，為母說法，三月不還。其王思慕，願圖形像。乃請尊者沒特伽羅子，以神通力，接工人上天宮，親觀妙相，雕刻栴檀。如來自天宮還也，刻檀之像起迎世尊，世尊慰曰：「教化勞耶？開導末世，寔此為冀。」

In the old palace in the city there is a great temple, more than sixty feet in height, that houses an im­age of the Buddha carved in san­dal­wood, with a stone can­opy sus­pen­ded over it. It was made by King Uday­ana (known as Chuai, “Re­lease from Pas­sion,” formerly mis­trans­lated as King Youtian). The im­age of­ten shows spir­itual signs and emits a di­vine light from time to time. The kings of vari­ous coun­tries, re­ly­ing on their might, wanted to take it but when they tried to lift it up they could not move it, even though a large num­ber of people were em­ployed to do so. Then they had pic­tures of the im­age pro­duced for wor­ship and each claimed that his pic­ture was the most true to life. Speak­ing of the im­age’s ori­gin, it is said that when the Tathāgata, after hav­ing real­ized full en­light­en­ment, as­cen­ded to Tray­astrimśa Heaven to preach the Dharma to his mother, the king was eager to see him and wished to make a like­ness of him. He re­ques­ted Ven­er­able Maudgalyāy­ana to use his su­per­nat­ural power to trans­port an ar­tisan to the heav­enly palace to ob­serve the Buddha’s fine fea­tures, and the ar­tisan carved an im­age of him in san­dal­wood. When the Tathāgata re­turned to earth from heaven, the san­dal­wood im­age stood up to greet the World-honored One, who said to it sym­path­et­ic­ally, “Are you tired from teach­ing the people? You are what we hope will en­lighten the people in the last period of the buddha-dharma.”

[0898a17] 精舍東百餘步，有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。其側不遠，有如來井及浴室，井猶充汲，室以頹毀。[0898a20] 城內東南隅，有故宅餘趾，是具史羅(舊云瞿師羅，訛也)長者故宅也，中有佛精舍及髮、爪窣堵波。復有故基，如來浴室也。

More than a hun­dred paces to the east of the temple are places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. A well and bath­house used by the Tathāgata are not far away. The well still sup­plies wa­ter but the bath­house has fallen into ru­ins. At the south­east corner in­side the city are the ru­ins of the old res­id­ence of Elder Ghoṣila (formerly tran­scribed as Jushiluo in­cor­rectly), where there is a Buddhist temple and a stupa con­tain­ing [the Buddha’s] hair and nail rel­ics. An­other old found­a­tion is that of the Buddha’s bath­house.

[0898a23] 城東南不遠，有故伽藍，具史羅長者舊園也。中有窣堵波，無憂王之所建立，高二百餘尺。如來於此數年說法。其側則有過去四佛座及經行遺迹之所，復有如來髮、爪窣堵波。伽藍東南重閣上有故塼室，世親菩薩嘗住此中作《唯識論》破斥小乘，難諸外道。[0898b01] 伽藍東菴沒羅林中有故基，是無著菩薩於此作《顯揚聖教論》。

Not far to the south­east of the city is an old mon­as­tery built in the garden of Elder Ghoṣila in which is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. The Tathāgata stayed here preach­ing the Dharma for sev­eral years. Be­side it are sites where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down. There are also stu­pas con­tain­ing the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics. On the stor­ied pa­vil­ion to the south­east of the mon­as­tery is an old brick cham­ber in which Vas­ub­andhu Bod­hisat­tva stayed and com­posed the Vijñapti-mātratāsiddhi-śāstra to re­fute Hinay­ana teach­ings and de­feat heretics. In a mango grove to the east of the mon­as­tery is the old found­a­tion of a house in which As­aṅga Bod­hisat­tva com­posed the Prakaraṇāryavācā-śāstra.

[0898b03] 城西南八九里，毒龍石窟。昔者如來伏此毒龍，於中留影，雖則傳記，今無所見。其側有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，高二百餘尺。傍有如來經行遺迹及髮、爪窣堵波，病苦之徒，求願多愈。釋迦法盡，此國最後，故上自君王，下及眾庶，入此國境，自然感傷，莫不飲泣，悲歎而歸。

Eight or nine li to the south­w­est of the city is the cave of a venom­ous dragon. Formerly the Tathāgata sub­dued this dragon and left his own shadow in the cave. Al­though this is re­cor­ded in books noth­ing more of it can be seen now. Be­side the cave is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. At its side are sites where the Tathāgata used to sit and walk up and down and a stupa con­tain­ing his hair and nail rel­ics. Those who suf­fer from ill­ness come here to pray for health and most of them are cured. As this is be the coun­try where Śākyamuni’s Dharma will fi­nally come to an end, all the people, from kings down to com­mon­ers, nat­ur­ally feel sad when they come to this land and shed tears be­fore re­turn­ing home with sighs of re­gret.

[0898b10] 龍窟東北大林中，行七百餘里，渡殑伽河，北至迦奢布羅城，周十餘里，居人富樂。城傍有故伽藍，唯餘基址，是昔護法菩薩伏外道處。此國先王扶於邪說，欲毀佛法，崇敬外道。外道眾中召一論師，聰敏高明達幽微者，作偽邪書千頌，凡三萬二千言，非毀佛法，扶正本宗。於是召集僧眾，令相摧論。外道有勝，當毀佛法；眾僧無負，斷舌以謝。

Go­ing for more than seven hun­dred li through a great forest to the north­east of the dragon’s cave, I crossed the Ganges to the north and reached the city of Kāśapura. It is over ten li in cir­cuit and the in­hab­it­ants are rich and happy. Be­side it there are the ru­ins of a mon­as­tery where Dharmapāla Bod­hisat­tva sub­dued heretics in the old days. A pre­vi­ous king of this coun­try who sup­por­ted het­ero­dox views in­ten­ded to des­troy the buddha-dharma in or­der to up­hold the heretics. He in­vited from among them a śāstra mas­ter, who was in­tel­li­gent, had great tal­ent, and un­der­stood subtle the­or­ies, to com­pose a fal­la­cious book of thirty-two thou­sand words in one thou­sand stan­zas to de­nounce the buddha- dharma and make his own sect the or­tho­dox one. The king then summoned the monks to hold a de­bate, on the con­di­tion that if the heretical śāstra mas­ter won the con­test the buddha-dharma would be des­troyed, and if the monks were un­defeated then the śāstra mas­ter would cut off his tongue.

是時僧徒懼有退負，集而議曰：「慧日已沈，法橋將毀，王黨外道，其可敵乎？事勢若斯，計將安出？」眾咸默然，無竪議者。護法菩薩年在幼稚，辯慧多聞，風範弘遠，在大眾中揚言贊曰：「愚雖不敏，請陳其略。誠宜以我疾應王命。高論得勝，斯靈祐也；徵議墮負，乃稚齒也。然則進退有辭，法、僧無咎。」僉曰：「允諧。」如其籌策。尋應王命，即昇論座。

At that time the monks, fear­ing that they might be de­feated, as­sembled to dis­cuss the mat­ter, say­ing, “The Sun of Wis­dom has sunk and the Bridge of the Dharma is about to be des­troyed. How can we com­pete with the heretics who have the king stand­ing by their side? Un­der these cir­cum­stances what should we do?” The as­sembly re­mained si­lent and no one ven­tured to raise a pro­posal. Dharmapāla Bod­hisat­tva, then a young man who was elo­quent, in­tel­li­gent, and learned, and who en­joyed a wide­spread repu­ta­tion, de­clared to the as­sembly, “Al­though I am an ig­nor­ant per­son I ven­ture to make a brief state­ment. It would truly be­fit you to send me promptly to an­swer the king’s or­der. If I win the de­bate it will be due to spir­itual pro­tec­tion, and if I fail my youth­ful­ness can be blamed. In this way we can give an ex­plan­a­tion in either case and no cen­sure will be in­curred upon the Dharma or the com­munity of monks.” The whole as­sembly con­sen­ted to his pro­posal and, ac­cord­ing to his sug­ges­tion, Dharmapāla was sent to an­swer the king’s or­der.

外道乃提頓綱網，抑揚辭義，誦其所執，待彼異論。護法菩薩納其言而笑曰：「吾得勝矣！將覆逆而誦耶？為亂辭而誦耶？」外道憮然而謂曰：「子無自高也。能領語盡，此則為勝，順受其文，後釋其義。」護法乃隨其聲調，述其文義，辭理不謬，氣韻無差。於是外道聞已，欲自斷舌。護法曰：「斷舌非謝，改執是悔。」即為說法，心信意悟。王捨邪道，遵崇正法。

He moun­ted the seat of dis­cus­sion and the heretical [śāstra mas­ter] re­cited his book in a rhythmic voice, brought out all the es­sen­tials of his work, and waited for a re­fut­a­tion. Dharmapāla listened to his re­cit­a­tion and said with a smile, “I have won. Shall I re­cite your book back­ward, or shall I re­cite it with the phrases trans­posed in or­der?” The heretic was dis­mayed and said, “You should not be self-im­port­ant. One who can frilly un­der­stand the mean­ings of my book is the win­ner. First re­cite it in its proper se­quence and then give an ex­plan­a­tion of the text.” Dharmapāla then im­it­ated the heretic’s rhythmic voice, re­cited the text, and ex­pounded the mean­ings of its con­tents, with no fault either in phras­eo­logy or in prin­ciples, nor was there any de­vi­ation in the in­ton­a­tion. After hear­ing this, the heretic made ready to cut off his tongue. Dharmapāla said to him, “Cut­ting off your tongue is not a way to amend your­self. Real re­pent­ance is to cor­rect your [wrongly] grasped opin­ions.” He preached the Dharma to the heretic, who began to have faith in it and un­der­stand its mean­ings. The king gave up the er­ro­neous way and em­braced the Dharma in ad­or­a­tion.

[0898c06] 護法伏外道側，有窣堵波，無憂王所建也，基雖傾陷，尚高二百餘尺。是如來昔於此處六月說法。傍有經行之迹及髮、爪窣堵波。自此北行百七八十里，至鞞索(山格反)迦國(中印度境)。

Be­side the place where Dharmapāla sub­dued the heretic is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Though the found­a­tions have col­lapsed it is still more than two hun­dred feet high. Formerly the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for six months at this place. Be­side it is a place where [he] walked up and down and a stupa con­tain­ing his hair and nail rel­ics.

[0898c10] 鞞索迦°國，周四千餘里。國大都城周十六里。穀稼殷盛，華果具繁。氣序和暢，風俗淳質。好學不倦，求福不回°。伽藍二十餘所，僧眾三千餘人，並學小乘正量部法。天祠五十餘所，外道甚多。

Go­ing north­ward from here for one hun­dred sev­enty or eighty li, I reached the coun­try of Viṣaka (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Viṣaka is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is six­teen li in cir­cuit. It abounds in cer­eal crops and yields plenty of flowers and fruit. The cli­mate is mod­er­ate and the people are sin­cere and hon­est by cus­tom. They are fond of learn­ing without get­ting tired and they never re­gress in per­form­ing good deeds. There are more than twenty mon­as­ter­ies with over three thou­sand monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya sect of the Hinay­ana school. There are over fifty deva temples with a great many heretics.

[0898c15] 城南道左，有大伽藍。昔提婆設摩阿羅漢於此造《識身論》，說無我人；瞿波阿羅漢作《聖教要實論》，說有我人。因此法執，遂深諍論。又是護法菩薩於此七日中摧伏小乘一百論師。伽藍側有窣堵波，高二百餘尺，無憂王所建也。如來昔日，六年於此說法導化。說法側有奇樹，高六七尺，春秋遞代，常無增減。是如來昔嘗淨齒，棄其遺枝，因植根柢，繁茂至今。諸邪見人及外道眾競來殘伐，尋生如故。其側不遠，有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。復有如來髮、爪窣堵波。靈基連隅，林沼交映。

To the south of the city there is a large mon­as­tery on the left side of the road in which the ar­hat Devaśar­man com­posed the Vijñānakāya-śāstra to ad­voc­ate the the­ory of the non-self in the hu­man body, while the ar­hat Gopa wrote the Treat­ise on the Es­sen­tial Truth of the Holy Teach­ings (Sheng jiao yao shi hm) to main­tain the doc­trine of the ex­ist­ence of the self in the hu­man body. These in­com­pat­ible views about the Dharma caused much con­tro­versy. It was also in this mon­as­tery that Dharmapāla Bod­hisat­tva sub­dued one hun­dred Hinay­ana śāstra mas­ters in seven days. Be­side the mon­as­tery is a stupa more than two hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. Formerly the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for six years at this place to edify the people. There is a mar­velous tree, about six or seven feet tall, which neither sprouts leaves in spring­time nor with­ers in au­tumn. Formerly the Tathāgata cast down a tooth twig he had used for clean­ing his teeth, which took root and grew into the lux­uri­ant tree that it there now. People hold­ing het­ero­dox views and heretics have tried to cut the tree down but it grows back as be­fore. Not far away from the tree are places where the four past buddhas used to sit and walk up and down, and there is also a stupa con­tain­ing the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics. The found­a­tions of the holy sites are con­nec­ted with one an­other in a wood with ponds, in which the shapes of the trees are re­flec­ted.

[0898c26] 從此東北行五百餘里，至室羅伐悉底國(舊曰舍衛，訛也。中印度境)。

Go­ing from here to the north­east for over five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Śrāvastī (formerly known as She­wei er­ro­neously, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第五

End of Fas­cicle V of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第六(四國)

Fas­cicle VI: Four Coun­tries, from Srāvastī to Kuśin­agara

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

室羅伐悉底國

1. The Coun­try of Srāvastī

劫比羅伐窣堵國

2. The Coun­try of Kapil­avastu

藍摩國

3. The Coun­try of Rāma[grāma]

拘尸那揭羅國

4. The Coun­try of Kuśin­agara

[0899a08] 室羅伐悉底國，周六千餘里。都城荒頓，疆場無紀。宮城故基周二十餘里，雖多荒圮，尚有居人。穀稼豐，氣序和。風俗淳質，篤學好福。伽藍數百，圮°壞良多，僧徒寡少，學正量部。天祠百所，外道甚多。

The coun­try of Śrāvastī is over six thou­sand li in cir­cuit. Its cap­ital city is in des­ol­a­tion and there is noth­ing to mark its bound­ar­ies. The old found­a­tions of the palace city are more than twenty li in cir­cuit. Al­though mostly in ru­ins it is still in­hab­ited. It abounds in cer­eal crops and the cli­mate is tem­per­ate. The people are sin­cere and hon­est by cus­tom, di­li­gent in study, and like to per­form mer­it­ori­ous deeds. There are sev­eral hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies, most of which are dilap­id­ated, with few monks who are fol­low­ers of the Saṃmitīya school. Deva temples amount to a hun­dred and they have many heretics.

[0899a12] 此則如來在世之時，鉢邏犀那恃多王(唐言勝軍。舊曰波斯匿，訛略也)所治國都也。故宮城內有故基，勝軍王殿餘趾也。次東不遠，有一故基，上建小窣堵波，昔勝軍王為如來所建大法堂也。[0899a17] 法堂側不遠，故基上有窣堵波，是佛姨母鉢邏闍鉢底(唐言生主。舊云波闍波提，訛也)苾芻尼精舍，勝軍王之所建立。次東窣堵波，是蘇達多(唐言善施。舊曰須達，訛也)故宅也。

This was the cap­ital of the coun­try ruled by King Prasenajit (known as Shengjun, “Vic­tori­ous Army,” formerly called Bosini er­ro­neously in ab­bre­vi­ation) when the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world. The old found­a­tions in the palace city are the rem­nant bases of King Prasenajit’s palace. Not far to the east is an­other old found­a­tion, on which a small stupa has been built to mark the site of the Great Dharma Hall con­struc­ted by King Prasenajit for the Tathāgata in olden times. Not far from the Dharma Hall a stupa was built on the old found­a­tions of the temple of the Buddha’s ma­ter­nal aunt, Pra­jāpatī (known as Sheng­zhu, “Pro­tectress of Creatures,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Boshe-boti) Bhikṣuṇī, con­struc­ted for her by King Prasenajit. Next to the east, a stupa marks the site of the old res­id­ence of Su­datta (known as Shan­shi, “Good Alms­giver,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Xuda).

[0899a21] 善施長者宅側有大窣堵波，是鴦窶利摩羅(唐言指鬘。舊曰央掘摩羅，訛也)捨邪之處，鴦窶利摩羅者，室羅伐悉底之凶人也。作害生靈，為暴城國，殺人取指，冠首為鬘。將欲害母，以充指數。世尊悲愍，方行導化。遙見世尊，竊自喜曰：「我今生天必矣。先師有教，遺言在茲，害佛殺母，當生梵天。」謂其母曰：「老今且止，先當害彼大沙門。」尋即杖劍往逆世尊。如來於是徐行而退，凶人指鬘疾驅不逮。世尊謂曰：「何守鄙志，捨善本，激惡源？」時指鬘聞誨，悟所行非，因即歸命，求入法中，精勤不怠，證羅漢果。

Be­side the res­id­ence of Su­datta is a great stupa built at the spot where Aṅgulimāla (known as Zhi­man, “Chap­let of Fin­ger Bones,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Yangjue­moluo) gave up his evil ways. Aṅgulimāla was a wicked man of Śrāvastī who harmed liv­ing be­ings and com­mit­ted at­ro­cit­ies in the city and through­out the coun­try. He murdered people in or­der to col­lect their fin­ger bones to make a mala. Just as he was about to kill his mother to get her fin­ger bone to com­plete the num­ber of bones re­quired for the mala, the World-honored One, with a mind of com­pas­sion, was mak­ing a tour of edi­fic­a­tion. See­ing the World-honored One from a dis­tance, Aṅgulimāla felt glad and thought, “I am sure to be re­born in the heav­ens, as my late teacher taught me that any­one who hurts the Buddha and kills his own mother will be re­born in Brahma Heaven.” He said to his mother, “Old lady, you may stay here for a while. I will go kill that great śramaṇa first.” Say­ing this, he wiel­ded a sword and went to meet the World-honored One. As the Tathāgata slowly re­treated the wicked Aṅgulimāla could not catch up with him, even though he walked very fast. The World-honored One said to him, “Why do you hold on to your ig­noble ideas? You have aban­doned the root of good­ness and aroused the source of wicked­ness.” On hear­ing this ad­mon­i­tion Aṅgulimāla be­came aware that his be­ha­vior was wrong. He took refuge [in the Buddha] and sought to learn the Dharma and, as he stud­ied di­li­gently, he at­tained ar­hat­ship.

[0899b04] 城南五六里，有逝多林(唐言勝林。舊曰祇陀，訛也)，是給孤獨園。勝軍王大臣善施為佛建精舍，昔為伽藍，今已荒廢。東門左右各建石柱，高七十餘尺，左柱鏤輪相於其端，右柱刻牛形於其上，並無憂王之所建也。室宇傾圮°，唯餘故基，獨一甎室巋然獨在，中有佛像。昔者如來昇三十三天，為母說法之後，勝軍王聞出愛王刻檀像佛，乃造此像。

Five or six li to the south of the city is Jetavana (known as Shenglin, “Vic­tor’s Wood,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Qituo), the garden of An­āthap­iṇdika, where King Prasenajit’s min­is­ter Su­datta con­struc­ted a temple for the Buddha. In the old days it was a mon­as­tery but now it lies in ru­ins. There are two stone pil­lars over sev­enty feet high, one at each side of the east gate. On top of the left pil­lar a wheel sign is carved, and a fig­ure of a bull is en­graved on top of the right pil­lar. Both pil­lars were erec­ted by King Aśoka. The build­ings are dilap­id­ated and only the re­mains of the old found­a­tions still stand, with the ex­cep­tion of a brick cham­ber that stands alone. In this cham­ber there is an im­age of the Buddha. After the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for his mother in Trāy­astrimśa Heaven, King Prasenajit made this im­age, after hear­ing that King Uday­ana had carved a san­dal­wood im­age of the Buddha.

善施長者仁而聰敏，積而能散，拯乏濟貧，哀孤恤老，時美其德，號給孤獨焉。聞佛功德，深生尊敬，願建精舍，請佛降臨。世尊命舍利子隨瞻揆焉，唯太子逝多園地爽塏。尋詣太子，具以情告。太子戲言：「金遍乃賣。」

Elder Su­datta was a kind and in­tel­li­gent man who knew how to ac­cu­mu­late wealth and how to spend money to help the poor and needy and provide alms to kin­less and aged people. In praise of his vir­tue the people of his time called him An­āthap­iṇdika (“Giver of Alms to the Poor and Help­less”). Hear­ing about the Buddha’s vir­tues, he cher­ished a deep ad­or­a­tion for him and wished to build a temple to which to in­vite the Buddha. The World-honored One sent Sāri­putra to go [with Su­datta] to sur­vey the loc­a­tion, and they found that only Prince Jeta’s garden was a suit­ably high and dry site. They went to see the prince and told him their in­ten­tion. The prince said in jest, “I will sell my garden for as many pieces of gold as it takes to com­pletely cover the ground!”

善施聞之，心豁如也，即出藏金，隨言布地。有少未滿，太子請留，曰：「佛誠良田，宜植善種。」即於空地，建立精舍。世尊即之，告阿難曰：「園地善施所買，林樹逝多所施，二人同心，式崇功業。自今已去，應謂此地為逝多林給孤獨園。」

On hear­ing this, Su­datta was ex­hil­ar­ated and took gold coins from his treas­ury to pave the ground of the garden, as Prince Jeta had sug­ges­ted. When only a small por­tion of the land re­mained un­covered the prince begged to re­tain it for him­self, say­ing, “The Buddha is really like a plot of good land and I too should sow good seeds in it.” He built a temple on the re­main­ing por­tion of the ground. The World-honored One went there and said to Ān­anda, “As the ground of the garden has been pur­chased by Su­datta and the trees have been given by Prince Jeta, these two have the same pur­pose in mind and their mer­its should be equally es­teemed. Hence­for­ward this place should be called the Garden of Jetavana-An­āthap­iṇdika.”

[0899b23] 給孤獨園東北有窣堵波，是如來洗病苾芻處。昔如來之在世也，有病苾芻，含苦獨處。世尊見而問曰：「汝何所苦？汝何獨居？」曰：「我性疎嬾，不耐看病，故今嬰疾，無人瞻視。」如來是時愍而告曰：「善男子，我今看汝。」以手拊摩，病苦皆愈。扶出戶外，更易敷蓐，親為盥洗，改著新衣。佛語苾芻：「當自勤勵。」聞誨感恩，心悅身豫。

To the north­east of the Garden of An­āthap­iṇdika is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata once bathed a sick bhikṣu. Once, when the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world, there was a sick bhikṣu, suf­fer­ing from pain, who lived alone in solitude. See­ing him, the World-honored One asked, “What is your mal­ady and why are you liv­ing alone?” The bhikṣu said in reply, “I am in­dol­ent by nature and can­not en­dure med­ical treat­ment. That is why I am sick and without any­one to at­tend me.” With a mind of com­pas­sion the Tathāgata said to him, “Good man, now I am here to at­tend you.” Say­ing this, he stroked the sick bhikṣu with his hand, com­pletely cur­ing him, and then helped then bhikṣu to go out through the door. The Buddha then changed the bhikṣu’s bed­ding, bathed him, and dressed him in new clothes. The Buddha said to him, “You should al­ways be di­li­gent and ex­ert your­self.” Hear­ing this in­struc­tion, the bhikṣu felt grate­ful and was happy in mind and com­fort­able in body.

[0899c02] 給孤獨園西北有小窣堵波，是沒特伽羅子運神通力舉舍利子衣帶不動之處。昔佛在無熱惱池，人、天咸集，唯舍利子不時從會。佛命沒特伽羅往召來集。沒特伽羅承命而往，舍利子補護法衣。沒特伽羅曰：「世尊今在無熱惱池，命我召爾。」舍利子曰：「且止，須我補竟，與子偕行。」沒特伽羅曰：「若不速行，欲運神力，舉爾石室至大會所。」舍利子乃解衣帶置地，曰：「若舉此帶，我身或動。」時沒特伽羅運大神通，舉帶不動，地為之震。因以神足還詣佛所，見舍利子已在會坐。沒特伽羅俛而歎曰：「乃今以知，神通之力不如智慧之力矣。」

To the north­w­est of the Garden of An­āthap­iṇdika is a small stupa at the place where Maudgalyāy­ana could not lift the belt of Sāri­putra’s robe with his su­per­nat­ural powers. The Buddha was once at Anavata­pta Lake with a con­greg­a­tion of hu­man and heav­enly be­ings. Only Sāri­putra was ab­sent from the meet­ing and the Buddha asked Maudgalyāy­ana to sum­mon him to the con­greg­a­tion. When Maudgalyāy­ana went by the Buddha’s or­der to the place of Sāri­putra, the lat­ter was mend­ing his cler­ical robe. Maudgalyāy­ana said to him, ‘‘The World-honored One is now at Anavata­pta Lake and has ordered me to sum­mon you.” Śāri­putra said, “Wait a mo­ment. When I have fin­ished mend­ing my robe I will go with you.” Maudgalyāy­ana said, “If you do not go with me im­me­di­ately I will ex­er­cise my su­per­nat­ural powers and carry you and your rock cham­ber to the con­greg­a­tion!” Sāri­putra then un­tied his belt and put it on the ground, say­ing, “If you can pick up my belt I will go with you im­me­di­ately.” Maudgalyāy­ana ex­er­cised his great su­per­nat­ural powers but he could not pick the belt up, even though his strength caused an earth­quake. Then he re­turned to the Buddha through the air by the power of his ma­gic feet and found that Sāri­putra was already seated in the con­greg­a­tion. Maudgalyāy­ana re­marked with a sigh, “Now I have real­ized that the power of di­vine cap­ab­il­it­ies is in­ferior to that of tran­scend­ental wis­dom.”

[0899c15] 舉帶窣堵波側不遠，有井。如來在世，汲充佛用。其側有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，中有如來舍利。經行之迹，說法之處，並樹旌表，建窣堵波。冥祇警衛，靈瑞間起，或鼓天樂，或聞神香，景福之祥，難以備敘。

Not far from the stupa of belt-lift­ing is a well from which wa­ter was drawn for the Tathāgata’s use when he was liv­ing in the world. Be­side it is an­other stupa built by King Aśoka, in which are pre­served the rel­ics of the Tathāgata. In­dic­at­ive em­blems were raised and stu­pas con­struc­ted at the sites where he walked up and down and preached the Dharma. All of these places are pro­tec­ted by deit­ies, who oc­ca­sion­ally show spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions in the form of ce­les­tial mu­sic or di­vine fra­grance. Other aus­pi­cious signs of great blessed­ness are dif­fi­cult for me to re­late in de­tail.

[0899c20] 伽藍後不遠，是外道梵志殺婬女以謗佛處。如來十力無畏，一切種智，人、天宗仰，聖賢遵奉。時諸外道共相議曰：「宜行詭詐，眾中謗辱。」乃誘雇婬女，詐為聽法，眾所知已，密而殺之，埋屍樹側，稱怨告王。王命求訪，於逝多園得其屍焉。是時外道高聲唱言：「喬答摩大沙門常稱戒忍，今私此女，殺而滅口。既婬既殺，何戒何忍？」諸天空中隨聲唱曰：「外道凶人為此謗耳。」

Not far be­hind the mon­as­tery is the place where some young brahmanical stu­dents killed a pros­ti­tute in or­der to slander the Buddha. The Tathāgata was in pos­ses­sion of the ten powers as well as fear­less­ness and om­ni­scient wis­dom, and he was honored by hu­man and heav­enly be­ings and re­spec­ted by saints and sages. The heretics dis­cussed the mat­ter to­gether, say­ing, “We should con­trive a de­vi­ous scheme to slander and pub­licly in­sult him.” Then they hired a pros­ti­tute to pre­tend to be a hearer of the Dharma. After she had be­came known as such to all, the heretics killed her in secret, bur­ied the corpse be­side a tree, and ap­pealed to the king for re­dress. The king ordered an in­vest­ig­a­tion and dis­covered the corpse in Jetavana Garden. The heretics ex­claimed, “The great śramaṇa Gautama of­ten preached dis­cip­lin­ary rules and chastity. But now he has had il­li­cit in­ter­course with this wo­man and killed her in or­der to shut her up. He has vi­ol­ated the rules against un­chastity and killing. What dis­cip­lin­ary rules and aus­ter­it­ies has he prac­ticed?” At that mo­ment heav­enly be­ings in the air cried out, “The wicked heretics are merely mak­ing up a slander!”

[0899c29] 伽藍東百餘步，有大深坑，是提婆達多欲以毒藥害佛，生身陷入地獄處。提婆達多(唐言天授)，斛飯王之子也。精勤十二年，已誦持八萬法藏。後為利故，求學神通，親近惡友，共相議曰：「我相三十，減佛未幾；大眾圍繞，何異如來？」思惟是已，即事破僧。舍利子、沒特伽羅子奉佛指告，承佛威神，說法誨喻，僧復和合。提婆達多惡心不捨，以惡毒藥置指爪中，欲因作禮，以傷害佛。方行此謀，自遠而來，至於此也，地遂坼焉，生陷地獄。

More than a hun­dred paces to the east of the mon­as­tery there is a large and deep pit, which was the place where Devad­atta, who in­ten­ded to poison the Buddha, fell into hell alive. Devad­atta (known as Tian­shou, “Given by Heaven”) was the son of King Droṇodana. Through twelve years’ study with zeal­ous per­sever­ance he mastered all the eighty thou­sand Dharma pi­fa­kas. Af­ter­ward he sought to learn su­per­nat­ural powers for the sake of gain­ing ma­ter­ial ad­vant­age and he as­so­ci­ated with evil friends, to whom he said in a dis­cus­sion, “I have as many as thirty of the phys­ical marks of a great per­son, al­most as many as the Buddha [who had thirty-two], and I also have a great fol­low­ing sur­round­ing me. What is the dif­fer­ence between me and the Tathā- gata?” With this thought in mind, he caused a schism in the com­munity of monks. By the Buddha’s or­der and with the aid of his spir­itual power, Śāri­putra and Maudgalyāy­ana preached the Dharma and ex­hor­ted the monks who had gone astray to re­turn to the har­mo­ni­ous com­munity of monks. But Devad­atta did not re­lin­quish his evil mind and put poison on his fin­ger­nails, in­tend­ing to harm the Buddha when he went to pay homage to him. He came from a great dis­tance to carry out his plot but when he reached this spot the earth cracked open and he fell into hell alive.

[0900a10] 其南復有大坑，瞿伽梨苾芻毀謗如來，生身陷入地獄。

To the south of the pit is an­other one, which was the place where Kokā­lika Bhikṣu fell into hell alive be­cause he had slandered the Buddha.

[0900a11] 瞿伽梨陷坑南八百餘步，有大深坑，是戰遮婆羅門女毀謗如來，生身陷入地獄之處。佛為人、天說諸法要，有外道弟子，遙見世尊大眾恭敬，便自念曰：「要於今日辱喬答摩，敗其善譽，當令我師獨擅芳聲。」乃懷繫木盂，至給孤獨園，於大眾中揚聲唱曰：「此說法人與我私通，腹中之子乃釋種也。」邪見者莫不信然，貞固者知為訕謗。時天帝釋欲除疑故，化為白鼠，齧斷盂系，系斷之聲震動大眾，凡諸見聞增深喜悅。眾中一人起持木盂，示彼女曰：「是汝兒耶？」是時也，地自開坼，全身墜陷，入無間獄，具受其殃。

More than eight hun­dred paces to the south of the pit of Kokā­lika there is an­other large and deep pit, which was the place where the brah­man wo­man Ciñcā fell into hell alive be­cause she had slandered the Buddha. Once, when the Buddha was preach­ing the es­sen­tials of the Dharma to hu­man and heav­enly be­ings, a [wo­man] dis­ciple of a heretical re­li­gion saw him from a dis­tance in the as­sembly of re­spect­ful people. [The wo­man] thought, “Today I must in­sult Gautama to spoil his fame so that only my teacher will en­joy a good repu­ta­tion.” She hid a wooden basin in­side her clothes and came to An­āthap­iṇdika Garden, where she de­clared aloud in the as­sembly, “This preacher had il­li­cit in­ter­course with me and the child in my womb is a Śākya!” The heretics be­lieved in her words but the staunch fol­low­ers of the Buddha knew that she was com­mit­ting slander. At that mo­ment In­dra, wish­ing to clear up their doubts, trans­formed him­self into a white rat and gnawed through the cord that bound the basin, which dropped down with a thud and startled the as­sembly. All those who wit­nessed this event were greatly de­lighted. A man in the as­sembly picked up the wooden basin and showed it to the wo­man, say­ing, “Is this your child?” At that time the earth cracked open and the wo­man fell alive into the hell of un­in­ter­rup­ted pain to suf­fer re­tri­bu­tion.

凡此三坑，洞無涯底，秋夏霖雨，溝池泛溢，而此深坑，嘗無水止。

All these three pits are bot­tom­less and dur­ing the au­tumn and sum­mer sea­sons, when tor­ren­tial rains in­und­ate the ditches and pools, wa­ter never col­lects in them.

[0900a25] 伽藍東六七十步，有一精舍，高六十餘尺，中有佛像，東面而坐。如來在昔，於此與諸外道論議。次東有天祠，量等精舍。日旦流光，天祠之影不蔽精舍；日將落照，精舍之陰遂覆天祠。

Sixty or sev­enty paces to the east of the mon­as­tery is a temple over sixty feet high, in which there is an im­age of the seated Buddha fa­cing to­ward the east. The Tathāgata once held a dis­cus­sion with the heretics at this place. Fur­ther to the east is a deva temple, of the same size as the Buddhist temple. At sun­rise the shadow of the deva temple does not fall on the Buddhist temple, but at sun­set the shadow of the Buddhist temple cov­ers the deva temple.

[0900b01] 影覆精舍東三四里，有窣堵波，是尊者舍利子與外道論議處。初，善施長者買逝多太子園，欲為如來建立精舍。時尊者舍利子隨長者而瞻揆，外道六師求角神力，舍利子隨事攝化，應物降伏。[0900b05] 其側精舍前建窣堵波，如來於此摧諸外道，又受毘舍佉母請。

Three or four li to the east of the over­shad­ow­ing temple is a stupa built at the place where Ven­er­able Sāri­putra had a dis­cus­sion with the heretics. At the time Elder Su­datta first pur­chased Prince Jeta’s garden with the in­ten­tion of build­ing a temple for the Tathāgata, Ven­er­able Sāri­putra went to­gether with the elder to make a sur­vey of the plot. The teach­ers of the six heretical schools chal­lenged him to a con­test in demon­strat­ing su­per­nat­ural powers. Act­ing ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances in car­ry­ing out edi­fic­a­tion, Sāri­putra sub­dued the heretics in con­form­ity with their propensit­ies. In front of the temple and be­side the [Śāri­putra] stupa there is an­other stupa built at the spot where the Tathāgata de­feated vari­ous heretics [in de­bate] and also ac­cep­ted the in­vit­a­tion of Mother Viśākhā.

[0900b08] 受請窣堵波南，是毘盧釋迦王(舊曰毘琉離主，訛也)興甲兵誅釋種，至此見佛歸兵之處。毘盧釋迦王嗣位之後，追怨前辱，興甲兵，動大眾，部署已畢，申命方行。時有苾芻聞以白佛，世尊於是坐枯樹下。毘盧釋迦王遙見世尊，下乘禮敬，退立言曰：「茂樹扶疎，何故不坐？枯株朽櫱，而乃遊止？」世尊告曰：「宗族者，枝葉也。枝葉將危，庇蔭何在？」王曰：「世尊為宗親耳，可以迴駕。」於是覩聖感懷，還軍返國。

To the south of the stupa of ac­cept­ing the in­vit­a­tion is the place where King Virūd­haka (formerly known as “Lord of Pili­uli” er­ro­neously), on his way to in­vade the Sākyas, saw the Buddha and turned back his army. After as­cend­ing the throne King Virūd­haka raised an army and mo­bil­ized his people to avenge a former in­sult. When his troops were de­ployed he ordered them to march. A bhikṣu got wind of this and in­formed the Buddha about it. The World-honored One then went to sit un­der a withered tree. When King Virūd­haka saw the World-honored One from a dis­tance, he dis­moun­ted to wor­ship him and stood to one side, ask­ing, “Why do you not sit un­der a tree with lux­uri­ant branches and rich fo­liage, but in­stead stay un­der this tree with dead branches and withered leaves?” The World-honored One said in reply, “My clans­men are like branches and leaves to me. Now that they are in danger where can I find shel­ter?” The king re­marked, “The World-honored One is speak­ing for his clanspeople. I should go back.” He looked at the Buddha and, moved by his com­pas­sion, he re­called his army.

[0900b18] 還軍之側，有窣堵波，是釋女被戮處。毘盧釋迦王誅釋克勝，簡五百女，充實宮闈。釋女憤恚，怨言不遜，詈其王：「家人之子也。」王聞發怒，命令誅戮。執法者奉王教，刖其手足，投諸阬阱。時諸釋女含苦稱佛，世尊聖鑒，照其苦毒，告命苾芻，攝衣而往，為諸釋女說微妙法，所謂羈纏五欲，流轉三途，恩愛別離，生死長遠。時諸釋女聞佛指誨，遠塵離垢，得法眼淨，同時命終，俱生天上。時天帝釋化作婆羅門，收骸火葬，後人記焉。

Near the place of with­draw­ing troops is a stupa mark­ing the spot where the Sākya maid­ens were slaughtered. After King Virūd­haka won the battle against the Śākyas he se­lec­ted five hun­dred Sākya maid­ens for his harem. The Sākya maid­ens in­dig­nantly uttered re­sent­ful words and in­solently dis­paraged the king as the son of a slave. When the king heard about this he was en­raged and ordered that the Sākya maid­ens be slaughtered. By the king’s or­der the ex­e­cu­tion­ers severed [the wo­men’s] hands and feet and threw them into a pit. The Sākya maid­ens, suf­fer­ing bit­ter pain, called on the Buddha. The World-honored One saw the sad plight of the maid­ens with his eye of dis­cem­men, and ordered a bhikṣu to send some clothes to the maid­ens. He then went to preach the won­der­ful Dharma to them, such as the bond­age of the five de­sires, the three ways of trans­mi­gra­tion, and the long and dis­tant course of re­birth with the pain of sep­ar­a­tion from loved ones. On hear­ing the Buddha’s teach­ings the Śākya maid­ens got rid of de­file­ments and gained the pure eye of the Dharma. They all died at the same time and were re­born in heaven. In­dra ap­peared as a brah­man and had their bod­ies col­lec­ted and cremated. People of later times re­cor­ded this event.

[0900b29] 誅釋窣堵波側不遠，有大涸池，是毘盧釋迦王陷身入地獄處。世尊觀釋女已，還給孤獨園，告諸苾芻，今毘盧釋迦王却後七日，為火所燒。王聞佛記，甚懷惶懼。至第七日，安樂無危。王用歡慶，命諸宮女往至河側，娛遊樂飲。猶懼火起，鼓棹清流，隨波泛濫。熾焰飈發，焚輕舟，墜王身，入無間獄，備受諸苦。

Not far from the stupa of the slaughter of the Sākya maid­ens is a large dried-up pool where King Virūd­haka fell into hell. After vis­it­ing the Sākya maid­ens the World-honored One re­turned to An­āthap­iṇdika Garden and told the bhikṣus, “ King Virūd­haka will be burned to death after seven days.” Hear­ing the Buddha’s pre­dic­tion, the king be­came very frightened. [But] on the sev­enth day the king was as happy as ever and had no [feel­ing of] danger. To cel­eb­rate, he ordered the ladies of his harem to ac­com­pany him on an out­ing to the river­side for mer­ry­mak­ing. But he still feared that a fire might oc­cur, so he sailed in a boat and drif­ted with the waves of the river. A blaz­ing fire sud­denly broke out and burned the light boat and the king was thrown alive into the hell of un­in­ter­rup­ted tor­ture.

[0900c08] 伽藍西北三四里，至得眼林。有如來經行之迹，諸聖習定之所，並樹封記，建窣堵波。

Go­ing three or four li to the north­w­est of the mon­as­tery I reached the Wood of Re­gain­ing Eyes. There are places where the Tathāgata walked up and down and vari­ous saints prac­ticed med­it­a­tion and stu­pas were built to mark the sites.

昔此國群盜五百，橫行邑里，跋扈城國。勝軍王捕獲已，抉去其眼，棄於深林。群盜苦逼，求哀稱佛。是時如來在逝多精舍，聞悲聲，起慈心，清風和暢，吹雪山藥，滿其眼已，尋得復明。而見世尊在其前住，發菩提心，歡喜頂禮，投杖而去，因植根焉。

In this coun­try there was a band of five hun­dred brig­ands that ran amok in the vil­lages and plundered the cit­ies. King Prasenajit ar­res­ted them, put out their eyes, and threw them into a great forest. Suf­fer­ing the pain­ful tor­ture of this pun­ish­ment, the ban­dits sor­row­fully called on the Buddha. The Tathāgata was at Jetavana Temple, and he heard their pi­ti­ful voices and had com­pas­sion on them. A cool­ing breeze blew mildly and waf­ted some medi­cine down from the Snow Moun­tains, which filled their eyes and they re­covered their eye­sight. On see­ing the World-honored One stand­ing be­fore them they cher­ished the mind of en­light­en­ment (bod­h­i­citta), wor­shiped him with hap­pi­ness, and de­par­ted after throw­ing down their staves, which then took root in the ground.

[0900c16] 大城西北六十餘里，有故城，是賢劫中人壽二萬歲時，迦葉波佛本生城也。城南有窣堵波，成正覺已初見父處。城北有窣堵波，有迦葉波佛全身舍利。並無憂王所建也。

More than sixty li to the north­w­est of the great city is an an­cient city that was the birth­place of Kāśyapa Buddha, who was born in the bhad­rakalpa (period of vir­tue) at the time when the hu­man life span was twenty thou­sand years. To the south of the city is a stupa mark­ing the spot where he first met his father after hav­ing real­ized full en­light­en­ment. The stupa to the north of the city con­tains the en­tire body of Kāśyapa Buddha and all of these stu­pas were erec­ted by King Aśoka.

[0900c20] 從此東南行五百餘里，至劫比羅伐窣堵國(舊曰迦羅衛國，訛。中印度境)。[0900c22] 劫比羅伐窣堵國，周四千餘里。空城十數，荒蕪已甚。王城頹圮°，周量不詳。其內宮城周十四五里，壘甎而成，基跡峻固。空荒久遠，人里稀曠。無大君長，城各立主。土地良沃，稼穡時播。氣序無愆，風俗和暢。伽藍故基千有餘所，而宮城之側有一伽藍，僧徒三千餘人，習學小乘正量部教。天祠兩所，異道雜居。

Go­ing from here to the south­east for over five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Kapil­avastu (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Ji­aluo­wei, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Kapil­avastu is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and there are two palace cit­ies, which are com­pletely deser­ted. The wall of the royal city is dilap­id­ated and its cir­cum­fer­ence is un­known. The in­ner palace city is four­teen or fif­teen li in cir­cuit and its wall is built of bricks; the found­a­tion is thick and strong. The coun­try has been deser­ted for a long time and is sparsely pop­u­lated. There is no grand ruler and each city has its own lord. The soil is rich and crops are sown and reaped in sea­son. The cli­mate is never ab­nor­mal and the people are gen­ial by cus­tom. There are more than one thou­sand mined found­a­tions of old mon­as­ter­ies and be­side the palace city is a mon­as­tery in­hab­ited by over three thou­sand monks, who study the Hinay­ana teach­ings of the Saṃmitīya school. There are two deva temples, with heretics liv­ing to­gether.

[0901a01] 宮城內有故基，淨飯王正殿也。上建精舍，中作王像。其側不遠有故基，摩訶摩耶(唐言大術)夫人寢殿也。上建精舍，中作夫人之像。

In­side the palace city is the old found­a­tion of the main audi­ence hall of King Suddhodana. A statue of the king is placed in a shrine built on the old found­a­tion. Not far from this is the old found­a­tion of Lady Mahāmāyā’s bed­cham­ber. A statue of the lady is kept in a shrine built on the old found­a­tion.

其側精舍，是釋迦菩薩降神母胎處，中作菩薩降神之像。上座部菩薩以嗢呾羅頞沙荼月三十日夜降神母胎，當此五月十五日；

Be­side it is an­other shrine, mark­ing the place where Sākya Bod­hisat­tva’s spirit des­cen­ded to in­carn­ate in his mother’s womb, and in this shrine there is a like­ness de­pict­ing the Bod­hisat­tva’s spirit [en­ter­ing his mother’s womb]. Ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion of the Sthavira sect, the Bod­hisat­tva’s spirit entered his mother’s womb on the night of the thir­ti­eth day of the month of Ut­tarā-Āṣādhā, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the fifth month in our coun­try.

諸部則以此月二十三日夜降母胎，當此五月八日。

The tra­di­tion of the other sects holds that this event took place on the night of the twenty-third day of that month, cor­res­pond­ing to the eighth day of the fifth month in our land.

菩薩降神東北，有窣堵波，阿私多仙相太子處。

To the north­east of the place of the des­cent of the Bod­hisat­tva’s spirit there is a stupa mark­ing the place where the rṣi As­ita read the prince’s physiognomy.

菩薩誕靈之日，嘉祥輻湊。時淨飯王召諸相師而告之曰：「此子生也，善惡何若？宜悉乃正，明言以對。」曰：「依先聖之記，考吉祥之應，在家作轉輪聖王，捨家當成等正覺。」是時阿私多仙自遠而至，叩門請見。王甚慶悅，躬迎禮敬，請就寶座，曰：「不意大仙今日降顧。」仙曰：「我在天宮安居宴坐，忽見諸天群從蹈舞，我時問言：『何悅豫之甚也？』曰：『大仙當知，贍部洲中釋種淨飯王第一夫人，今產太子，當證三菩提，圓明一切智。』我聞是語，故來瞻仰。所悲朽耄，不遭聖化。」

On the day when the Bod­hisat­tva was born many for­tu­nate and aus­pi­cious signs ap­peared sim­ul­tan­eously. King Suddhodana summoned vari­ous physiognom­ists and said to them, “Now a son has been born to me. What is his fu­ture, good or evil? Tell me straight in plain words.” They said, “Ac­cord­ing to the re­cords of an­cient sages and the ap­pear­ance of good signs the prince will be a uni­ver­sal mon­arch if he re­mains at home, and if he re­nounces home he will be­come a fully en­lightened per­son.” At that time the ṛṣi As­ita came from a dis­tance and knocked on the door, re­quest­ing an audi­ence. The king, greatly de­lighted, greeted the ṛṣi and paid him due sa­luta­tion. He in­vited the ṛṣi to sit on a pre­cious seat and said to him, “I did not ex­pect that you, Great Ŗṣi, would con­des­cend to fa­vor me with your pres­ence today.” The ṛṣi said, “When I was sit­ting at ease in the heav­enly palace I sud­denly saw the heav­enly be­ings dan­cing for joy. I asked them why they were so ex­hil­ar­ated. They said, ‘We should in­form you, Great Ŗṣi, that the first lady of King Suddhodana of the Sākya clan in Jam­bud­vīpa has given birth to a son today, who will at­tain per­fect en­light­en­ment and om­ni­scient wis­dom.’ Be­cause I have heard this in­form­a­tion, I have come to see him. I re­gret that I am get­ting old and I will not be able to hear his holy teach­ings.”

[0901a21] 城南門有窣堵波，是太子與諸釋角力擲象之處。太子伎藝多能，獨拔倫匹。淨飯大王懷慶將返，僕夫馭象，方欲出城。提婆達多素負強力，自外而入，問馭者曰：「嚴駕此象，其誰欲乘？」曰：「太子將還，故往奉馭。」提婆達多發憤引象，批其顙，蹴其臆，僵仆塞路，杜絕行途，無能轉移，人眾填塞。難陀後至，而問之曰：「誰死此象？」曰：「提婆達多。」即曳之避路。太子至，又問曰：「誰為不善，害此象耶？」曰：「提婆達多害以杜門，難陀引之開徑。」太子乃舉象高擲，越度城塹，其象墮地，為大深阬，土俗相傳為象墮阬也。其側精舍中作太子像。其側又有精舍，太子妃寢宮也，中作耶輸陀羅，并有羅怙羅像。宮側精舍作受業之像，太子學堂故基也。

At the south gate of the city there is a stupa mark­ing the place where the Prince Siddhārtha wrestled with other Śākyas in a con­test and threw an ele­phant [over the city moat]. A ver­sat­ile youth, the prince was peer­less and had no equal. When King Suddhodana [heard that his son] was on his way back home in a cheer­ful mood, he asked his ma­hout to drive an ele­phant out of the city to greet him. Devad­atta, al­ways boast­ful of his strength, was then com­ing into the city and asked the ma­hout, “You have ca­par­isoned the ele­phant nicely; who is go­ing to ride it?” The ma­hout said, “Prince Siddhārtha is com­ing home. I am go­ing out to serve him.” Devad­atta, ir­rit­ated by these words, drew up next to the ele­phant, struck its fore­head, and kicked its ab­do­men. The an­imal fell to the ground and its body ob­struc­ted the road, cre­at­ing a hindrance in the way, but nobody could re­move it. Later, Nanda came and in­quired, “Who killed this ele­phant?” “Devad­atta,” was the reply. Nanda then pulled the dead ele­phant aside to the edge of the road. When the prince ar­rived, he also asked, “Who is so wicked as to have killed this ele­phant?” to which was replied, “It was Devad­atta who killed this ele­phant to block­ade the city gate and Nanda pulled it aside to clear the way.” The prince then lif­ted up the dead ele­phant and flung it across the moat. When the corpse of the ele­phant fell to the ground it made a great pit, called by tra­di­tion the Pit of the Fall­ing Ele­phant. In the shrine be­side the pit is a statue of the prince. An­other shrine be­side it marks the site of the bed­cham­ber of the prince’s con­sort, where statues of Yaśod­harā and Rāhula are kept. In the shrine be­side the palace is a statue [of the prince] in the pos­ture of learn­ing; this was the old site of the prince’s school­room.

[0901b07] 城東南隅有一精舍，中作太子乘白馬凌虛之像，是踰城處也。城四門外各有精舍，中作老、病、死人、沙門之像。是太子遊觀，覩相增懷，深厭塵俗，於此感悟，命僕迴駕。

At the south­east corner of the city there is a shrine in which is a pic­ture of the prince rid­ing on a white horse gal­lop­ing in the air. This is the place where he went out over the city wall. Out­side the four gates of the city, there are four shrines, sep­ar­ately keep­ing the statues of an aged man, a sick man, a dead man, and a śramaṇa. These were the places where the prince wit­nessed on a pleas­ure trip the sor­row­ful sights by which he was moved to dis­gust at worldly life, at which awaken­ing he ordered the driver to turn his car­riage back and head for home.

[0901b11] 城南行五十餘里，至故城，有窣堵波，是賢劫中人壽六萬歲時，迦羅迦村馱佛本生城也。城南不遠有窣堵波，成正覺已見父之處。城東南窣堵波，有彼如來遺身舍利。前建石柱，高三十餘尺，上刻師子之像，傍記寂滅之事，無憂王建焉。

Go­ing south­ward for more than fifty li from the city, I reached an old city with a stupa. This was the natal city of Krak­uc­chanda Buddha at the time of the bhad­rakalpa when the hu­man life span was sixty thou­sand years. Not far to the south is a stupa mark­ing the place where this buddha met his father after at­tain­ing full en­light­en­ment. In­side the stupa at the south­east of the city the re­mains of Krak­uc­chanda are con­tained, and in front of the stupa is a stone pil­lar over thirty feet high with a carving of a lion on top; the events of his nir­vana are in­scribed on its sides. This pil­lar was erec­ted by King Aśoka.

[0901b17] 迦羅迦村馱佛城東北行三十餘里，至故大城，中有窣堵波，是賢劫中人壽四萬歲時，迦諾迦牟尼佛本生城也。東北不遠有窣堵波，成正覺已度父之處。次北窣堵波，有彼如來遺身舍利，前建石柱，高二十餘尺，上刻師子之像，傍記寂滅之事，無憂王建也。

Go­ing north­east for more than thirty li from the city of Krak­uc­chanda Buddha I reached a great an­cient city with a stupa. This was the city where Kana­kamuni Buddha was born in the bhad­rakalpa at the time when the hu­man life span was forty thou­sand years. Not far to the north­east is a stupa mark­ing the place where this buddha con­ver­ted his father after at­tain­ing full en­light­en­ment. Fur­ther to the north is a stupa con­tain­ing Kana­kamuni’s re­mains. In front of the stupa is a stone pil­lar over twenty feet high with the carving of a lion on top; the events of his nir­vana are in­scribed on its sides. This pil­lar was erec­ted by King Aśoka.

[0901b23] 城東北四十餘里，有窣堵波，是太子坐樹陰，觀耕田，於此習定，而得離欲。淨飯王見太子坐樹陰，入寂定，日光逈照，樹影不移，心知靈聖，更深珍敬。

More than forty li to the north­east of the city is a stupa that marks the spot where Prince [Siddhārtha] once sat un­der the shade of a tree, watch­ing farm­ers plow­ing the land, and prac­ticed med­it­a­tion through which he be­came free of the pas­sions. King Śuddhodana saw the prince sit­ting in med­it­a­tion un­der the shade of the tree, and he no­ticed that the shadow of the tree never moved even as the sun­light changed the dir­ec­tion. Re­minded that the prince was a saintly per­son, the king treas­ured and re­spec­ted him all the more.

[0901b27] 大城西北，有數百千窣堵波，釋種誅死處也。毘盧釋迦王既克諸釋，虜其族類，得九千九百九十萬人，並從殺戮，積尸如莾，流血成池。天警人心，收骸瘞葬。

In the north­w­est of the city are hun­dreds and thou­sands of stu­pas built at the place where the Śākyas were slaughtered. After over­com­ing the Śākyas King Virūd­haka cap­tured ninety-nine mil­lion nine hun­dred thou­sand Śākya people and mas­sacred them all. The corpses were piled up like hay­stacks and blood flowed into a pool. The corpses were col­lec­ted and bur­ied amid the panic of heav­enly be­ings and the ter­ror in hu­man minds.

[0901c02] 誅釋西南，有四小窣堵波，四釋種拒軍處。初，勝軍王嗣位也，求婚釋種。釋種鄙其非類，謬以家人之女，重禮娉焉。勝軍王立為正后，其產子男，是為毘盧釋迦王。毘盧釋迦欲就舅氏請益受業，至此城南，見新講堂，即中憩駕。諸釋聞之，逐而詈曰：「卑賤婢子，敢居此室！此室諸釋建也，擬佛居焉。」毘盧釋迦嗣位之後，追復先辱，便興甲兵，至此屯軍。釋種四人躬耕畎畝，便即抗拒，兵寇退散，已而入城。族人以為承輪王之祚胤，為法王之宗子，敢行凶暴，安忍殺害，污辱宗門，絕親遠放。四人被逐，北趣雪山，一為烏仗那國王，一為梵衍那國王，一為呬摩呾羅國王，一為商彌國王，奕世傳業，苗裔不絕。

To the south­w­est of the place where the Śākyas were slaughtered are four small stu­pas built at the spots where four Śākya men res­isted the [in­vad­ing] army. When King Prasenajit first suc­ceeded to the throne he sought a mat­ri­mo­nial al­li­ance with the Śākya clan. The Śākyas des­pised him as someone who was not of the same caste and, with pom­pous ce­re­mony, they de­ceit­fully gave him a slave girl to be his bride. King Prasenajit made the girl his chief queen and their son was King Virūd­haka. Virūd­haka wished to pur­sue his stud­ies un­der the guid­ance of his ma­ter­nal uncle. When he came to the south of the city he saw a new lec­ture hall and went in to take a rest. Hear­ing this, the Śākyas chased him while out chas­tising him, “How dare you, the son of a slave wo­man, stay in this hall?” The hall had been built by the Śākyas for the Buddha’s use. After as­cend­ing the throne, Virūd­haka made up his mind to avenge the pre­vi­ous in­sult and sta­tioned an army at this place. There were four Śākya men there, who were plow­ing the land, and they res­isted and dis­persed the in­vad­ing army. Then the four men entered the city but their clans- people thought that, as the des­cend­ants of a uni­ver­sal mon­arch and the off­spring of a dhar­marāja, should not have dared to com­mit vi­ol­ence and so com­pla­cently kill oth­ers. Be­cause they had blem­ished the clan’s good name they were ex­pelled from the clan and ban­ished, ex­iled to the Snow Moun­tains in the north. One of the four Śākyas be­came the king of Udyāna, one the king of Bāmīyāna, one the king of Hi­matala, and one the king of Shangmi. They handed down their domin­ions to their des­cend­ants from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion without in­ter­rup­tion.

[0901c17] 城南三四里尼拘律樹林，有窣堵波，無憂王建也。釋迦如來成正覺已，還國見父王，為說法處。淨飯王知如來降魔軍已，遊行化導，情懷渴仰，思得禮敬。乃命使請如來曰：「昔期成佛，當還本生。斯言在耳，時來降趾。」使至佛所，具宣王意。如來告曰：「却後七日，當還本生。」使臣還以白王，淨飯王乃告命臣庶，灑掃衢路，儲積華香，與諸群臣四十里外佇駕奉迎。

Three or four li to the south of the city, in a ban­yan wood, is a stupa built by King Aśoka. This was the place where Śākya Tathāgata, re­turn­ing home after hav­ing gained full en­light­en­ment, saw his father and preached the Dharma for him. Know­ing that the Tathāgata had sub­dued the army of Māra, the Evil One, and was trav­el­ing around to edify the people, King Śuddhodana was eager to see him and pay homage to him. So he dis­patched a mes­sen­ger to in­vite the Tathāgata with these words: “Formerly you prom­ised to re­turn to your nat­ive coun­try after be­com­ing a buddha. Your words are still ringing in my ears and it is time now for you to turn your steps to­ward home.” The mes­sen­ger came into the Buddha’s pres­ence and re­lated the king’s mes­sage. The Tathāgata told him, “After seven days I will re­turn to my home coun­try.” The mes­sen­ger re­turned and re­por­ted this mes­sage to the king. So King Śuddhodana ordered his min­is­ters and the people to sprinkle wa­ter and sweep the roads and streets and pre­pare flowers and in­cense ready for use. Ac­com­pan­ied by his min­is­ters, he went out to a dis­tance of forty li to wait for the Buddha’s ar­rival.

是時如來與大眾俱，八金剛周衛，四天王前導，帝釋與欲界天侍左，梵王與色界天侍右，諸苾芻僧列在其後。維佛在眾，如月映星，威神動三界，光明踰七曜，步虛空，至生國。王與從臣禮敬已畢，俱共還國，止尼拘盧陀僧伽藍。

At that time the Tathāgata and his ret­inue of dis­ciples, pro­tec­ted by the eight dia­mond (vajra) guard­i­ans and with the four heav­enly kings as van­guards, with In­dra and the ce­les­tial be­ings of the kāmad­hātu (realm of sen­sual de­sire) at­tend­ing on his left and Brahmā and the ce­les­tial be­ings of the rūpa- dhātu (realm of pure form) at­tend­ing on his right, and with all the bhiksus fol­low­ing be­hind, walked through the air to his home coun­try. In the as­sembly the Buddha was like the moon among the stars; his aus­ter­ity moved all the three realms of the world and his ra­di­ance sur­passed the light of the seven lu­minar­ies. After the king and his min­is­ters had wor­shiped the Buddha they all re­turned to the cap­ital city, and the Buddha stayed at Ban­yan Mon­as­tery.

其側不遠有窣堵波，是如來於大樹下，東面而坐，受姨母金縷袈裟。次此窣堵波，是如來於此度八王子及五百釋種。

Not far from the mon­as­tery is a stupa mark­ing the place where the Tathāgata once sat un­der a big tree, fa­cing east, and ac­cep­ted the gift of a robe sewn with golden thread offered by his aunt. There is an­other stupa nearby, built at the place where the Tathāgata con­ver­ted eight princes and five hun­dred Sākya clanspeople.

[0902a05] 城東門內路左，有窣堵波，昔一切義成太子於此習諸技藝。

In­side the east gate of the city, on the left side of the road, is a stupa at the place where Prince Siddhārtha prac­ticed vari­ous skills and at­tain­ments.

門外有自在天祠，祠中石天像，危然起勢，是太子在襁褓中所入祠也。淨飯王自臘伐尼國迎太子還也，途次天祠。王曰：「此天祠多靈鑒，諸釋童稚求祐必効，宜將太子至彼修敬。」是時傅母抱而入祠，其石天像起迎太子。太子已出，天像復坐。

Out­side the gate is an īśvara deva temple in which a stone im­age of īśvara in the pos­ture of stand­ing up is en­shrined. This was the temple that the prince entered when he was in his swad­dling clothes. When King Suddhodana brought the prince home from Lumbinī he passed by this temple on the way and said, ‘‘This deva temple of­ten mani­fests spir­itual re­sponses and is sure to an­swer the pray­ers of Sākya chil­dren. The prince should be sent in to wor­ship the deva.” The nurse brought the prince into the temple and the stone im­age of the deva stood up to greet him; when the prince left the deva im­age re­sumed its seat.

[0902a13] 城南門外路左，有窣堵波，是太子與諸釋角藝，射鐵鼓。從此東南三十餘里，有小窣堵波，其側有泉，泉流澄鏡，是太子與諸釋引強校能，弦矢既分，穿鼓過表，至池沒羽，因涌清流，時俗相傳，謂之箭泉。夫有疾病，飲沐多愈。遠方之人持泥以歸，隨其所苦，漬以塗額，靈神冥衛，多蒙痊愈。

Out­side the south gate of the city, on the left side of the road, is a stupa at the place where the prince, com­pet­ing with other Sākyas in the arts of war, shot at iron drums. At a dis­tance of more than thirty li to the south­east from here is a small stupa, be­side which is a spring flow­ing with clear wa­ter. While com­pet­ing with other Sākyas in the skill of arch­ery, the prince drew his bow, and, as the ar­row left the bow it pierced through the sur­face of the drums and hit the ground, sink­ing into the earth up to its fletch­ing. The spring of pure wa­ter formed at that spot, by tra­di­tion called Ar­row Spring. When people are sick they drink the wa­ter or bathe in it and in most cases they are cured. People travel from dis­tant places to col­lect the clay of the spring and make it into a paste, which is ap­plied on on the fore­head whenever they have any ail­ment. As the clay is pro­tec­ted by spir­its and deit­ies it has a heal­ing ef­fect in most cases.

[0902a20] 箭泉東北行八九十里，至臘伐尼林，有釋種浴池，澄清皎鏡，雜華彌漫。其北二十四五步，有無憂華樹，今已枯悴，菩薩誕靈之處。菩薩以吠舍佉月後半八日，當此三月八日；上座部則曰以吠舍佉月後半十五日，當此三月十五日。次東窣堵波，無憂王所建，二龍浴太子處也。菩薩生已，不扶而行，於四方各七步，而自言曰：「天上、天下，唯我獨尊。今茲而往，生分已盡。」隨足所蹈，出大蓮花。二龍踊出，住虛空中，而各吐水，一冷一煖，以浴太子。

Go­ing north­east from the Ar­row Spring for eighty or ninety li I reached Lumbinī Wood, where there is a bathing pool full of trans­par­ent wa­ter, with flowers of dif­fer­ent de­scrip­tions spread­ing all over the place. Twenty-four or twenty-five paces to the north of the pool is an aśoka tree, now withered; this was the place where the Bod­hisat­tva was born into the world. The Bodhi- sat­tva was born on the eighth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the eighth day of the third month in our cal­en­dar, though the Sthavira sect holds that it was on the fif­teenth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the third month in our cal­en­dar. Fur­ther east is a stupa built by King Aśoka at the place where two dragons bathed the [new­born] prince. After he had been born the Bod­hisat­tva walked seven steps un­aided to each of the four quar­ters and an­nounced, ‘dn the heav­ens above and on the earth be­low, I am the sole Honored One! From now on I shall have no more re­birth.” Un­der each step a large lo­tus flower sprang up from the earth. Two dragons ap­peared in the air, one emit­ting cool wa­ter and the other warm wa­ter, to bathe him.

[0902b02] 浴太子窣堵波東，有二清泉，傍建二窣堵波，是二龍從地踊出之處。菩薩生已，支屬宗親莫不奔馳，求水盥浴。夫人之前，二泉涌出，一冷一煖，遂以浴洗。其南窣堵波，是天帝釋捧接菩薩處。菩薩初出胎也，天帝釋以妙天衣，跪接菩薩。次有四窣堵波，是四天王抱持菩薩處也。菩薩從右脇生已，四大天王以金色[疊*毛]衣，捧菩薩，置金机上。至母前曰：「夫人誕斯福子，誠可歡慶。諸天尚喜，況世人乎？」

To the east of the stupa of bathing the prince are two lu­cid springs, be­side which are two stu­pas built at the place where two dragons emerged from the earth. After the Bod­hisat­tva was born his re­l­at­ives and clanspeople hur­ried to get the wa­ter to wash them­selves, and in front of Lady Mahāmāyā two springs, one cold and one hot, gushed out wa­ter for them bathe in. A stupa at the south marks the place where In­dra re­ceived the Bod­hisat­tva with both hands when the Bod­hisat­tva was born. In­dra knelt down to catch him in a piece of won­drous ce­les­tial cloth. Next are four stu­pas mark­ing the place where the four heav­enly kings car­ried the Bod­hisat­tva. When the Bod­hisat­tva was born from the right side of his mother the four heav­enly kings caught him in a piece of golden-colored fine cot­ton and placed him on a small gold table, which they car­ried into the pres­ence of his mother, say­ing “It is tmly a joy­ous event for cel­eb­ra­tion that Your Lady­ship has given birth to such a blessed son. Even the heav­enly be­ings are de­lighted, not to speak of the hu­man be­ings of the earth.”

[0902b12] 四天王捧太子窣堵波側不遠，有大石柱，上作馬像，無憂王之所建也。後為惡龍霹靂，其柱中折仆地。傍有小河，東南流，土俗號曰油河。是摩耶夫人產孕已，天化此池，光潤澄淨，欲令夫人取以沐浴，除去風虛。今變為水，其流尚膩。

Not far from the stupa where the four heav­enly kings car­ried the prince there used to be a great stone pil­lar erec­ted by King Aśoka, with the fig­ure of a horse on top. It was later broken in the middle by a thun­der­bolt caused by an evil dragon, and half of it fell onto the ground. Be­side the broken pil­lar is a rivu­let flow­ing to­ward the east, called Oil River by the local people. After Lady Mahāmāyā had given birth [to the prince] the heav­enly be­ings pro­duced a pool of lu­cent and pure wa­ter at this place for the lady to bathe her­self, so as to wash off the soil and dust. It has now be­come [an oily stream of] wa­ter.

從此東行曠野荒林中二百餘里，至藍摩國(中印度境)。[0902b19] 藍摩國，空荒歲久，疆場無紀，城邑丘墟，居人稀曠。[0902b20] 故城東南有甎窣堵波，高減百尺。昔者如來入寂滅已，此國先王分得舍利，持歸本國，式遵崇建，靈異間起，神光時燭。

From here go­ing east­ward for more than two hun­dred li through a wild jungle, I reached the coun­try of Rāma[grāma] (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Rama has been deser­ted for many years and it has no bound­ary marks. The towns and vil­lages are in ru­ins and are sparsely pop­u­lated. To the south­east of the old cap­ital city is a brick stupa less than one hun­dred feet high, built by a former king of this coun­try. When the Tathāgata had entered nir­vana the king of this coun­try ob­tained a por­tion of his relic bones, which he brought back to his own coun­try; he built this stupa for pay­ing homage to his share of the rel­ics. It shows spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions from time to time and of­ten emits a di­vine light.

[0902b24] 窣堵波側有一清池，龍每出遊，變形蛇服，右旋宛轉，繞窣堵波，野象群行，採花以散，冥力警察，初無間替。昔無憂王之分建窣堵波也，七國所建，咸已開發，至於此國，方欲興功，而此池龍恐見陵奪，乃變作婆羅門，前叩象曰：「大王情流佛法，廣樹福田，敢請紆駕，降臨我宅。」王曰：「爾家安在，為近遠乎？」婆羅門曰：「我，此池之龍王也。承大王欲建勝福，敢來請謁。」王受其請，遂入龍宮。坐久之，龍進曰：「我惟惡業，受此龍身，供養舍利，冀消罪咎，願王躬往，觀而禮敬。」無憂王見已，懼然謂曰：「凡諸供養之具，非人間所有也。」龍曰：「若然者，願無廢毀。」無憂王自度力非其疇，遂不開發。出池之所，今有封記。

Be­side the stupa is a clear pool from which a dragon of­ten emerges in the shape of a snake to wor­ship the stupa, cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing it from left to right. Wild ele­phants come in groups to pick flowers and scat­ter them on the stupa, which has been un­der spir­itual pro­tec­tion without cease. When King Aśoka was con­struct­ing more stu­pas for the dis­sem­in­a­tion of the Buddha’s relic bones, he opened up the stu­pas formerly built in seven coun­tries to take out the relic bones [for re­dis­tri­bu­tion]. When he came to this coun­try and was about to start work­ing [on the stupa], the dragon of the pool, fear­ing that he might be de­prived of the rel­ics, ap­peared as a brah­man and hal­ted the king’s ele­phant, say­ing, ‘‘Your Majesty’s good­will ex­tends to the buddha-dharma and you have widely cul­tiv­ated the field of blessed­ness. I ven­ture to in­vite you to deign to visit my abode.” The king said, “Where is your home? Is it far away or nearby?” The brah­man said, “I am the dragon king of this pool. As Your Majesty wishes to per­form su­per­ior deeds of blessed­ness, I have ven­tured to come and beg for an in­ter­view.” At his in­vit­a­tion, the king entered the dragon’s palace and, after sit­ting for a while, the dragon said, “Due to my past evil deeds I have been born in the shape of a dragon. I make of­fer­ings to the Buddha’s rel­ics in the hope that I may elim­in­ate my sins and faults. I wish for you to come see and wor­ship the rel­ics in per­son.” See­ing the dragon’s paraphernalia for wor­ship­ing the rel­ics, the king was awed by their splendor and said, “These utensils for mak­ing of­fer­ings are not to be seen in the hu­man world.” The dragon said, “If that is so, I pray that you will not de­mol­ish them.” Think­ing that he was not equal to the dragon in power, King Aśoka re­lin­quished the idea of open­ing up that stupa. A mound marks the spot where he came out of the pool.

[0902c10] 窣堵波側不遠，有一伽藍，僧眾尠矣，清肅皎然，而以沙彌總任眾務。遠方僧至，禮遇彌隆，必留三日，供養四事。聞諸先志曰：昔有苾芻，同志相召，自遠而至，禮窣堵波。見諸群象，相趨往來，或以牙芟草，或以鼻灑水，各持異華，共為供養。時眾見已，悲歎感懷。有一苾芻，便捨具戒，願留供養，與眾辭曰：「我惟多福，濫迹僧中，歲月亟淹，行業無紀。此窣堵波有佛舍利，聖德冥通，群象踐灑。遺身此地，甘與同群，得畢餘齡，誠為幸矣。」眾告之曰：「斯盛事也。吾等垢重，智不謀此。隨時自愛，無虧勝業。」

Not far from the stupa is a mon­as­tery with few monks. It is a quiet and clean place un­der the man­age­ment of a śrāmaṇera (novice). Monks com­ing from dis­tant places are well re­ceived with hos­pit­al­ity and in­vited to stay for three days to re­ceive of­fer­ings of the four mon­astic re­quis­ites. The local people say that once a bhikṣu came with some fel­low monks from a dis­tant place to wor­ship the stupa and they saw a group of ele­phants bust­ling about, weed­ing grass with their tusks and sprink­ling wa­ter with their trunks, each of them hold­ing dif­fer­ent kinds of flowers to make of­fer­ings. At this sight the monks were deeply moved and sighed with pity. One of the bhikṣus re­lin­guished his po­s­i­tion as a fully or­dained monk in or­der to stay be­hind [as a śrāmaṇera] to at­tend the stupa. He said farewell to the other monks, say­ing, “I am lucky to have be­come a mem­ber, though an in­com­pet­ent one, of the com­munity of monks. Through the pas­sage of time I have made no achieve­ment in my spir­itual prac­tice. As this stupa con­tains the Buddha’s rel­ics, the ele­phants are in­spired by his holy vir­tues to come to keep the place clean. I am will­ing to stay here to work to­gether with them. If I can spend the rest of my life here I will be very for­tu­nate in­deed.” The other monks told him, “It is a good idea and we are so ig­nor­ant as not to have thought of it ourselves. Please take care of your­self and do not fail in your su­per­ior deed.”

亦既離群，重申誠願，歡然獨居，有終焉之志。於是葺°茅為宇，引流成池，採掇時花，灑掃塋°域。綿歷歲序，心事無殆。隣國諸王聞而雅尚，競捨財寶，共建伽藍，因而勸請，屈知僧務。自爾相踵，不泯元功，而以沙彌總知僧事。

Hav­ing par­ted from his com­pan­ions, the śrāmaṇera re­peated his sin­cere vow and lived alone hap­pily with the in­ten­tion of liv­ing in this man­ner un­til the end of his life. He built a thatched hut and channeled wa­ter into a tank. He plucked sea­sonal flowers [as of­fer­ings] and kept the place clean by sprin- kling wa­ter and sweep­ing the ground, dong this for many years in suc­ces­sion without chan­ging his mind. The kings of the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries heard about him [and felt] deep re­spect; they vied with one an­other to donate money and valu­ables for the con­struc­tion of a mon­as­tery and in­vited the śrāmaṇera to su­per­vise the mon­astic af­fairs. Since then the ab­bot of this mon­as­tery has al­ways been a śrāmaṇera, in memory of the ori­ginal in­sti­tu­tion.

[0902c28] 沙彌伽藍東，大林中行百餘里，至大窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。是太子踰城至此，解寶衣，去纓絡，命僕還處。太子夜半踰城，遲明至此，既允宿心，乃形言曰：「是我出籠樊°，去羈鎖，最後釋駕之處也。」於天冠中解末尼寶，命僕夫曰：「汝持此寶，還白父王，今茲遠遁，非苟違離，欲斷無常，絕諸有漏。」闡鐸迦(舊曰車匿，訛也)曰：「詎有何心，空駕而返？」太子善言慰喻，感悟而還。

Go­ing east from Śrāmaṇera Mon­as­tery for more than a hun­dred li through a big forest, I reached a great stupa built by King Aśoka at the place where Prince Siddhārtha hal­ted after he had gone out over the city wall, taken off his pre­cious gar­ments, un­tied his neck­lace, and asked his ser­vant, Chandaka, to re­turn to the palace. The prince went over the city wall at mid­night and reached this place at day­break, and, hav­ing ful­filled his cher­ished de­sire, he said to him­self, ‘‘This is the place where I es­cape from prison, un­fasten the fet­ters, and un­yoke my­self at last!” He re­moved the maṇi pearl from his crown and said to his ser­vant, “Take this pearl and go home to in­form my father, the king, that my present re­tire­ment to a dis­tant place is not an in­con­sid­er­ate de­par­ture from home; I have done so be­cause I wish to cut off what is im­per­man­ent and aban­don all that causes pain and dis­tress.” Chandaka (formerly called Cheli er­ro­neously) said, “How can I have the mind to drive the empty car­riage home?” The prince con­soled the ser­vant with good words, and Chandaka be­came awakened and re­turned home.

迴駕窣堵波東，有贍部樹，枝葉雖凋，枯株尚在。[0903a08] 其傍復有小窣堵波，太子以餘寶衣易鹿皮衣處。太子既斷髮易裳，雖去瓔珞，尚有天衣。曰：「斯服太侈，如何改易？」時淨居天化作獵人，服鹿皮衣，持弓負羽。太子舉其衣而謂曰：「欲相貿易，願見允從。」獵人曰：「善。」太子解其上服，授與獵人。獵人得已，還復天身，持所得衣，凌虛而去。

On the east of the stupa where the car­riage was sent home there is a jambu tree (Eu­genia jam­bolana) whose branches and leaves have withered, but the de­cayed trunk is still there. Be­side the tree is a small stupa mark­ing the place where the prince changed his re­main­ing pre­cious gar­ments for a deer­skin robe. Al­though he had already cut off his hair, changed his clothes, and taken off his pearl neck­lace, the prince still had his royal robe with him. He thought, “This robe is too lux­uri­ous; what shall I do for a change [of clothes] ?” At that mo­ment a heav­enly be­ing of Suddhavāsa (“Heaven of Pure Abode”) ap­peared as a hunter, wear­ing a deer­skin robe, hold­ing a bow and car­ry­ing some ar­rows. The prince, hold­ing out his robe, said to the hunter, “I wish to ex­change this [cloth­ing] for yours. Will you kindly con­sent?” The hunter agreed. The prince then took off his up­per gar­ment and handed it to the hunter, who re­sumed his heav­enly form and flew away through the air with the gar­ment he had bartered.

[0903a16] 太子易衣側不遠，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，是太子剃髮處。太子從闡鐸迦取刀，自斷其髮，天帝釋接上天宮，以為供養。時淨居天子化作剃髮人，執持銛刀，徐步而至。太子謂曰：「能剃髮乎？幸為我淨之。」化人受命，遂為剃髮。

Not far away from the place where Prince Siddhārtha changed his clothes is a stupa built by King Aśoka at the spot where the prince had his hair shaved off. The prince asked for a razor from Chandaka and cut off his own locks, which In­dra re­ceived and brought to his heav­enly palace for wor­ship. At that time a ce­les­tial be­ing of the Heaven of Pure Abode ap­peared as a barber, ap­proach­ing slowly with a razor in his hand. The prince asked him, “Can you shave my head? Please give me the ton­sure.” Ac­cord­ingly the trans­formed fig­ure shaved his head.

踰城出家時亦不定，或云菩薩年十九，或曰二十九，以吠舍佉月後半八日踰城出家，當此三月八日，或云以吠舍佉月後半十五日，當此三月十五日。

The ex­act time when the prince left home by go­ing over the city wall, in or­der to be­come a monk, is un­cer­tain. Some say it was when the Bod­hisat­tva was nine­teen years old, oth­ers say he was twenty-nine years old at the time. It is said that Prince Siddhārtha re­nounced home on the eighth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the eighth day of the third month of our cal­en­dar; or that it was on the fif­teenth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the third month of our cal­en­dar.

[0903a25] 太子剃髮窣堵波東南，曠野中行百八九十里，至尼拘盧陀林，有窣堵波，高三十餘尺。昔如來寂滅，舍利已分，諸婆羅門無所得獲，於涅疊般那(唐言焚燒。舊云闍維，訛也)地收餘灰炭，持至本國，建此靈基，而修供養。自茲已降，奇迹相仍，疾病之人，祈請多愈。

From the stupa where the prince had his head shaved, go­ing south­east for one hun­dred eighty or ninety li through a wil­der­ness, I reached a ban­yan grove in which there is a stupa over thirty feet high. When the Tathāgata entered nir­vana and his rel­ics were dis­trib­uted, the brah­mans who had not ob­tained a share of the rel­ics col­lec­ted the ashes and char­coal from the ground of the niṣṭapana (mean­ing “burn­ing,” formerly known as she­wei by mis­take) and brought them home; they built this holy reliquary for wor­ship. Since then it has mani­fes­ted many mir­acls and most of the sick people who have prayed for re­cov­ery here have re­ceived a re­sponse.

[0903b02] 灰炭窣堵波側，故伽藍中，有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。[0903b04] 故伽藍左右，數百窣堵波。其一大者，無憂王所建也，崇基雖陷，高餘百尺。

In the old mon­as­tery be­side the ash and char­coal stupa are places where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down. On both sides of the old mon­as­tery are sev­eral hun­dred stu­pas, among which a large one was built by King Aśoka. Al­though its lofty found­a­tion has col­lapsed it is still over one hun­dred feet in height.

[0903b05] 自此東北，大林中行，其路艱險，經途危阻，山牛、野象、群盜、獵師，伺求行旅，為害不絕。

From here go­ing north­east I pro­ceeded through a great forest along a rough and dan­ger­ous road with per­il­ous obstacles all along the way. Moun­tain oxen and wild ele­phants, as well as brig­ands and hunters, watch for trav­el­ers and con­stantly do harm to them.

出此林已，至拘尸那揭羅國(中印度境)。[0903b09] 拘尸那揭羅國，城郭頹毀，邑里蕭條。故城甎基，周十餘里。居人稀曠，閭巷荒蕪。[0903b10] 城內東北隅，有窣堵波，無憂王所建，准陀(舊曰純陀，訛也)之故宅也。宅中有井，將營獻供，方乃鑿焉。歲月雖淹，水猶清美。

Com­ing out of this forest I reached the coun­try of Kuśin­agara (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The city wall of the cap­ital of the coun­try of Kuśin­agara is in ru­ins and the towns and vil­lages are deser­ted. The brick found­a­tions of the city wall are more than ten li in cir­cuit; there are very few in­hab­it­ants and the streets and lanes are in des­ol­a­tion. At the north­east corner of the ori­ginal city is a stupa built by King Aśoka at the old res­id­ence of Cunda (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Xun­tuo). In the res­id­ence there is a well that was dug at the time when a meal was pre­pared for the Buddha. Al­though the well has been there for many long years the wa­ter is still clear and sweet.

[0903b14] 城西北三四里，渡阿恃多伐底河(唐言無勝，此世共稱耳。舊云阿利羅跋提河，訛也。典言謂之尸賴拏伐底河，譯曰有金河)。西岸不遠，至娑羅林。其樹類槲，而皮青白，葉甚光潤。四樹特高，如來寂滅之所也。其大甎精舍中作如來涅槃之像，北首而臥。傍有窣堵波，無憂王所建，基雖傾陷，尚高二百餘尺。前建石柱，以記如來寂滅之事，雖有文記，不書日月。聞諸先記曰：佛以生年八十，吠舍佉月後半十五日入般涅槃，當此三月十五日也。說一切有部則佛以迦剌底迦月後半八日入般涅槃，此當九月八日也。自佛涅槃，諸部異議，或云千二百餘年，或云千三百餘年，或云千五百餘年，或云已過九百，未滿千年。

At a place three or four li to the north­w­est of the city I crossed the Ajitavatī River (“Un­sur­passed,” the name in com­mon use, mis­taken for the Air­āvatī River in olden times; in the texts it is known as Hir­aṇyavatī [“Pos­sess­ing Gold”] River). Not far from the west bank of the river is Sāla Grove. The śāla tree is sim­ilar to an oak, with a green­ish-white bark and very glossy leaves. Four of the trees in the grove are un­usu­ally tall and mark the place where the Tathāgata entered nir­vana. In a large brick temple there is a statue of the Tathāgata in the pos­ture of en­ter­ing nir­vana, ly­ing down with his head to­ward the north. Be­side the temple is a stupa built by King Aśoka. Al­though the found­a­tion has col­lapsed it is still over two hun­dred feet high. In front of it is a stone pil­lar on which is in­scribed a a re­cord of the event of the Tathāgata’s nir­vana, but no date is men­tioned in the re­cord. It is said in pre­vi­ous re­cord, how­ever, that the Buddha entered par­inir­vāṇa (com­plete ces­sa­tion of re­birth) at the age of eighty, on the fif­teenth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the third month in our cal­en­dar. Ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion of the Sar­vāstivāda school, the Buddha entered par­inir­vāṇa on the eighth day of the second half of the month of Kārt­tika, cor­res­pond­ing to the eighth day of the ninth month in our cal­en­dar. The dif­fer­ent schools hold vari­ant views con­cern­ing the time elapsed since the Buddha’s nir­vana; some say it has been more than one thou­sand two hun­dred years, oth­ers say one thou­sand three hun­dred, or one thou­sand five hun­dred, or more than nine hun­dred but less than one thou­sand.

[0903b28] 精舍側不遠，有窣堵波，是如來修菩薩行時，為群雉王救火之處。昔於此地有大茂林，毛群羽族巢居穴處。驚風四起，猛焰飈急。時有一雉，有懷傷愍，鼓濯清流，飛空奮灑。時天帝釋俯而告曰：「汝何守愚，虛勞羽翮？大火方起，焚燎林野，豈汝微軀所能撲滅？」雉曰：「說者為誰？」曰：「我天帝釋耳。」雉曰：「今天帝有大福力，無欲不遂，救災拯難，若指諸掌，反詰無功，其咎安在？猛火方熾，無得多言！」尋復奮飛，往趣流水。天帝遂以掬水泛灑其林，火滅煙消，生類全命，故今謂之救火窣堵波也。

Not far from the temple is a stupa mark­ing the place where the Tathāgata put out a fire when, in a pre­vi­ous life, in the course of cul­tiv­at­ing the bodhi- sat­tva deeds, he was born as a pheas­ant. There once was a great forest at this place and the an­im­als and birds lived in caves and nests. One day a gale blew hard just as a fire broke out and burned fiercely. A pheas­ant, hav­ing pity on the other creatures, flapped its wings in a stream and flew up into the air to sprinkle wa­ter over the fire. At that mo­ment In­dra lowered his head and said to the pheas­ant, “Why are you so fool­ishly work­ing so hard with your wings, to no avail? The great fire has just broken out and the whole forest is ablaze. How can you put it out with the ef­fort of your feeble body?” The pheas­ant said, “Who is it that is speak­ing to me?” In­dra said, “I am In­dra” The pheas­ant said, “If you are In­dra, a be­ing pos­sess­ing great power of blessed­ness, you may achieve any­thing you wish. To re­lieve creatures from dis­aster and res­cue those who are in trouble are as easy for you as look­ing at the palm of your hand. Yet now you say that I am la­bor­ing without ef­fect. Whoe will be blamed? The fire burns fiercely; I can­not talk with you any more!” The bird then flew vig­or­ously to the stream to fetch more wa­ter. In­dra then scooped up wa­ter with his hands and sprinkled it over the forest. The fire was quenched, the smoke van­ished, and the an­im­als were saved from the flames. There­fore it is called the Stupa of Fire-fight­ing.

[0903c11] 雉救火側不遠，有窣堵波，是如來修菩薩行時，為鹿救生之處。乃往古昔，此有大林，火炎中野，飛走窮窘，前有駛流之阨，後困猛火之難，莫不沈溺，喪棄身命。其鹿惻隱，身據橫流，穿皮斷骨，自強拯溺。蹇兔後至，忍疲苦而濟之。筋力既竭，溺水而死。諸天收骸，起窣堵波。

Not far from the place where the pheas­ant put out a fire is a stupa mark­ing the spot where the Tathāgata, born as a deer in a pre­vi­ous life when in the course of cul­tiv­at­ing the bod­hisat­tva deeds, saved creatures. In the re­mote past there was a great forest at this place. A con­flag­ra­tion spread in the wil­der­ness and the birds and an­im­als were trapped and in a dan­ger­ous plight, with the im­ped­i­ments of a rapid stream in front and a vi­ol­ent fire press­ing hard from the back. A few of them were not drowned in the stream and es­caped death. A deer, hav­ing pity on the other an­im­als, strained it­self to stretch its body across the stream in or­der to save the oth­ers from drown­ing. Des­pite the pain caused by its in­jured skin and broken bones, the deer en­dured its fa­tigue and pain un­til the last an­imal, a lame hare, had crossed over and been res­cued. Ex­hausted, the deer fell into the stream and drowned. The heav­enly be­ings col­lec­ted its car­cass and built a stupa for it.

[0903c17] 鹿拯溺西不遠，有窣堵波，是蘇跋陀羅(唐言善賢。舊曰須跋陀羅，訛也)入寂滅之處。善賢者，本梵志師也。年百二十，耆舊多智。聞佛寂滅，至雙樹間，問阿難曰：「佛世尊將寂滅，我懷疑滯，願欲請問。」阿難曰：「佛將涅槃，幸無擾也。」曰：「吾聞佛世難遇，正法難聞，我有深疑，恐無所請。」善賢遂入，先問佛言：「有諸別眾，自稱為師，各有異法，垂訓導俗，喬答摩(舊曰瞿曇，訛略也)能盡知耶？」佛言：「吾悉深究。」乃為演說。善賢聞已，心淨信解，求入法中，受具足戒。如來告曰：「汝豈能耶？外道異學修梵行者，當試四歲，觀其行，察其性，威儀寂靜，辭語誠實，則可於我法中淨修梵行。在人行耳，斯何難哉！」善賢曰：「世尊悲愍，含濟無私，四歲試學，三業方順。」佛言：「我先已說，在人行耳！」

Not far to the west of the place where the deer res­cued creatures from drown­ing is a stupa mark­ing the spot where Subhadra (known as Shanxian, ‘‘Good Sage,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Subatuoluo) entered nir­vana. Subhadra, ori­gin­ally a brahmanical teacher, was a wise man of one hun­dred and twenty years of age. When he heard that the Buddha was about to enter nir­vana he came to the twin [śāla] trees and asked Ān­anda, “As the Buddha, the World-honored One, is about to enter nir­vana, may I ask him to solve the doubts I have in my mind?” Ān­anda said, “The Buddha is about to enter nir­vana; please do not dis­turb him.” [Subhadra] said, “I have heard that we rarely have a chance to be born at a time when a buddha is liv­ing in the world, and that we can­not of­ten hear the right Dharma. I am afraid I will have no one else to re­solve my deep doubts.” Subhadra then came into the Buddha’s pres­ence and asked him, “There are dif­fer­ent groups of self-styled teach­ers who have vari­ant Dharmas to guide the world here be­low. Do you know them all, Gautama (formerly known as Qutan in an er­ro­neous and abridged form)?” The Buddha said, “I have made a pro­found study of them all” and he then gave a de­scrip­tion [of the dif­fer­ent doc­trines]. After hav­ing heard the Buddha’s words, Subhadra pur­i­fied his mind with faith and un­der­stand­ing and asked for per­mis­sion to be­come a fully or­dained Buddhist monk. The Tathāgata asked him, ‘‘Are you able to be­come a Buddhist monk? The het­ero­dox dis­ciples who wish to lead the life of pur­ity have to go through pro­ba­tion for four years dur­ing which their de­meanor and char­ac­ter are ob­served. If they are found to be quiet in be­ha­vior and hon­est in speech, they can then be ad­mit­ted into my or­der to lead a life of pur­ity. It all de­pends on one’s ef­fort; there is no dif­fi­culty.” Subhadra said, ‘‘World-honored One, you are so kind and sym­path­etic that you are im­par­tial in sav­ing liv­ing be­ings. Through four years’ pro­ba­tion, the three sorts of deeds (of body, speech, and mind) may be straightened in good or­der.” The Buddha said, “As I have already said, it all de­pends on one’s ef­fort.”

於是善賢出家，即受具戒，勤勵修習，身心勇猛。已而於法無疑，自身作證。夜分未久，果證羅漢，諸漏已盡，梵行已立。不忍見佛入大涅槃，即於眾中入火界定，現神通事，而先寂滅。是為如來最後弟子，乃先滅度，即昔後渡蹇兔是也。

Subhadra then be­came a monk and re­ceived full or­din­a­tion. He di­li­gently cul­tiv­ated him­self for both men­tal and phys­ical strength. A mo­ment later he cleared his mind of doubts con­cern­ing the Dharma and tried to achieve per­sonal real­iz­a­tion. Shortly after dusk, he ac­tu­ally at­tained ar­hat­ship with all the pas­sions ex­tirp­ated and the pure life es­tab­lished. Be­cause he could not bear see­ing the Buddha enter mahānir­vāṇa, he entered the samādhi (trance) of the ele­ment of fire and mani­fes­ted su­per­nat­ural powers and then he hin­self entered nir­vana be­fore the Buddha. He be­came the Tathāgata’s last dis­ciple but died be­fore him. In a pre­vi­ous life Subhadra was the lame hare, the last an­imal to be res­cued [by the cour­ageous deer].

[0904a10] 善賢寂滅側，有窣堵波，是執金剛躄地之處。大悲世尊隨機利見，化功已畢，入寂滅樂，於雙樹間北首而臥。執金剛神密迹力士見佛滅度，悲慟唱言：「如來捨我入大涅槃，無歸依，無覆護，毒箭深入，愁火熾盛！」捨金剛杵，悶絕躄地。久而又起，悲哀戀慕，互相謂曰：「生死大海，誰作舟檝？無明長夜，誰為燈炬？」

Be­side the spot where Subhadra entered nir­vana is a stupa at the place where Vajrapāṇi (“Holder of the Vajra”) fell into a swoon. The great sym­path­etic World-honored One, hav­ing com­pleted his task of edi­fy­ing liv­ing be­ings ac­cord­ing to their ca­pa­cit­ies and for their be­ne­fit, entered the bliss­ful state of nir­vana at the twin [śāla ] trees, ly­ing down with his head to­ward the north. The deity Vajrapāṇi, (alias) the war­rior Guhyapati (“Lord of the Mys­ter­ies”), hav­ing seen the Buddha enter nir­vana, cried sor­row­fully, “The Tathāgata has for­saken me and entered mahānir­vāṇa. I have no place in which to take refuge and no one to pro­tect me. It is just as if a poisoned ar­row has deeply struck me and a fire of dis­tress fiercely burns me.” He dropped his dia­mond {vajra) club and fell into a swoon. After a long while he stood up and said to the oth­ers, “In the great sea of birth and death, who will be our boat and oars? In the long night of ig­nor­ance, who will be our lamp and torch?”

[0904a17] 金剛躄地側，有窣堵波，是如來寂滅已七日供養之處。如來之將寂滅也，光明普照，人、天畢會，莫不悲感，更相謂曰：「大覺世尊今將寂滅，眾生福盡，世間無依。」如來右脇臥師子床，告諸大眾：「勿謂如來畢竟寂滅，法身常住，離諸變易，當棄懈怠，早求解脫。」諸苾芻等歔欷悲慟。

Be­side the place where Vajrapāṇi fell into a swoon there is a stupa where [the re­mains of] the Tathāgata were ven­er­ated for seven days after his nir­vana. When the Tathāgata was about to enter nir­vana a bright light shone every­where and hu­man and heav­enly be­ings gathered to­gether in grief. They said to one an­other, “The great en­lightened World-honored One is now about to enter nir­vana. Liv­ing be­ings will come to the end of blessed­ness and the world will have no one on whom to de­pend.” The Tathāgata, ly­ing on his right side on a lion bed, told the gath­er­ing, “Do not say that the Tathāgata has even­tu­ally entered nir­vana, as the dharma body [of a buddha] is im­mut­able and free from all changes. You should ward off in­dol­ence and try to gain lib­er­a­tion as quickly as pos­sible.” The bhikṣus and oth­ers wept sadly.

時阿泥[打‒丁+聿](盧骨反)陀(舊曰阿那律，訛也)告諸苾芻：「止，止，勿悲！諸天譏怪。」時末羅眾供養已訖，欲舉金棺，詣涅疊般那所。時阿泥[打‒丁+聿]陀告言：「且止！諸天欲留七日供養。」於是天眾持妙天華，遊虛空，讚聖德，各竭誠心，共興供養。

At that time Aniruddha (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Anilū) told the bhikṣus, “Stop, stop! Grieve no more! The heav­enly be­ings will re­proach you and ri­dicule you!” After the Malla people had made of­fer­ings to the re­mains, they wished to carry the golden coffin to the fumeral ghat for burn­ing. Aniruddha said to them, “Wait a mo­ment! The heav­enly be­ings wish to keep it here for seven days in or­der to make of­fer­ings to it.” The heav­enly be­ings, hold­ing ex­quis­ite ce­les­tial flowers, flew through the air and chanted praise of the Buddha’s holy vir­tues. Every one of them worked with ut­most sin­cer­ity to make of­fer­ings [to the Buddha’s re­mains].

[0904a29] 停棺側有窣堵波，是摩訶摩耶夫人哭佛之處。如來寂滅，棺斂已畢，時阿泥[打‒丁+聿]陀上昇天宮，告摩耶夫人曰：「大聖法王今已寂滅。」摩耶聞已，悲哽悶絕，與諸天眾至雙樹間，見僧伽胝、鉢及錫杖，拊之號慟，絕而復聲曰：「人、天福盡，世間眼滅！今此諸物，空無有主。」如來聖力，金棺自開，放光明，合掌坐，慰問慈母：「遠來下降！諸行法爾，願勿深悲。」阿難銜哀而請佛曰：「後世問我，將何以對？」曰：「佛已涅槃，慈母摩耶自天宮降，至雙樹間，如來為諸不孝眾生，從金棺起，合掌說法。」

Be­side the place where the coffin was lodged is a stupa at the place where Lady Mahāmāyā lamen­ted the Buddha’s de­mise. After the Tathāgata had entered nir­vana and his re­mains had been laid in the coffin, Aniruddha as­cen­ded to the heaven to in­form Lady Mahāmāyā, say­ing, “The great holy King of the Dharma has entered nir­vana.” Hear­ing this news, Mahāmāyā was choked with sobs and fain­ted. [When she had re­covered her con­scious­ness] she went with the heav­enly be­ings to the twin [śāla] trees, where she saw [the Buddha’s] samghāṭi (double robe), alms­bowl, and pew­ter staff. She stroked these art­icles, weep­ing piteously, un­til she fain­ted again, and when she re­gained her voice she said, “Hu­man and heav­enly be­ings have come to the end of their blessed­ness and the Eye of the World has dis­ap­peared. Now these things are without an owner!” By the Tathāgata’s saintly power the coffin opened by it­self. The Buddha emit­ted a bright light, sat up with his hands joined palm to palm, and con­soled his com­pas­sion­ate mother for hav­ing come down from a far dis­tance [to see him], say­ing, “Such is the law of all things. Please do not be over­whelmed by ex­cess­ive grief.” With a sor­row­ful mind, Ān­anda asked the Buddha, “What shall I say when people in the fu­ture ask me about today’s events?” [The Buddha replied,] “You may say that after the Buddha’s nir­vana his com­pas­sion­ate mother came down from the heav­enly palace to the twin [śāla] trees. As a les­son to un­filial people, the Tathāgata sat up in the golden coffin and preached the Dharma [for his mother] with his hands joined palm to palm.”

[0904b11] 城北渡河三百餘步，有窣堵波，是如來焚身之處。地今黃黑，土雜灰炭，至誠求請，或得舍利。如來寂滅，人、天悲感，七寶為棺，千[疊*毛]纏身，設香華，建幡蓋，末羅之眾奉輿發引，前後導從，北渡金河，盛滿香油，積多香木，縱火以焚，二[疊*毛]不燒，一極[打‒丁+親]身，一最覆外。為諸眾生分散舍利，唯有髮、爪儼然無損。

More than three hun­dred paces across the river at the north of the city there was a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata’s body was cremated. The earth is a dark yel­low color and the soil is mixed with ashes and char­coal. If one prays earn­estly he may ob­tain śarīras (relic bones) at this place. After the Tathāgata had entered nir­vana hu­man and heav­enly be­ings, lament­ing sor­row­fully, made a coffin out of the seven pre­cious sub­stances and en­shrouded his body in a thou­sand lay­ers of cot­ton cloth. Hold­ing in­cense and flowers, as well as ban­ners and can­op­ies, the Mal­las pulled the hearse in a pro­ces­sion, some at the front and some fol­low­ing be­hind the coffin, to the north of Gold River. They pre­pared a pyre with suf­fi­cient fra­grant oil and sweet-scen­ted wood and set fire to it. Two lay­ers of the shroud, the in­ner­most one next to the body and the outer one, were not burned. When the people dis­trib­uted the śarīras they found that the hair and nails were neatly in­tact.

[0904b19] 焚身側有窣堵波，如來為大迦葉波現雙足處。如來金棺已下，香木已積，火燒不然，眾咸驚駭。阿泥[打‒丁+聿]陀言：「待迦葉波耳。」時大迦葉波與五百弟子自山林來，至拘尸城，問阿難曰：「世尊之身，可得見耶？」阿難曰：「千[疊*毛]纏絡，重棺周斂，香木已積，即事焚燒。」是時佛於棺內為出雙足，輪相之上，見有異色。問阿難曰：「何以有此？」曰：「佛初涅槃，人、天悲慟，眾淚迸染，致斯異色。」迦葉波作禮，旋繞興讚，香木自然，大火熾盛。故如來寂滅，三從棺出：初出臂，問阿難治路；次起坐，為母說法；後現雙足，示大迦葉波。

Be­side the place of crema­tion is the spot where the Tathāgata showed his feet to Mahākāśyapa. After the Tathāgata’s coffin had been laid down and the pyre of fra­grant wood had already been piled up, it could not be kindled, to the as­ton­ish­ment of the as­sembly. Aniruddha said, “It is merely wait­ing for Kāśyapa.” At that mo­ment, Mahākāśyapa and his five hun­dred dis­ciples came from the moun­tains to the city of Kuśin­agara, and he asked Ān­anda, “May I have a look at the World-honored One?” Ān­anda said, “His body is wrapped in a thou­sand lay­ers of cot­ton cloth and laid in a double coffin, and fra­grant wood has already been piled up for the crema­tion.” At that time [the body of] the Tathāgata ly­ing in the coffin stretched out its feet. When Kāśyapa no­ticed that the wheel sign on the soles of the Buddha’s feet had a strange color, he asked Ān­anda, “Why is this so?” [Ān­anda] said, “At the mo­ment when the Buddha entered nir­vana hu­man and heav­enly be­ings wept piteously, and their tears dyed his soles this strange color.” Then Kāśyapa paid homage to the coffin by cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing it while chant­ing praises [of the Buddha], and the fra­grant wood spon­tan­eously burst into huge flames. Thus after his nir­vana the Tathāgata thrice ap­peared from his coffin: first, he stretched his arm to ask Ān­anda to re­pair the road; second, he sat up to preach the Dharma for his mother; and last, he showed his feet to Mahākāśyapa.

[0904c02] 現足側有窣堵波，無憂王所建也，是八王分舍利處。前建石柱，刻記其事。佛入涅槃，後涅疊般那已，諸八國王備四兵至，遣直性婆羅門謂拘尸力士曰：「天、人導師，此國寂滅，故自遠來，請分舍利。」力士曰：「如來降尊，即斯下土，滅世間明導，喪眾生慈父。如來舍利，自當供養，徒疲道路，終無得獲。」時諸大王遜辭以求°，既不相允，重謂之曰：「禮請不從，兵威非遠。」直性婆羅門揚言曰：「念哉！大悲世尊忍修福善，彌歷曠劫，想所具聞，今欲相凌，此非宜也。今舍利在此，當均八分，各得供養，何至興兵？」諸力士依其言，即時均量，欲作八分。帝釋謂諸王曰：「天當有分，勿恃力競。」阿那婆答多龍王、文隣龍王、醫那鉢呾羅龍王復作是議：「無遺我曹。若以力者，眾非敵矣。」直性婆羅門曰：「勿諠諍也，宜共分之。」即作三分，一諸天，二龍眾，三留人間，八國重分。天、龍、人王，莫不悲感。

Be­side the spot where the Buddha showed his feet is a stupa built by King Aśoka at the place where the eight kings shared the rel­ics. In front of the stupa is a stone pil­lar on which [a de­scrip­tion of] the event is in­scribed. After the Buddha’s body was cremated after his nir­vana, the kings of eight coun­tries ar­rived with their four di­vi­sions of troops and dis­patched the straight-natured brah­man to tell the Mal­las of Kuśin­agara, “As the teacher of hu­man and heav­enly be­ings has entered nir­vana in this coun­try, we have come here from afar to share his rel­ics.” The Mal­las said, “The Tathāgata was in our coun­try when we were be­reaved of the Guide of the World and lost the father of liv­ing be­ings, so nat­ur­ally we should keep the rel­ics of the Tathāgata for wor­ship. You will re­ceive noth­ing des­pite the wear­i­ness you en­dured on your jour­ney.” Since the kings’ so­li­cit­a­tion was not gran­ted, they said again, “If you do not com­ply with our po­lite re­quest we wil con­sider us­ing force.” The straight- natured brah­man warned them, “Just think it over! The great sym­path­etic World-honored One pa­tiently cul­tiv­ated blessed­ness and good deeds for nu­mer­ous lull pas in the past. I think that all of you have heard this. It is in­ap­pro­pri­ate for you to fight each other. Since the rel­ics are in this coun­try they should be di­vided into eight equal por­tions, and each of you can have a share for wor­ship. What is the use of re­sort­ing to force?” The Mal­las listened to his words but when they were about to di­vide the rel­ics into eight equal por­tions, In­dra said to the kings, “The heav­enly be­ings also have a right to share a por­tion of the rel­ics. Do not com­pete for a share on the strength of your might.” Then the nāga kings Anavata­pta, Mu­cilinda, and Elāpat­tra also made a pro­posal, say­ing, “Do not for­get about us. As far as strength is con­cerned, none of you is our equal!” The straight-natured brah­man said, “Do not quar­rel! We should all share the rel­ics.” The rel­ics were then di­vided into three por­tions, one for the heav­enly be­ings, one for the nā­gas. and one for the hu­man world, and the third por­tion was fur­ther sub­divided into eight parts and al­lot­ted to the eight kings. The heav­enly be­ings, nā­gas, and kings were all deeply moved.

[0904c21] 分舍利窣堵波西南行二百餘里，至大邑聚。有婆羅門，豪右巨富，確乎不雜，學究五明，敬崇三寶。接其居側，建立僧坊，窮諸資用，備盡珍飾，或有眾僧往來中路，慇懃請留，罄心供養，或止一宿，乃至七日。其後設賞迦王毀壞佛法，眾僧絕侶，歲月驟淹，而婆羅門每懷懇惻。

Go­ing south­w­est for more than two hun­dred li from die stupa of the di­vi­sion of the rel­ics I reached a great town. There was a brah­man of enorm­ous wealth, who was quite dif­fer­ent from other brah­mans. He was learned in the five vidyās (“know­ledges”) and ven­er­ated the Triple Gem. He con­struc­ted a mon­as­tery, dec­or­ated with vari­ous kinds of jew­els, next to his res­id­ence, and provided all sorts of daily re­quis­ites. Whenever monks traveled by way of this mon­as­tery he al­ways earn­estly in­vited them to stay and re­ceive of­fer­ings for one night or up to seven days. Later, when King Saśāṅka per­se­cuted the buddha-dharma, no groups of monks came this way for many years and the brah­man re­gret­fully cher­ished the memory of them.

經行之次，見一沙門，厖眉皓髮，杖錫而來。婆羅門馳往迎逆，問所從至，請入僧坊，備諸供養，旦以淳乳，煮粥進焉。沙門受已，纔一嚌齒，便即置鉢，沈吟長息。婆羅門持食，跪而問曰：「大德慧利隨緣，幸見臨顧，為夕不安耶？為粥不味乎？」沙門愍然告曰：「吾悲眾生福祐漸薄，斯言且置，食已方說。」沙門食訖，攝衣即語。婆羅門曰：「向許有說，今何無言？」沙門告曰：「吾非忘也。談不容易，事或致疑。必欲得聞，今當略說。吾向所歎，非薄汝粥。自數百年，不嘗此味。昔如來在世，我時預從，在王舍城竹林精舍，俯清流而滌器，或以澡漱，或以盥沐。嗟乎！今之淳乳，不及古之淡水，此乃人、天福滅使之然也。」婆羅門曰：「然則大德乃親見佛耶？」沙門曰：「然。汝豈不聞佛子羅怙羅者，我身是也。為護正法，未入寂滅。」說是語已，忽然不見。

One day he was tak­ing a walk and saw a śrāmaṇa with heavy eye­brows and white hair, ap­proach­ing with a pew­ter staff in hand. He hur­ried to greet the monk and in­quired where he had come from and where he was go­ing, and in­vited him to the mon­as­tery to re­ceive vari­ous kinds of of­fer­ings. The fol­low­ing morn­ing he offered the monk some gruel cooked in pure milk. As soon as the monk tasted the gruel he put down the bowl and sighed heav­ily. The brah­man who was serving the monk with food knelt down and said, “You grant be­ne­fit to the people ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances and have come to fa­vor me with your pres­ence. Did you not sleep well last night? Or is the gruel un­pal­at­able?” The monk said with re­gret, “I am sorry that the blessed­ness of liv­ing be­ings is de­creas­ing. Let us not talk about it now. I shall tell you some­thing after the meal.” When break­fast was over the monk ti­died his robe and made ready to de­part. The brah­man said, “You prom­ised that you would say some­thing. Why do you not say it now?” The monk told him, “I did not for­get about it but it is not easy for me to say it. It might cause sus­pi­cion. If you in­sist on hear­ing what I have to say I shall tell you in brief. I sighed not be­cause I dis­liked the gruel but be­cause for sev­eral hun­dred years I have not tasted such a fla­vor. When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world I used to fol­low him, serving as an at­tend­ant at Jetavana Temple in the city of Rā­jagṛha to wash his eat­ing bowl in a pure stream. I also bathed, rinsed my mouth, and washed my hands and face [in that stream]. What a pity that the pure milk of today is less tasty than the plain wa­ter of yore! This is be­cause the blessed­ness of hu­man and heav­enly be­ings is de­creas­ing.” The brah­man said, “In that case, great vir­tu­ous one, you must have seen the Buddha in per­son.” The monk said, “Yes. Have you heard about Rāhula, the son of the Buddha? I am Rāhula. In or­der to pro­tect the right Dharma I did not enter nir­vana.” Hav­ing said this, the monk sud­denly dis­ap­peared.

婆羅門遂以所宿之房，塗香灑掃，像設儀肅，其敬如在。

The brah­man then daubed the room where the monk had spent the night with in­cense and swept it clean. An im­age of the monk was in­stalled in the room in a sol­emn man­ner and was wor­shiped just as if the monk was present.

[0905a16] 復大林中行五百餘里，至婆羅痆(女黠反)斯國(舊曰波羅柰國，訛也。中印度境)。

Go­ing through a great forest for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Bārāṇasī (formerly called the coun­try of Boluonai by mis­take, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia)

大唐西域記卷第六

End of Fas­cicle VI of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第七(五國)

Fas­cicle VII: Five Coun­tries, from Bārāṇasī to Nepāla

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

婆羅痆(女黠反)斯國

1. The Coun­try of Bārāṇasī

戰主國

2. The Coun­try of Gar­janapati

吠舍釐國

3. The Coun­try of Vaiśālī

弗栗恃國

4. The Coun­try of Vṛji

尼波羅國

5. The Coun­try of Nepāla

[0905a29] 婆羅痆斯國，周四千餘里。國大都城西臨殑伽河，長十八九里，廣五六里。閭閻櫛比，居人殷盛，家積巨萬，室盈奇貨。人性溫恭，俗重強學，多信外道，少敬佛法。氣序和，穀稼盛，果木扶疎，茂草靃靡。伽藍三十餘所，僧徒三千餘人，並學小乘正量部法。天祠百餘所，外道萬餘人，並多宗事大自在天，或斷髮，或椎髻，露形無服，塗身以灰，精勤苦行，求出生死。

The coun­try of Bārāṇasī is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city, with the Ganges River on the west, is eight­een or nineteen li long and five or six li wide. The houses in the lanes and streets of the city are close to­gether and it is densely pop­u­lated. The in­hab­it­ants are enorm­ously wealthy and their houses are full of valu­able goods. The people are mild and cour­teous in nature and es­teem learn­ing by cus­tom. Most of them be­lieve in heretical the­or­ies and few people ven­er­ate the buddha-dharma. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the cer­eal crops are abund­ant. The fruit trees grow lux­uri­antly and the ve­get­a­tion is rich. There are over thirty mon­as­ter­ies with more than three thou­sand monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana Saṃmitiya school. There are more than one hun­dred deva temples with over ten thou­sand heretical fol­low­ers. Most of them wor­ship Ma­heśvara. Some of them cut their hair while oth­ers keep it in a top­knot. They go na­ked without any dress and smear their bod­ies with ash. They rig­or­ously prac­tice aus­ter­it­ies, seek­ing free­dom from birth and death.

[0905b09] 大城中天祠二十所，層臺祠宇，雕石文木，茂林相蔭，清流交帶，鍮石天像量減百尺，威嚴肅然，懍懍如在。

In­side the great city there are twenty deva temples, of which the sanc­tu­ar­ies are built with carved stone and or­na­mental wood on ter­races ar­ranged in tiers. Lux­uri­ant trees cast shade over each other and clear streams flow through­out. There is a brass statue of the deity, less than one hun­dred feet tall, de­pic­ted in a sol­emn man­ner with a stately ap­pear­ance as if it were alive.

[0905b12] 大城東北婆羅痆河西有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，高百餘尺。前建石柱，碧鮮若鏡，光潤凝流，其中常現如來影像。

To the north­east of the great city and on the west bank of the Varaṇā River is a stupa more than one hun­dred feet high that was built by King Aśoka. In front of it is a pil­lar of green stone as smooth as a mir­ror and the Tathāgata’s im­age is of­ten vis­ible on the lus­trous sur­face.

[0905b15] 婆羅痆河東北行十餘里，至鹿野伽藍，區界八分，連垣周堵，層軒重閣，麗窮規矩。僧徒一千五百人，並學小乘正量部法。大垣中有精舍，高二百餘尺，上以黃金隱起作菴沒羅果，石為基階，甎作層龕，翕匝四周，節級百數，皆有隱起黃金佛像，精舍之中有鍮石佛像，量等如來身，作轉法輪勢。

Go­ing to the north­east of the Varaṇā River for more than ten li, I reached Deer Park Mon­as­tery, which con­sists of eight di­vi­sions all within one en­clos­ing wall. There are lofty halls and stor­ied pa­vil­ions most splen­didly con­struc­ted, with one thou­sand five hun­dred monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana Saṃmitīya school. Within the great en­clos­ure there is a temple over two hun­dred feet high with a gilt āmra (mango) fruit carved in re­lief on top. The found­a­tion and steps are made of stone, while the niches ar­ranged in rows are of brick. Around the niches there are one hun­dred steps, and in each niche is en­shrined a gilt im­age of the Buddha. In­side the temple there is a life-size brass im­age of the Buddha in the pos­ture of turn­ing the wheel of the Dharma.

[0905b22] 精舍西南有石窣堵波，無憂王建也，基雖傾陷，尚餘百尺。前建石柱，高七十餘尺。石含玉潤，鑒照映徹，慇懃祈請，影見眾像，善惡之相，時有見者。是如來成正覺已初轉法輪處也。[0905b26] 其側不遠窣堵波，是阿若憍陳如等見菩薩捨苦行，遂不侍衛，來至於此，而自習定。[0905b28] 其傍窣堵波，是五百獨覺同入涅槃處。又三窣堵波，過去三佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

To the north­east of the temple is a stone stupa built by King Aśoka. Al­though the found­a­tion has col­lapsed the re­main­ing trunk is still one hun­dred feet high. In front is a stone pil­lar more than sev­enty feet tall, as smooth as jade and as re­flect­ive as a mir­ror. With earn­est prayer one may see vari­ous shad­owy pic­tures in the sur­face, and some­times good or evil omens can also be seen. This was the place where the Tathāgata, after hav­ing at­tained full en­light­en­ment, first turned the wheel of the Dharma. Not far from here a stupa marks the spot where Ājñāta-Kauṇd­inya and the oth­ers went when they saw that the Bodhi- sat­tva had aban­doned the prac­tice of aus­ter­it­ies. They re­fused to be his at­tend­ants and guards and came to this place to prac­tice med­it­a­tion by them­selves. The stupa be­side it was the place where five hun­dred pratyeka­buddhas entered nir­vana to­gether. There are also three other stu­pas mark­ing sites where the three past buddhas sat and walked up and down.

[0905c02] 三佛經行側有窣堵波，是梅呾麗耶(唐言慈，即姓也。舊曰彌勒，訛略也)菩薩受成佛記處。昔者如來在王舍城鷲峯山告諸苾芻：「當來之世，此贍部洲土地平正，人壽八萬歲，有婆羅門子慈氏者，身真金色，光明照朗，當捨家成正覺，廣為眾生三會說法。其濟度者，皆我遺法植福眾生也。其於三寶深敬一心，在家、出家，持戒、犯戒，皆蒙化導，證果解脫。三會說法之中，度我遺法之徒，然後乃化同緣善友。」

The stupa loc­ated be­side the place where the three past buddhas walked up and down marks the spot where Maitreya (be­ing a sur­name, mean­ing “Com­pas­sion” in Chinese, formerly called Mile in er­ro­neous ab­bre­vi­ation) Bod­hisat­tva re­ceived the pre­dic­tion of his at­tain­ment of buddha­hood. Once on Vul­ture Peak, near the city of Rā­jagṛha, the Tathāgata told the bhiksus, “In the fu­ture, when the hu­man life span will be eighty thou­sand years, there will be in this flat land of Jam­bud­vīpa a son of a brah­man of the Maitreya fam­ily, with a golden-colored body, shin­ing brightly. He will re­lin­quish his home to achieve full en­light­en­ment and preach the Dharma widely for the liv­ing be­ings in three as­sem­blies. Those who will be saved by him are be­ings who have cul­tiv­ated the deeds of blessed­ness ac­cord­ing to the teach­ings I will have left to them. Bea­cuse they deeply and whole­heartedly ven­er­ate the Triple Gem they will re­ceive edi­fic­a­tion and guid­ance and at­tain saint­hood and eman­cip­a­tion, whether they are laypeople or monks and whether they ob­serve or vi­ol­ate the dis­cip­lin­ary rules. In the three preach­ing as­sem­blies those who have fol­lowed my be­queathed Dharma will be saved first, and then good friends who have the cause to be saved will be edi­fied.”

是時慈氏菩薩聞佛此說，從坐起，白佛言：「願我作彼慈氏世尊。」如來告曰：「如汝所言，當證此果。如上所說，皆汝教化之儀也。」

When Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva heard what the Buddha had said, he stood up from his seat and said to the Buddha, “I wish to be that Maitreya, the World-honored One!” The Tathāgata told him, “As you have said, you will achieve that fruit. What I have said above is in­ten­ded for your edi­fic­a­tion.”

[0905c14] 慈氏菩薩受記西有窣堵波，是釋迦菩薩受記之處。賢劫中人壽二萬歲，迦葉波佛出現於世，轉妙法輪，開化含識，授護明菩薩記曰：「是菩薩於當來世眾生壽命百歲之時，當得成佛，號釋迦牟尼。」

To the west of the place where Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva re­ceived his pre­dic­tion is a stupa mark­ing the spot where Śākya Bod­hisat­tva re­ceived his proph­ecy. At the time when the hu­man life span was twenty thou­sand years in the bhad­rakalpa, Kāśyapa Buddha emerged in the world and turned the won­der­ful wheel of the Dharma to edify liv­ing be­ings. He proph­esied the fu­ture of Prab­hāpāla Bod­hisat­tva, say­ing, “This bod­hisat­tva will be­come a buddha with the name of Śākyamuni in the fu­ture, when the hu­man life span is one hun­dred years.”

[0905c19] 釋迦菩薩受記南不遠，有過去四佛經行遺迹，長五十餘步，高可七尺，以青石積成，上作如來經行之像，像形傑異，威嚴肅然，肉髻之上特出鬚髮，靈相無隱，神鑒有徵。於其垣內，聖迹寔多，諸精舍、窣堵波數百餘所，略舉二三難用詳述。

Not far to the south of the place where Śākya Bod­hisat­tva re­ceived his pre­dic­tion is a site where the four past buddhas walked up and down. It is over fifty paces long and about seven feet high, built of pilied-up blue­stone, on which there is an im­age of the Tathāgata in the pos­ture of walk­ing. It is un­usu­ally ex­quis­ite with an ap­pear­ance of solem­nity, and with a tuft of hair spe­cially grow­ing on the fleshy pro­tuber­ance. Its spir­itual fea­tures are ap­par­ent and its di­vine mani­fest­a­tion is test­i­fied. In­side the en­clos­ure there are nu­mer­ous sac­red sites and the temples and stu­pas num­ber in the sev­eral hun­dreds. I have only cited two or three of them; it is dif­fi­cult for me to give a de­tailed de­scrip­tion of them all.

[0905c25] 伽藍垣西有一清池，周二百餘步，如來嘗中盥浴。次西大池，周一百八十步，如來嘗中滌器。次北有池，周百五十步，如來嘗中浣衣。凡此三池，並有龍止。其水既深，其味又甘，澄淨皎潔，常無增減。有人慢心，濯此池者，金毘羅獸多為之害；若深恭敬，汲用無懼。浣衣池側大方石上，有如來袈裟之迹，其文明徹，煥如彫鏤，諸淨信者每來供養。外道凶人輕蹈此石，池中龍王便興風雨。

To the west of the en­clos­ure of the mon­as­tery is a pond of pure wa­ter more than two hun­dred paces in cir­cuit in which the Tathāgata of­ten bathed. Fur­ther to the west is an­other big pond, one hun­dred eighty paces in cir­cuit, where the Tathāgata used to wash his alms­bowl. Fur­ther to the north is a pond one hun­dred fifty paces in cir­cuit where the Tathāgata used to wash his robes. There are dragons liv­ing in all three ponds. The wa­ter is deep and tastes sweet. It is clear and limpid, neither in­creas­ing nor de­creas­ing. If one washes in these ponds with an ar­rog­ant mind he will usu­ally be harmed by a kumb­hīra (cro­codile), but it is safe for one to use the wa­ter with a mind of deep re­spect. Be­side the pond for wash­ing robes is a big square rock on which are the traces of the Tathāgata’s robes, with the lines as dis­tinct as if they were carved. Pure be­liev­ers of­ten come here to make of­fer­ings. If heretics and evil people tread con­temp­tu­ously on the rock the dragon king in the pond raises a storm.

[0906a05] 池側不遠有窣堵波，是如來修菩薩行時，為六牙象王，獵人利其牙也，詐服袈裟，彎弧伺捕，象王為敬袈裟，遂捩牙而授焉。

Not far from the pond is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata, in the course of prac­ti­cing the deeds of a bod­hisat­tva, was a six-tusked ele­phant king. A hunter who wished to ob­tain its tusks dis­guised him­self in a monk’s robe and drew his bow to kill the ele­phant. Out of re­spect for the robe the ele­phant king ex­trac­ted its tusks and gave them to the hunter.

[0906a09] 捩牙側不遠有窣堵波，是如來修菩薩行時，愍世無禮，示為鳥身，與彼獼猴、白象，於此相問，誰先見是尼拘律樹，各言事迹，遂編長幼，化漸遠近，人知上下，道俗歸依。

Not far from the place of the tusk ex­trac­tion is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata, in the course of prac­ti­cing the deeds of a bod­hisat­tva, mani­fes­ted as a bird. Out of pity for the lack of kind­ness in the world, he asked a mon­key and a white ele­phant which of them was the first to see the ban­yan tree [un­der which they were sit­ting]. Each gave an ac­count and, ac­cord­ing to their state­ments, who was senior and who was ju­nior was es­tab­lished. Their in­flu­ence gradu­ally spread far and near and the people began to know the or­der of su­peri­or­ity and in­feri­or­ity, and both monks and laypeople fol­lowed their ex­ample.

[0906a13] 其側不遠，大林中有窣堵波，是如來昔與提婆達多俱為鹿王斷事之處。昔於此處大林之中，有兩群鹿，各五百餘。時此國王畋遊原澤，菩薩鹿王前請王曰：「大王校獵中原，縱燎飛矢，凡我徒屬，命盡茲晨，不日腐臭，無所充膳。願欲次差，日輸一鹿。王有割鮮之膳，我延旦夕之命。」王善其言，迴駕而返。兩群之鹿，更次輸命。

Not far away is a great forest in which there is a stupa at the spot where in the past the Tathāgata and Devad­atta, both as deer kings, settled a dis­pute. Formerly in this great forest there were two herds of deer, each of which had more than five hun­dred an­im­als. The king of this coun­try once came to hunt in the plain and marsh­land. The Bod­hisat­tva deer king came for­ward and said to the king, “Your Majesty is hunt­ing with stout dogs in the plain, us­ing burn­ing torches and fly­ing ar­rows. All my fol­low­ers will lose their lives this morn­ing and in a few days [their bod­ies] will be­come pu­trid and stink­ing and will be un­fit for food. I wish to sup­ply you with a live deer every day in ro­ta­tion so that you may have fresh ven­ison, and my fol­low­ers will be able to lengthen their lives to some ex­tent.” The king, pleased by these words, turned back his car­riage. Thus each of the two herds provided the king with a deer on al­tern­ate days.

提婆群中有懷孕鹿，次當就死，白其王曰：「身雖應死，子未次也。」鹿王怒曰：「誰不寶命！」雌鹿歎曰：「吾王不仁，死無日矣。」乃告急菩薩鹿王。鹿王曰：「悲哉慈母之心，恩及未形之子！吾今代汝。」遂至王門。道路之人傳聲唱曰：「彼大鹿王今來入邑。」都人士庶莫不馳觀。王之聞也，以為不誠。門者白王，王乃信然。曰：「鹿王何遽來耶？」鹿曰：「有雌鹿當死，胎子未產，心不能忍，敢以身代。」王聞歎曰：「我人身鹿也，爾鹿身人也。」於是悉放諸鹿，不復輸命，即以其林為諸鹿藪，因而謂之施鹿林焉。鹿野之號，自此而興。

Now in the herd of [the deer king] Devad­atta there was a preg­nant doe. When it was her turn to be killed she said to the king of her herd, “Al­though it is my turn to die my child has noth­ing to do with this.” The deer king Deva- datta said an­grily, ‘‘Who does not value his life?” The doe re­marked, sigh­ing, “Our king is not kindly and I may die at any mo­ment.” So she asked for emer­gency help from the Bod­hisat­tva deer king. The Bod­hisat­tva said, “How com­pas­sion­ate is the mind of a be­nign mother, show­ing kind­ness to her child that has not yet taken shape! I shall go in your place.” Then he went to the gate of the king’s palace and the people in the street ex­claimed, “The great deer king has entered the town!” The of­fi­cials and com­mon people in the cap­ital rushed out to have a look. When the king heard about this he did not be­lieve it, but after the door­keeper in­formed the king he un­der­stood that it was true and said, “Deer king, why have you come here so ab­ruptly?” The deer said, “A doe was go­ing to die in her turn but she is about to give birth to a fawn, and I can­not bear the sight of her death. I ven­ture to sub­sti­tute my­self for her.” Hear­ing this, the king said with a sigh, “I am a hu­man be­ing in form but I be­have like a deer, and you are a deer yet you have the heart of a hu­man be­ing!” The king then set free all the deer and asked for no more sac­ri­fices from them. The forest was al­lot­ted as a pre­serve for the deer and there­fore was called the Forest Given to the Deer; hence the name Deer Park.

[0906b04] 伽藍西南二三里，有窣堵波，高三百餘尺，基趾廣峙，瑩飾奇珍，上無層龕，便置覆鉢，雖建表柱，而無輪鐸。其側有小窣堵波，是阿若憍陳如等五人棄制迎佛處也。初，薩婆曷剌他悉陀(唐言一切義成。舊曰悉達多，訛略也)太子踰城之後，棲山隱谷，忘身殉法。淨飯王乃命家族三人、舅氏二人曰：「我子一切義成捨家修學，孤遊山澤，獨處林藪，故命爾曹隨知所止。內則叔父、伯舅，外則既君且臣，凡厥動靜，宜知進止。」

Two or three li to the south­w­est of the mon­as­tery is a stupa more than three hun­dred feet high. The base of the stupa is broad and high and it is ad­orned with rare and bril­liant valu­ables. There are no niches ar­ranged in rows but in­stead a dome in the shape of an in­ver­ted alms­bowl was con­struc­ted on the base. Al­though a stone em­blem­atic pil­lar was erec­ted it has no dec­or­at­ive wheels or bells. Be­side it is a small stupa built at the place where the five people, Ājmta-Kauṇd­inya and the oth­ers, gave up their re­straint and greeted the Buddha. When Prince Sar­vārthasiddha (known as Yiqieyicheng, “Ac­com­plish­ment of All Pur­poses” in Chinese, formerly called Xidaduo in er­ro­neous ab­bre­vi­ation) crossed over the city wall to live in se­clu­sion in the moun­tains and val­leys, for­get­ting about him­self to seek the Dharma, King Suddhodana gave or­ders to three clanspeople and two re­l­at­ives, say­ing, “My son Sar­vārthasiddha has left home to pur­sue his stud­ies and is trav­el­ing alone in the moun­tains and marsh­lands, so­journ­ing in woods and forests. I or­der you to fol­low him so I will know where he is stay­ing. In­wardly you are his pa­ternal and ma­ter­nal uncles, but out­wardly he is your lord and you are his sub­jects. You should know what to do in whatever cir­cum­stances.”

五人銜命，相望營衛，因即勤求，欲期出離。每相謂曰：「夫修道者，苦證耶？樂證耶？」二人曰：「安樂為道。」三人曰：「勤苦為道。」二三交爭，未有以明。於是太子思惟至理，為伏苦行外道，節麻米以支身。彼二人者見而言曰：「太子所行非真實法。夫道也者，樂以證之，今乃勤苦，非吾徒也。」捨而遠遁，思惟果證。

Un­der the king’s or­der the five men served the prince as his guards, and at the same time they also sought the way of eman­cip­a­tion. They of­ten dis­cussed among them­selves whether they should cul­tiv­ate the way to at­tain lib­er­a­tion by prac­ti­cing as­ceti­cism or by liv­ing in a pleas­ant man­ner. Two of them said that one should cul­tiv­ate the way in com­fort, while the other three held that one should cul­tiv­ate the way in an ar­du­ous as­cetic man­ner. They ar­gued about the mat­ter without com­ing to a clear de­cision. The prince pondered the ul­ti­mate truth and, in or­der to con­vince the heretics who led a life of severe hard­ship, he took only gruel to sus­tain his life. See­ing this, the two men said, “What the prince is do­ing is not the true Dharma. The way is some­thing that should be real­ized in a com­fort­able man­ner. He is not of our group, as he has taken to as­ceti­cism.” So they deser­ted the prince and fled far away with the in­ten­tion of at­tain­ing the fruit of saint­hood.

太子六年苦行，未證菩提，欲驗苦行非真，受乳糜而證果。斯三人者聞而歎曰：「功垂成矣，今其退矣。六年苦行，一日捐功！」於是相從求訪二人，既相見已，匡坐高論，更相議曰：「昔見太子一切義成，出王宮，就荒谷，去珍服，披鹿皮，精勤勵志，貞節苦心，求深妙法，期無上果。今乃受牧女乳糜，敗道虧志，吾知之矣，無能為也。」彼二人曰：「君何見之晚歟？此猖蹶人耳。夫處乎深宮，安乎尊勝，不能靜志，遠迹山林，棄轉輪王位，為鄙賤人行，何可念哉？言增忉怛耳！」

After prac­ti­cing as­ceti­cism for six years the prince did not achieve en­light­en­ment and, wish­ing to prove that as­ceti­cism was not the true method, he ac­cep­ted milk gruel and at­tained the fruit of saint­hood. Hear­ing this, the three men said with a sigh, “At the last mo­ment to gain suc­cess he has ret­ro­gressed. All the ef­fort he put forth in prac­ti­cing as­ceti­cism for six years is aban­doned in a single day.” Then they went to­gether to visit the two men [who had left be­fore]. When they saw one an­other, hav­ing seated them­selves, they star­ted to talk bom­bastic­ally, say­ing, “Formerly we saw that Prince Sar­vārthasiddha left the palace and went to the wilds; he took off his pre­cious gar­ments and put on a deer­skin, work­ing hard and per­sever­ing to seek the deep and won­der­ful Dharma whole­heartedly and painstak­ingly in or­der to win the su­preme fruit of saint­hood. But now he has ac­cep­ted milk gruel offered by some milk­maids and is mor­ally ruined, con­trary to his ori­ginal in­ten­tion. We know all about this but we could do noth­ing.” The two men said, “How is it that you see it so late? He is merely a ca­pri­cious per­son. When he was liv­ing in the palace with honor and dig­nity he could not keep his mind in peace but went far away to the forests, and he aban­doned his po­s­i­tion as uni­ver­sal mon­arch to lead the life of a low and vul­gar per­son. Why should we re­mem­ber him? The men­tion of him merely dis­tresses us.”

菩薩浴尼連河，坐菩提樹，成等正覺，號天人師，寂然宴默，惟察應度，曰：「彼欝頭藍子者，證非想定，堪受妙法。」空中諸天尋聲報曰：「欝頭藍子命終已來，經今七日。」如來歎惜：「如何不遇，垂聞妙法，遽從變化？」重更觀察，營求世界，有阿藍迦藍，得無所有處定，可授至理。諸天又曰：「終已五日。」如來再歎，愍其薄祐。又更諦觀，誰應受教？唯施鹿林中有五人者，可先誘導。

After hav­ing bathed in the Nair­añ­janā River, the Tathāgata sat un­der the bodhi tree and at­tained full en­light­en­ment and the title Teacher of Gods and Hu­mans. He sat quietly, med­it­at­ing on who should be con­ver­ted by him, think­ing, “Udraka Rāmaputra, who has achieved the men­tal state of no thought and no non-thought (na­ivasamjñāsamjñānāyatana), is com­pet­ent to re­ceive the won­der­ful Dharma.” The heav­enly be­ings in the air said in reply, “Udraka Rāmaputra passed away seven days ago.” The Tathāgata re­gret­ted that he had not been able to meet that man who had died sud­denly and so could not hear the won­der­ful Dharma. He again ob­served the world in search of a suit­able man and re­col­lec­ted Ārādakālāma, who had achieved the men­tal state of noth­ing­ness (ākiñcanyāyatana), to whom he should im­part the ul­ti­mate truth. The heav­enly be­ings again said, “He has been dead five days.” The Tathāgata re­gret­ted once more and had pity on that man for not hav­ing had the good luck to hear the Dharma. He again pondered the mat­ter of to whom he should im­part his teach­ings and found that no oth­ers but the five men at Deer Park should be taught first.

如來爾時起菩提樹，趣鹿野園，威儀寂靜，神光晃曜，毫含玉彩，身真金色，安詳前進，導彼五人。斯五人遙見如來，互相謂曰：「一切義成，彼來者是。歲月遽淹，聖果不證，心期已退，故尋吾徒。宜各默然，勿起迎禮。」如來漸近，威神動物，五人忘制，拜迎問訊，侍從如儀。如來漸誘，示之妙理，兩安居畢，方獲果證。

At that time the Tathāgata rose from his seat un­der the bodhi tree and re­paired to Deer Park. His de­port­ment was quiet and calm and he gave off a dazzling di­vine light. His white eye­brows had the luster of jade and his body was of the color of genu­ine gold. He pro­ceeded with com­pos­ure in or­der to in­struct the five men. When they saw the Tathāgata com­ing from a dis­tance, they said among them­selves, “The man who is com­ing is Sar­vārtha-siddha. Even after such a long time he has not achieved the fruit of saint­hood. He must have given up what he ex­pec­ted in his mind and so he has come to look for us. We should re­main si­lent and not stand up to greet or sa­lute him.” As the Tathāgata ap­proached them his di­vine in­flu­ence af­fected them all, and the five men, for­get­ting their re­straint, sa­luted him with greet­ings and waited upon him, ac­cord­ing to etiquette. The Tathāgata gradu­ally taught them the ul­ti­mate truth and, at the con­clu­sion of the sum­mer re­treat dur­ing the rainy sea­son, they at­tained the fruit of saint­hood.

[0906c19] 施鹿林東行二三里，至窣堵波，傍有涸池，周八十餘步，一名救命，又謂烈士。聞諸先志曰：數百年前，有一隱士，於此池側結廬屏迹，博習伎術，究極神理，能使瓦礫為寶，人畜易形，但未能馭風雲，陪仙駕。閱圖考古，更求仙術。其方曰：「夫神仙者，長生之術也。將欲求學，先定其志，築建壇場，周一丈餘。命一烈士，信勇昭著，執長刀，立壇隅，屏息絕言，自昏達旦；求仙者中壇而坐，手按長刀，口誦神呪，收視反聽，遲明登仙。所執銛刀變為寶劍，凌虛履空，王諸仙侶，執劍指麾，所欲皆從，無衰無老，不病不死。」

Go­ing to the east of Deer Park for two or three li. I came to a stupa, be­side which was a dried-up pond more than eighty paces in cir­cum­fer­ence with the name “Life-sav­ing Pond” or “Hero’s Pond.” I heard the local people say that sev­eral hun­dred years ago there was a her­mit liv­ing in se­clu­sion in a hut be­side the pond. He was learned in arts and crafts and had thor­oughly mastered the di­vine prin­ciples, and was able to turn nibble into gems and in­ter­change the forms of hu­mans and an­im­als. But he could not ride on the wind and clouds to ac­com­pany the spir­its, so he searched into an­cient books for the art of be­com­ing a spirit. It was said in the method, “The art of the spir­its is the art of longev­ity. One who wishes to learn it should first of all make up one’s mind. An al­tar should be built more than ten feet in cir­cum­fer­ence. Ask a hero of out­stand­ing truth­ful­ness and bravery to hold a long knife and stand at a corner of the al­tar, hold­ing his breath and keep­ing si­lent from dusk to the next morn­ing. One who seeks to be a spirit should sit at the cen­ter of the al­tar while put­ting his hand on a long knife, re­peat­ing an in­cant­a­tion with a con­cen­trated mind, neither see­ing nor hear­ing any­thing. Be­fore dawn he will be­come a spirit and the sharp knife will turn into a pre­cious sword. He will then be able to walk in the air to rule over the spir­its. Wield­ing his sword as a com­mander he will ob­tain whatever he de­sires and never be­come old or feeble, or suf­fer ill­ness or death.”

是人既得仙方，行訪烈士，營求曠歲，未諧心願。後於城中遇見一人，悲號逐路。隱士覩其相，心甚慶悅，即而慰問：「何至怨傷？」曰：「我以貧窶，傭力自濟。其主見知，特深信用，期滿五歲，當酬重賞。於是忍勤苦，忘艱辛。五年將周，一旦違失，既蒙笞辱，又無所得。以此為心，悲悼誰恤？」

Hav­ing ac­quired the method of be­com­ing a spirit, the her­mit began look­ing for a hero but for a year he could not find a suit­able per­son to his sat­is­fac­tion. Later, he met a man in the town wail­ing piteously as he walked along the road. See­ing him, the her­mit was pleased with his fea­tures and asked him sym­path­et­ic­ally why he was so sor­row­ful. The man said, “I am a poor man and I worked as a ser­vant to sus­tain my­self. My em­ployer was ap­pre­ci­at­ive of my abil­ity and had con­fid­ence in me. He prom­ised to pay me good wages if I served him for five years. Thus I toiled di­li­gently and ig­nored hard­ships. But when the term of five years was nearly con­cluded I com­mit­ted a fault, for which not only was I shame­fully flogged but I also lost my pay. This is why I feel so sor­row­ful, and no one shows me sym­pathy.”

隱士命與同遊，來至草廬，以術力故，化具肴饌，已而令入池浴，服以新衣，又以五百金錢遺之，曰：「盡當來求，幸無外也。」自時厥後，數加重賂，潛行陰德，感激其心。烈士屢求効命，以報知己。隱士曰：「我求烈士，彌歷歲時，幸而會遇，奇貌應圖，非有他故，願一夕不聲耳。」烈士曰：「死尚不辭，豈徒屏息？」

The her­mit asked the man to come with him to the hut and through ma­gical power he pro­duced de­li­cious food [to en­ter­tain him]. After that he in­vited him to take a bath in the pond and clothed him in new gar­ments. Then he presen­ted him with five hun­dred gold coins and said to him, “When you have spent all the money come again to get more. Please don’t make a stranger of your­self.” He presen­ted rich gifts to the man on sev­eral oc­ca­sions, with the un­spoken in­ten­tion of win­ning his heart. The hero re­peatedly offered to render a ser­vice to the her­mit as re­pay­ment for his kind­ness. The her­mit said, “I sought a hero for a year and I am lucky to have met you, as your fea­tures an­swer the de­scrip­tion of the an­cient books. I shall not trouble you with any­thing else but I do re­quest that you keep si­lent for one night.” The hero said, “I am not afraid even of death, to say noth­ing of keep­ing si­lent.”

於是設壇場，受仙法，依方行事，坐待°日曛。曛暮之後，各司其務，隱士誦神呪，烈士按銛刀。殆將曉矣，忽發聲叫。是時空中火下，煙焰雲蒸，隱士疾引此人，入池避難。已而問曰：「誡子無聲，何以驚叫？」烈士曰：「受命後，至夜分，惛然若°夢，變異更起。見昔事主躬來慰謝，感荷厚恩，忍不報語；彼人震怒，遂見殺害。受中陰身，顧屍歎惜，猶願歷世不言，以報厚德。遂見託生南印度大婆羅門家，乃至受胎出胎，備經苦厄，荷恩荷德，嘗不出聲。洎乎受業、冠、婚、喪親、生子，每念前恩，忍而不語，宗親戚屬咸見怪異。年過六十有五，我妻謂曰：『汝可言矣！若不語者，當殺汝子。』我時惟念，已隔生世，自顧衰老，唯此稚子，因止其妻，令無殺害。遂發此聲耳。」隱士曰：「我之過也！此魔嬈耳。」烈士感恩，悲事不成，憤恚而死。免火災難，故曰救命；感恩而死，又謂烈士池。

Then an al­tar was pre­pared for the per­form­ance of the rite of be­com­ing a spirit. They ac­ted in ac­cord­ance with the method and sat down to wait for dusk. After dusk, each of them did his duty, the her­mit re­peat­ing the in­cant­a­tion while the hero held the sharp knife. At the ap­proach of dawn [the hero] sud­denly shrieked aloud and con­sequently a fire fell from the air and smoke and flames covered the place like a cloud. The her­mit hast­ily led the man to seek refuge in the pond and asked him, “I told you to keep si­lent, so why did you make such a shrill noise?” The hero said, “After re­ceiv­ing your in­struc­tions I had a night­mare at mid­night, in which many strange things ap­peared. I saw my former em­ployer com­ing to make a per­sonal apo­logy to me and, out of my deep grat­it­ude to you I re­frained from speak­ing to him. En­raged, that man killed me and I then ex­is­ted in the state of in­ter­me­di­ate ex­ist­ence between death and re­in­carn­a­tion (ant­arābhava). I looked back at my own corpse with a sigh of re­gret and, by way of re­pay­ing your deep kind­ness, I de­cided not to speak a word in my fu­ture life. Then I saw I was re­born to a great brah­man fam­ily in South In­dia and I never uttered a sound in the course of con­cep­tion and birth and other pain­ful ex­per­i­ences, al­ways bear­ing in mind the be­ne­fit and kind­ness you ex­ten­ded to me. When I reached the age of school­ing, be­came an adult, got mar­ried, lost my par­ents, and begat a son, I al­ways re­membered your kind­ness and re­frained from speak­ing. All my clanspeople and re­l­at­ives wondered about me. When I was over sixty-five years old my wife said to me, ‘You must speak now, oth­er­wise I will kill your son!’ Con­sid­er­ing that I was get­ting old in my second life and had only one child, I stopped my wife from killing him, and thus I uttered that sound.” The her­mit said, “It is my fault; it is a mis­chief caused by a de­mon.” With a feel­ing of grat­it­ude and re­gret­ful for the fail­ure of the event, the hero died of chag­rin. Be­cause the pond pre­ven­ted the calam­ity of a con­flag­ra­tion it is called Lifesav­ing Pond and, as the hero died there, it is also called Hero’s Pond.

[0907b05] 烈士池西有三獸窣堵波，是如來修菩薩行時燒身之處。劫初時，於此林野，有狐、兔、猨，異類相悅。時天帝釋欲驗修菩薩行者，降靈應化為一老夫，謂三獸曰：「二三子善安隱乎？無驚懼耶？」

To the west of Hero’s Pond is a stupa built in memory of three an­im­als at the spot where the Tathāgata, in the course of prac­ti­cing the deeds of a bod­hisat­tva, burned him­self. At the be­gin­ning of the present kalpa there were three an­im­als, a fox, a hare, and an ape, who lived har­mo­ni­ously to­gether in this wild forest. At that time In­dra wished to test the one who was cul­tiv­at­ing the bod­hisat­tva deeds and trans­formed him­self into an old man. He said to the three an­im­als, “Are the three of you liv­ing in peace and without fear?”

曰：「涉豐草，遊茂林，異類同歡，既安且樂。」老夫曰：「聞二三子情厚意密，忘其老弊，故此遠尋。今正飢乏，何以饋食？」曰：「幸少留此，我躬馳訪。」

The an­im­als said, “We tread on rich grass and frolic in the lux­uri­ant wood. Al­though we are of dif­fer­ent spe­cies we en­joy ourselves in both safety and hap­pi­ness.” The old man said, “I have heard that the three of you are good friends and on in­tim­ate terms, so I have come from afar to look for you des­pite my old age and fa­tigue. Now I am hungry; what can you give me to eat?” The an­im­als said, “Please wait a mo­ment. We shall go get some­thing for you.”

於是同心虛己，分路營求。狐沿水濱，銜一鮮鯉，猨於林樹，採異華菓，俱來至止，同進老夫。唯免空還，遊躍左右。

So each mod­estly went away on dif­fer­ent paths with the same pur­pose of seek­ing for some ed­ibles. The fox caught a carp by the river­side, while the ape plucked some strange flowers and fruit in the wood. They came back to­gether to of­fer their find­ings to the old man, but the hare re­turned empty-handed, frisk­ing about the old man.

老夫謂曰：「以吾觀之，爾曹未和。猨狐同志，各能役心，唯兔空返，獨無相饋。以此言之，誠可知也。」兔聞譏議，謂狐、猨曰：「多聚樵蘇，方有所作。」狐、猨競馳，銜草曳木，既已蘊崇，猛焰將熾。兔曰：「仁者，我身卑劣，所求難遂，敢以微躬，充此一[(歹*又)/食]。」辭畢入火，尋即致死。

The old man said, “As far as I can see you are not liv­ing in har­mony. The ape and fox had the same pur­pose and worked with one mind, but the hare came back empty-handed and has noth­ing to give me. From this I can un­der­stand the situ­ation.” Hav­ing heard this de­ris­ive re­mark, the hare said to the fox and ape, “Gather a large amount of fire­wood; I am go­ing to do some­thing.” The fox and ape went speedily to gather hay and haul wood, and when they had piled up a huge heap of fuel it was ig­nited into ra­ging flames. The hare said, “Kind sir, I am a lower creature and could not get what I wished for. I ven­ture to of­fer my humble body to be served as a meal to you.” Hav­ing said this, the hare jumped into the fire and died in the flames.

是時老夫復帝釋身，除燼收骸，傷歎良久，謂狐、猨曰：「一何至此！吾感其心，不泯其迹，寄之月輪，傳乎後世。」故彼咸言，月中之兔，自斯而有。後人於此建窣堵波。

At that time the old man re­sumed his form as In­dra and col­lec­ted the ashes of the hare from among the em­bers with a long sigh of re­gret. Then he said to the fox and ape, “Since the event has turned out as it has, I am deeply moved by the hare’s good-hearted­ness and I shall per­petu­ate its good deed by send­ing it to the moon to be known to pos­ter­ity.” There­fore the local people say that since then a hare has ap­peared in the moon. People of later times built a stupa at this place.

[0907b27] 戰主國，周二千餘里，都城臨殑伽河，周十餘里。居人豐樂，邑里相隣。土地膏腴，稼穡時播。氣序和暢，風俗淳質，人性獷烈，邪正兼信。伽藍十餘所，僧徒減千人。並皆遵習小乘教法。天祠二十，異道雜居。

From here go­ing east along the Ganges for more than three hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Gar­janapati (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). Gar­janapati is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city, which bor­ders the Ganges River, is more than ten li in cir­cuit. The in­hab­it­ants are rich and happy and the towns and vil­lages are close to one an­other. The soil is fer­tile and farm­ing is done in ac­cord­ance with the sea­sons. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom and rus­tic and in­trepid by nature. They be­lieve in both the wrong and the right re­li­gions. There are over ten mon­as­ter­ies with less than one thou­sand monks, all of whom fol­low the Hinay­ana teach­ings. Deva temples amount to twenty and fol­low­ers of the dif­fer­ent faiths live to­gether.

[0907c03] 大城西北伽藍中窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。《印度記》曰：「此中有如來舍利一斗。」昔者世尊嘗於此處，七日之中，為天、人眾顯說妙法。其側則有過去三佛坐及經行遺迹之處。隣此復有慈氏菩薩像，形量雖小，威神嶷然，靈鑒潛通，奇迹間起。

In a mon­as­tery to the north­w­est of the great city there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. It is said in the Re­cord ofIn­dia that one liter of the Tathāgata’s relic bones is pre­served in this stupa. In olden times the Tathāgata preached the won­der­ful Dharma to an as­sembly of devas and hu­mans for seven days at this place. Be­side it are sites where the three past buddhas sat and walked up and down. In the vi­cin­ity of these sites is a statue of Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva. Al­though small in size its di­vine power is mani­fest. It has lat­ent spir­itu­al­ity and works mir­acles from time to time.

[0907c09] 大城東行二百餘里，至阿避陀羯剌拏僧伽藍(唐言不穿耳)。周垣不廣，彫飾甚工，花池交影，臺閣連甍，僧徒肅穆，眾儀庠序。聞諸先志曰：昔大雪山北覩貨邏國有樂學沙門，二三同志禮誦餘閑，每相謂曰：「妙理幽玄，非言談所究；聖迹昭著，可足趾所尋。宜詢莫逆，親觀聖迹。」於是二三交友，杖錫同遊。既至印度，寓諸伽藍，輕其邊鄙，莫之見舍。外迫風露，內累口腹，顏色憔悴，形容枯槁。時此國王出遊近郊，見諸客僧，怪而問曰：「何方乞士？何所因來？耳既不穿，衣又垢弊。」沙門對曰：「我，覩貨邏國人也。恭承遺教，高蹈俗塵，率其同好，觀禮聖迹。慨以薄福，眾所同棄，印度沙門，莫顧羈旅。欲還本土，巡禮未周，雖迫勤苦，心遂後已。」

Go­ing east­ward from the great city for more than two hun­dred li. I reached Aviddhakarṇa (known as Buchuaner, “Un­pierced Ears,” in Chinese) Mon­as­tery. The sur­round­ing wall is not ex­tens­ive but the dec­or­at­ive sculp­tures are very ex­quis­ite. The flowers are re­flec­ted in the ponds and the ter­races and the ridges of the pa­vil­ions are close to one an­other. The monks are quiet and sol­emn in de­port­ment and the com­munity lives in an or­derly man­ner. I heard some eld­erly people say that formerly in the coun­try of Tukhāra, to the north of the Hi­m­alayas, there were two or three śramaṇas who took de­light in learn­ing and of­ten talked to­gether at leis­ure times after hav­ing done re­li­gious ser­vice and re­cit­a­tion, say­ing, “The won­der­ful prin­ciples and ab­struse the­or­ies can­not be thor­oughly mastered through empty words, but the holy sites are ob­vi­ous and dis­cern­ible and can be vis­ited by mak­ing the jour­ney on foot. We should in­quire of some close friends about the mat­ter and go visit the holy sites in per­son.” So the two or three friends, hold­ing their pew­ter staffs in hand, star­ted the jour­ney to­gether. When they ar­rived in In­dia they sought out lodgings in a mon­as­tery, but the local monks des­pised them as fron­ti­ers­men and re­fused to give them ac­com­mod­a­tion. As they had to stay out in the open air, tired and hungry, they be­came thin and pal­lid and looked hag­gard. At that time the king of that coun­try, on a pleas­ure trip in the sub­urbs, saw the vis­it­ing monks. He asked them with amazement, “Men­dic­ants, from where and why did you come here? Your ears are not pierced and you are dressed in such dirty and shabby robes.” The śramaṇas said in reply, “We are from the coun­try of Tukhāra. We re­spect­fully fol­low the teach­ings of the Buddha and left the world [to live as monks]. By our com­mon wish we have come to pay homage to the holy sites. But it is re­gret­table to say that, due to our de­fi­ciency in blessed­ness, the In­dian monks do not at­tend to us way­farers. As we have not com­pleted our pil­grim­age we wish to re­turn to our nat­ive land, so we will en­dure hard­ships and go home after our de­sire is ful­filled.”

王聞其說，用增悲感，即斯勝地，建立伽藍，白[疊*毛]題書，為之制曰：「我惟尊居世上，貴極人中，斯皆三寶之靈祐也。既為人王，受佛付囑，凡厥染衣，吾當惠濟。建此伽藍，式招羈旅。自今已來，諸穿耳僧，我此伽藍不得止舍。」因其事迹，故以名焉。

Upon hear­ing these words the king felt pity for the trav­el­ers and con­struc­ted a mon­as­tery at this su­per­ior place. He wrote down a rule on a piece of white cot­ton that said, “It is due to the spir­itual pro­tec­tion of the Triple Gem that I am the most honored per­son in the world and the noblest in rank among all people. Since I am a king of people and the Buddha has en­trus­ted me [to take care of the re­li­gion], I shall ex­tend help to all monks in dis­tress. This mon­as­tery has been con­struc­ted ex­clus­ively for the en­ter­tain­ment of trav­el­ing monks, and no monks with pierced ears shall stay in this mon­as­tery of mine in the fu­ture.” It is on ac­count of this event that the mon­as­tery is called “Un­pierced Ears.”

[0908a01] 阿避陀羯剌拏伽藍東南行百餘里，南渡殑伽河，至摩訶娑羅邑，並婆羅門種，不遵佛法。然見沙門，先訪學業，知其強識，方深禮敬。

Go­ing south­east for more than one hun­dred li from Aviddhakarṇa Mon­as­tery, cross­ing the Ganges River to the south, I reached the town of Mahāśāla. All the in­hab­it­ants are brah­mans by caste and they do not fol­low the buddha-dharma. When they meet Buddhist monks they in­quire about their learn­ing, and if they find that the monks are learned they sa­lute them with deep re­spect.

[0908a05] 殑伽河北，有那羅延天祠。重閣層臺，奐甚麗飾。諸天之像，鑴石而成，工極人謀，靈應難究。

At the north of the Ganges there is a Nārāy­aṇa temple con­sist­ing of stor­ied pa­vil­ions and ter­races ar­ranged in tiers, all beau­ti­fully dec­or­ated. The statues of vari­ous devas are carved from stone with the most ex­quis­ite crafts­man­ship. Their spir­itual ef­fic­acy is dif­fi­cult for me to de­scribe in de­tail.

[0908a07] 那羅延天祠東行三十餘里，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，太半陷地。前建石柱，高餘二丈，上作師子之像，刻記伏鬼之事。昔於此處有曠野鬼，恃大威力，噉人血肉，作害生靈，肆極妖祟。如來愍諸眾生不得其死，以神通力誘化諸鬼，導以歸依之敬，齊以不殺之戒。諸鬼承教，奉以周旋。於是舉石請佛安坐，願聞正法，克念護持。自時厥後，無信之徒競共推移鬼置石座，動以千數，莫之能轉。茂林清池，周基左右，人至其側，無不心懼。

More than thirty li to the east of the Nārāy­aṇa temple is a stupa built by King Aśoka. A large part of it has col­lapsed into the ground and in front there is a stone pil­lar more than twenty feet high with the fig­ure of a lion on top. In­scribed on the pil­lar is a re­cord of the event of sub­du­ing demons. Formerly there were some demons of the wil­der­ness at this place who, re­ly­ing on their strength, ate hu­man flesh and blood, do­ing harm to liv­ing creatures in a most evil and mon­strous man­ner. Out of com­pas­sion for the liv­ing be­ings who would die vi­ol­ent deaths, the Tathāgata, through his su­per­nat­ural powers, in­duced the demons to take refuge [in the Triple Gem] with ven­er­a­tion and taught them to ob­serve the pre­cept of non-killing. The demons ac­cep­ted the Buddha’s teach­ings and cir­cum­am­bu­lated him with re­spect. Then they raised a rock for the Buddha to sit on and wished to hear [him teach] the right Dharma, which they pro­tec­ted whole­heartedly. Af­ter­ward, people who did not be­lieve in the buddha-dharma tried to push and re­move the rock seat set up by the demons but they could not move it, even though they numbered in the thou­sands. Around the base of the rock there are lux­uri­ant trees and ponds of clear wa­ter and any­one who comes near the place is awe­struck.

[0908a18] 伏鬼側不遠，有數伽藍，雖多傾毀，尚有僧徒，並皆遵習大乘教法。

Not far from [the stupa of] sub­du­ing demons there are sev­eral mon­as­ter­ies. Al­though they are mostly dilap­id­ated there are still monks [liv­ing in them], all of whom study and fol­low the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings.

[0908a19] 從此東南行百餘里，至一窣堵波，基已傾陷，餘高數丈。昔者如來寂滅之後，八國大王分舍利也，量舍利婆羅門蜜塗瓶內，分授諸王，而婆羅門持瓶以歸，既得所粘舍利，遂建窣堵波，并°瓶置內，因以名焉。後無憂王開取舍利瓶，改建大窣堵波，或至齋日，時燭光明。

Go­ing from here to the south­east for over one hun­dred li, I came to a stupa of which the base has slanted and sunk to one side; the re­main­ing part of it is a few scores of feet in height. When the Tathāgata entered nir­vana and the great kings of eight coun­tries di­vided his rel­ics, the brah­man who meas­ured the rel­ics smeared the in­side of the meas­ur­ing bottle with honey, from which he made al­lot­ments for the kings. The brah­man re­turned with the bottle and, hav­ing ob­tained the rel­ics that stuck to the in­side of the meas­ur­ing bottle, he built this stupa and en­shrined the bottle in it. Hence it is called [Relic Bottle Stupa]. Af­ter­ward King Aśoka opened the stupa and took out the relic bottle, for which he con­struc­ted a great stupa. On fast days it of­ten emits a bril­liant light.

[0908a25] 從此東北度殑伽河，行百四五十里，至吠舍釐國(舊曰毘舍離國，訛也。中印度境)。

Cross­ing the Ganges at the north­east of this place and go­ing for one hun­dred forty or fifty li, I reached the coun­try of Vaiśālī (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Pisheli, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

[0908a28] 吠舍釐國，周五千餘里。土地沃壤，花菓茂盛，菴沒羅菓、茂遮菓既多且貴。氣序和暢，風俗淳質，好福重學，邪正雜信。伽藍數百，多已圮°壞，存者三五，僧徒稀少。天祠數十，異道雜居，露形之徒，寔繁其黨。

The coun­try of Vaiśālī is more than five thou­sand li in cir­cuit. The soil is fer­tile and there is an abund­ance of flowers and fruit; mango and plantain are plen­ti­ful and valu­able. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom. They take de­light in do­ing good works and at­tach im­port­ance to learn­ing, and be­lieve in both het­ero­dox and or­tho­dox doc­trines. There are sev­eral hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies, most of which are in ru­ins, with the ex­cep­tion of a few that re­main in­tact and house a few monks. There are sev­eral tens of deva temples and the heretics live to­gether. The sect of the na­ked ad­her­ents flour­ishes here.

吠舍釐城已甚傾頹，其故基趾周六七十里，宮城周四五里，少有居人。[0908b05] 宮城西北五六里，至一伽藍，僧徒寡少，習學小乘正量部法。傍有窣堵波，是昔如來說《毘摩羅詰經》，長者子寶積等獻寶蓋處。其東有窣堵波，舍利子等於此證無學之果。

The city wall of the cap­ital of Vaiśālī has badly col­lapsed and the ori­ginal base of the wall is sixty or sev­enty li in cir­cuit, while the palace city is four or five li in cir­cuit; there are few in­hab­it­ants. Five or six li to the north­w­est of the palace city is a mon­as­tery with very few monks, who study the teach­ings of the Hinay­ana Saṃmitīya school. Be­side the mon­as­tery is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata de­livered the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa sūtra, and Rat­nākāra, the son of an elder, and oth­ers offered a sun­shade to him. To the east is a stupa at the place where Sāri­putra and oth­ers at­tained ar­hat­ship.

[0908b10] 舍利子證果東南有窣堵波，是吠舍釐王之所建也。佛涅槃後，此國先王分得舍利，式修崇建。《印度記》曰：「此中舊有如來舍利一斛，無憂王開取九斗，唯留一斗。」後有國王復欲開取，方事興功，尋則地震，遂不敢開。

To the south­east of the stupa where Sāri­putra at­tained ar­hat­ship is an­other stupa con­struc­ted by the king of Vaiśālī. After the Buddha’s nir­vana a former king of this coun­try ob­tained a por­tion of the Buddha’s relic bones, for which he re­spect­fully con­struc­ted this stupa. It is said in the Re­cord of In­dia that there was ori­gin­ally one hu of the Tathāgata’s rel­ics pre­served in this stupa, but King Aśoka opened it and took out nine dou of the rel­ics, leav­ing only one dou in the stupa. Later, an­other king wished to open the stupa again to get the re­main­ing rel­ics but just as he had just star­ted to do the work there was an earth­quake, so he dared not open the stupa.

[0908b14] 其西北有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。傍有石柱，高五六十尺，上作師子之像。石柱南有池，是群獼猴為佛穿也。在昔如來曾住於此。池西不遠有窣堵波，諸獼猴持如來鉢上樹取蜜之處；池南不遠有窣堵波，是諸獼猴奉佛蜜處；池西北隅猶有獼猴形像。

To the north­w­est is an­other stupa built by King Aśoka, and be­side it is a stone pil­lar fifty or sixty feet tall with the fig­ure of a lion on top. To the south of the stone pil­lar is a tank that was dug by a group of mon­keys for the Buddha, as he once lived at this place in the old days. Not far to the west of the tank is a stupa at the place where the mon­keys took the Tathāgata’s alms­bowl and climbed into a tree to gather honey. Not far to the south of the tank is a stupa at the place where the mon­keys offered the honey to the Buddha. Some fig­ures of mon­keys are still pre­served at the north­w­est corner of the tank.

[0908b22] 伽藍東北三里有窣堵波，是毘摩羅詰(唐言無垢稱。舊曰淨名，然淨則無垢，名則是稱，義雖取同，名乃有異。舊曰維摩詰，訛略也)故宅基趾，多有靈異。去此不遠有一神舍，其狀壘甎，傳云積石，即無垢稱長者現疾說法之處。去此不遠有窣堵波，長者子寶積之故宅也。去此不遠有窣堵波，是菴沒羅女故宅，佛姨母等諸苾芻尼於此證入涅槃。

Three or four li to the north­east of the mon­as­tery is a stupa built on the found­a­tion of the old res­id­ence of Vimalakīrti (known as ’‘Stain­less Repu­ta­tion” in Chinese, formerly trans­lated as “Pure Name.” How­ever, “pure” means “stain­less” and “name” is equi­val­ent to “repu­ta­tion.” Al­though the mean­ing is the same the name is trans­lated in dif­fer­ent ways. Formerly it was wrongly tran­scribed as Weimojie). The stupa of­ten re­veals spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions. Not far from here is a deity’s house, which ap­pears to be built out of piled-up bricks, but ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion it was made out of stone. This was the place where Vimalakīrti pre­ten­ded to be ill and preached the Dharma. Not far from here is a stupa built at the place of the old house of Rat­nākāra, the son of an elder. Not far from here is a stupa built at the place of the old house of the wo­man Āmra[pālī], The Buddha’s aunt and other bhikṣuṇīs real­ized nir­vana at this place.

[0908c01] 伽藍北三四里有窣堵波，是如來將往拘尸那國入般涅槃，人與非人隨從世尊，至此佇立。次西北不遠有窣堵波，是佛於此最後觀吠舍釐城。其南不遠有精舍，前建窣堵波，是菴沒羅女園持以施佛。

Three or four li to the north of the mon­as­tery is a stupa at the place where hu­man and non­hu­man be­ings stood and waited while fol­low­ing the Tathāgata, who was pro­ceed­ing to the coun­try of Kuśin­agar­ato enter par­inir­vāṇa. Next, not far to the north­w­est, is an­other stupa at the place where the Buddha stopped and took a last look at the city of Vaiśālī. Not far to the south of this stupa is a temple, in front of which is a stupa at the place where Amra[pālī] offered her garden to the Buddha.

[0908c06] 菴沒羅園側有窣堵波，是如來告涅槃處。佛昔在此告阿難曰：「其得四神足者，能住壽一劫。如來今者，當壽幾何？」如是再三，阿難不對，天魔迷惑故也。阿難從坐而起，林中宴默。時魔來請佛曰：「如來在世教化已久，蒙濟流轉，數如塵沙，寂滅之樂，今其時矣。」世尊以少土置爪上，而告魔曰：「地土多耶？爪土多耶？」對曰：「地土多也。」[0908c14] 佛言：「所度者如爪上土，未度者如大地土。却後三月，吾當涅槃。」魔聞歡喜而退。

Be­side Āmra[pālī] Garden is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata an­nounced the time of his nir­vana. Formerly the Buddha told Ān­anda at this place, “One who has achieved the four con­stitu­ent parts of su­per­nat­ural power can live for one kalpa. Now how long should the Tathāgata live?” He re­peated the ques­tion three times but Ān­anda, hav­ing been stu­pefied by Māra, re­mained si­lent and, rising from his seat, he went to sit quietly in the wood. At this mo­ment Māra came to the Buddha and said to him, “The Tathāgata has been edi­fy­ing the people in the world for a long time and those who have been saved by you from the round of re­birth are as nu­mer­ous as grains of dust and sand. It is now the time for you to en­joy the bliss of nir­vana.” The World- honored One then took up a pinch of soil with his nail and said to Māra, “Which is more, the amount of soil on the earth, or that on my fin­ger­nail?” Māra said in reply, “There is more soil on the earth.” The Buddha said, “Those I have con­ver­ted may be com­pared to the amount of soil on my nail, while those not yet con­ver­ted are as nu­mer­ous as the amount of soil of the great earth. Non­ethe­less, I shall enter nir­vana in three months.” On hear­ing this, Māra was pleased and de­par­ted.

阿難林中忽感異夢，來白佛言：「我在林間，夢見大樹，枝葉茂盛，蔭影蒙密，驚風忽起，摧散無餘。將非世尊欲入寂滅？我心懷懼，故來請問。」

In the wood Ān­anda had a strange dream and he came to tell the Buddha, say­ing, “In the wood I dreamed that a big tree with lux­uri­ant branches and leaves, cast­ing a dense shade, sud­denly fell down in a gale. Does this in­dic­ate that the World-honored One in­tends to enter nir­vana? My heart is full of fear so I have come to make this in­quiry.” The Buddha said to Ān­anda, “I told you pre­vi­ously but you were stu­pefied by Māra and you did not promptly in­vite me to stay [in the world]. Māra urged me to enter nir­vana soon and I have given him the date. That is what your dream pres­aged.”

[0908c20] 佛告阿難：「吾先告汝，汝為魔蔽，不時請留。魔王勸我早入涅槃，已許之期，斯夢是也。」[0908c23] 告涅槃期側不遠有窣堵波，千子見父母處也。昔有仙人，隱居巖谷，仲春之月，鼓濯清流，麀鹿隨飲，感生女子，姿貌過人，唯脚似鹿，仙人見已，收而養焉。其後命令求火，至餘仙廬，足所履地，迹有蓮華。彼仙見已，深以奇之，令其繞廬，方乃得火。鹿女依命，得火而還。時梵豫王畋遊見華，尋迹以求，悅其奇怪，同載而返。相師占言，當生千子。餘婦聞之，莫不圖計。日月既滿，生一蓮花，花有千葉，葉坐一子。餘婦誣罔，咸稱不祥，投殑伽河，隨波泛濫。烏耆延王下流遊觀，見黃雲蓋乘波而來，取以開視，乃有千子，乳養成立，有大力焉。恃有千子，拓境四方，兵威乘勝，將次此國。時梵豫王聞之，甚懷震懼，兵力不敵，計無所出矣。

Not far from the place where the Buddha an­nounced the time of his en­ter­ing nir­vana is a stupa at the spot where one thou­sand sons saw their par­ents. Formerly a ṛṣi lived in se­clu­sion in a rocky val­ley. One day in mid-spring he was row­ing a boat in a clear stream, and a doe fol­lowed him to drink wa­ter. Through in­spir­a­tion the doe gave birth to a girl, who was ex­ceed­ingly beau­ti­ful but had feet sim­ilar to the hooves of a deer. See­ing the girl, the ṛṣi took her in and brought her up. Later, when she was asked to go get some live coals from an­other ṛṣi’s her­mit­age, her steps left traces of lo­tus flowers on the ground. The other ṛṣi was deeply sur­prised by the sight and asked the girl to walk around his her­mit­age be­fore she would be al­lowed to get the fire. The deer girl did so, then ob­tained the fire and re­turned home. At that time King Brah­mān­anda was on a hunt­ing ex­ped­i­tion and saw the flower traces. Fol­low­ing the traces, he found the girl. Pleased by her un­usual ap­pear­ance, the king car­ried her back in his car­riage. A physiognom­ist fore­told that she would give birth to one thou­sand sons. When the other ladies [in the harem] heard the pre­dic­tion they con­trived to take ac­tion against her. At the end of her period of gest­a­tion she gave birth to a lo­tus flower with one thou­sand leaves, with one son sit­ting on each of the leaves. The other ladies cri­ti­cized her, and say­ing that it was an in­aus­pi­cious ob­ject they threw it into the Ganges River to be car­ried away by the cur­rent. King Uj­jay­ana, out on a sight­see­ing trip in the lower reaches of the river, saw a yel­low can­opy, em­broidered with a pat­tern of clouds, flow­ing down the river. He took it up and found one thou­sand sons wrapped in it. He fed them with milk and raised them into men of great strength. With the help of these one thou­sand sons the king ex­pan­ded his king­dom to the four quar­ters and he was about to en­croach on this coun­try with his tri­umphant army. When King Brah­mān­anda heard the news he was shocked and fear­ful, and know­ing his troops were not strong enough to of­fer res­ist­ance, he was at his wits’ end.

是時鹿女心知其子，乃謂王曰：「今寇戎臨境，上下離心，賤妾愚忠，能敗強敵。」王未之信也，憂懼良深。鹿女乃昇城樓，以待寇至。千子將兵，圍城已匝，鹿女告曰：「莫為逆事！我是汝母，汝是我子。」千子謂曰：「何言之謬？」鹿女手按兩乳，流注千岐，天性所感，咸入其口。於是解甲歸宗，釋兵返族，兩國交歡，百姓安樂。

At that time the deer wo­man, know­ing that the in­vaders were her sons, said to King [Brah­mān­anda], “Now the in­vaders are ap­proach­ing our ter­rit­ory and have caused dis­unity among us. I, your un­worthy wife, with a mind of loy­alty, can de­feat these strong en­emies.” But the king did not be­lieve her and she was deeply wor­ried and fear­ful. Then the deer wo­man went up to the tower of the city gate to wait for the ar­rival of the in­vaders. Her one thou­sand sons, com­mand­ing their troops, be­sieged the city. The deer wo­man told them, “Do not do un­filial things! I am your mother and you are my sons.” The one thou­sand sons said, “How ab­surd are your words!” But the deer wo­man pressed her breasts and milk flowed out and forked into one thou­sand streams and, be­cause of the ties of con­san­guin­ity, the milk flowed into the mouths of the one thou­sand sons. Re­cog­niz­ing their mother, they took off their ar­mor and, after dis­band­ing their troops, they re­turned to their own coun­try. The two coun­tries re­stored friendly re­la­tions and the people lived in peace and hap­pi­ness.

[0909a17] 千子歸宗側不遠有窣堵波，是如來行經舊迹，指告眾曰：「昔吾於此歸宗見親。欲知千子，即賢劫千佛是也。」

Not far from the place where the one thou­sand sons re­cog­nized their mother is a stupa at the old site where the Tathāgata walked up and down, while he poin­ted at the place and told the as­sembly, “Formerly at this place I re­cog­nized my mother. If you wish to know who were the thou­sand sons, they are the one thou­sand buddhas of the bhad­rakalpa.”

[0909a20] 述本生東有故基，上建窣堵波，光明時燭，祈請或遂，是如來說《普門陀羅尼》等經重閣講堂餘趾也。

To the east of the place where [the Buddha] re­lated his past life is an old found­a­tion on which there is a stupa that of­ten emits a bril­liant light and some­times an­swers the en­treat­ies of pray­ers. This is the rem­nant site of the stor­ied lec­ture hall in which the Tathāgata de­livered the Saman­tamukha-dhāraṇī and other sut­ras.

[0909a23] 講堂側不遠有窣堵波，中有阿難半身舍利。去此不遠有數百窣堵波，欲定其數，未有克知，是千獨覺入寂滅處。吠舍釐城內外周隍，聖迹繁多，難以具舉。形勝故墟，魚鱗間峙，歲月驟改，炎涼亟移，林既摧殘，池亦枯涸，朽株餘迹，其詳驗焉。

Not far from the lec­ture hall is a stupa in which are pre­served the re­mains of half of Ān­anda’s body. Not far from this stupa there are sev­eral hun­dred stu­pas, whose ex­act num­ber is un­known; this is the place where one thou­sand pratyeka­buddhas entered nir­vana. There are nu­mer­ous holy sites in and around the city of Vaiśālī and it is dif­fi­cult to de­scribe them all in de­tail. The old ru­ins at com­mand­ing po­s­i­tions stand with each other like the scales of a fish, but through the pas­sage of time and the change of hot and cold sea­sons the woods have withered away and the ponds have dried up, leav­ing be­hind de­cayed trees to bear testi­mony [to past glor­ies].

[0909a29] 大城西北行五六十里，至大窣堵波，栗呫(昌葉反)婆子(舊云離車子，訛也)別如來處。如來自吠舍釐城趣拘尸那國，諸栗呫婆子聞佛將入寂滅，相從悲號送。世尊既見哀慕，非言可喻，即以神力化作大河，崖岸深絕，波流迅急，諸栗呫婆悲慟以止，如來留鉢，為作追念。

Go­ing to the north­w­est for fifty or sixty li from the great city, I reached a great stupa at the place where the Lic­chavis (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Lichezi) bade farewell to the Tathāgata. When the Tathāgata was pro­ceed­ing to the coun­try of Kuśin­agara from the city of Vaiśālī, the Lic­chavis, hav­ing heard that the Buddha was about to enter nir­vana, went to see him off, wail­ing piteously. See­ing that their sor­row was so deep as to be in­con­sol­able by words, the World-honored One pro­duced through his su­per­nat­ural powers a big river with steep banks and a rapid cur­rent. The Lic­chavis, cry­ing bit­terly, were thus pre­ven­ted from fol­low­ing him any fur­ther. The Tathāgata left his alms­bowl as a memento for them.

[0909b07] 吠舍釐城西北減二百里，有故城，荒蕪歲久，居人曠少。中有窣堵波，是佛在昔為諸菩薩、人、天大眾，引說本生，修菩薩行，曾於此城為轉輪王，號曰摩訶提婆(唐言大天)。有七寶應，王四天下，覩衰變之相，體無常之理，冥懷高蹈，忘情大位，捨國出家，染衣修學。

Less than two hun­dred li to the north­w­est of the city of Vaiśālī is an old city that has been des­ol­ate for many years and has few in­hab­it­ants. In the city there is a stupa at the place where the Buddha told an as­sembly of vari­ous bod­hisat­tvas and hu­man and heav­enly be­ings about cul­tiv­at­ing bod­hisat­tva deeds in his past lives. He was once a uni­ver­sal mon­arch named Mahādeva (known as Da­tian, “Great Deity,” in Chinese), in this city, pos­sess­ing the seven treas­ures and com­pet­ently rul­ing over the four con­tin­ents of the world. But after wit­ness­ing the phe­nomenon of change­ab­il­ity and real­iz­ing the prin­ciple of im­per­man­ence, he cher­ished a high am­bi­tion and re­nounced the throne. He aban­doned his coun­try to be­come a monk and donned the dyed robe to pur­sue learn­ing.

[0909b13] 城東南行十四五里，至大窣堵波，是七百賢聖重結集處。佛涅槃後百一十年，吠舍釐城有諸苾芻，遠離佛法，謬行戒律。時長老耶舍陀住憍薩羅國，長老三菩伽住秣兔羅國，長老釐波多住韓若國，長老沙羅住吠舍釐國，長老富闍蘇彌羅住娑羅梨弗國。諸大羅漢心得自在，持三藏，得三明，有大名稱，眾所知識，皆是尊者阿難弟子。時耶舍陀遣使告諸賢聖，皆可集吠舍釐城。猶少一人，未滿七百。是時富闍蘇彌羅以天眼見諸大賢聖集議法事，運神足至法會。時三菩伽於大眾中右袒長跪，揚言曰：「眾無譁！欽哉，念哉！昔大聖法王善權寂滅，歲月雖淹，言教尚在。吠舍釐城懈怠苾芻謬於戒律，有十事出，違十力教。今諸賢者深明持犯，俱承大德阿難指誨，念報佛恩，重宣聖旨。」時諸大眾°莫不悲感，即召集諸苾芻，依毘柰耶，訶責制止，削除謬法，宣明聖教。

Go­ing south­east for four­teen or fif­teen li from the city, I reached a great stupa at the place where seven hun­dred sages and saints con­vened the Second Coun­cil. One hun­dred and ten years after the Buddha’s nir­vana, some bhikṣus in the city of Vaiśālī de­vi­ated from the buddha-dharma and ob­served the dis­cip­lin­ary rules in an er­ro­neous way. At that time Elder Yaśoda was resid­ing in Kos­ala, Elder Samb­hoga in Ma­th­ura, Elder Re­v­ata in Han­ruo, Elder Sālha in Vaiśālī, and Elder Kub­jaśob­hita in Pāṭali­putra. All these great ar­hats had gained men­tal lib­er­a­tion, mastered the Tripiṭaka, and pos­sessed the three clear in­sights; they had great repu­ta­tions and were well known to all as dis­ciples of Ven­er­able Ān­anda. At that time Yaśoda sent a mes­sen­ger to in­vite vari­ous sages and saints to meet in the city of Vaiśālī. The num­ber of those who at­ten­ded the meet­ing amoun­ted to seven hun­dred less one. Kub­jaśob­hita then saw with his clair­voy­ance that vari­ous sages and saints were as­sembled to dis­cuss mat­ters con­cern­ing the Dharma and he came to the as­sembly through his su­per­nat­ural power of ubi­quity. Samb­hoga, his right shoulder un­covered, knelt on the ground and said to the coun­cil, “Be quiet! Con­sider with re­spect! Al­though the great holy King of the Dharma entered nir­vana as an ex­pedi­ent many years ago, his oral teach­ings still ex­ist. Some neg­li­gent bhikṣus in the city of Vaiśālī ob­serve the dis­cip­lin­ary rules er­ro­neously and have raised ten points that are con­trary to the teach­ings of the Buddha who pos­sessed the ten powers. Now you sages are con­vers­ant with the [proper] ob­serv­ance and vi­ol­a­tion of the dis­cip­lin­ary rules, and all of you have stud­ied un­der the in­struc­tion of Bhad­anta Ān­anda. For the sake of re­pay­ing the Buddha’s kind­ness you should re­it­er­ate his holy de­crees.” No one among the great saints was not moved to tears. They summoned the faulty bhikṣus and, in ac­cord­ance with the Vinaya reg­u­la­tions, they re­proached them and stopped their mis­deeds. Thus the wrong prac­tices ended and the holy teach­ings were cla­ri­fied.

[0909c02] 七百賢聖結集南行八九十里，至濕吠多補羅僧伽藍，層臺輪煥，重閣翬飛，僧眾清肅，並學大乘。其傍則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之處。其側窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。如來在昔南趣摩揭陀國，北顧吠舍釐城，中途止息遺迹之處。

Go­ing south for eighty or ninety li from the place where the seven hun­dred sages and saints held a meet­ing, I came to Śveta­pura Mon­as­tery, which con­sisted of many lofty build­ings and mag­ni­fi­cent pa­vil­ions. The monks are pure and sol­emn in man­ner and they all study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. Be­side it are old sites where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down. The stupa be­side it was built by King Aśoka at the place where the Tathāgata hal­ted to rest on his way to the coun­try of Magadha in the south and looked back at the city of Vaiśālī in the north.

[0909c08] 濕吠多補羅伽藍東南行三十餘里，殑伽河南北岸各有一窣堵波，是尊者阿難陀分身與二國處。阿難陀者，如來之從父弟也，多聞總持，博物強識，佛去世後繼大迦葉住持正法，導進學人。在摩揭陀國，於林中經行，見一沙彌諷誦佛經，章句錯謬，文字紛亂。阿難聞已，感慕增懷，徐詣其所，提撕指授。沙彌笑曰：「大德耄矣，所言謬矣！我師高明，春秋鼎盛，親承示誨，誠°無所誤。」

More than thirty li away to the south of Śveta­pura Mon­as­tery there are two stu­pas, one built on the south­ern bank and the other on the north­ern bank of the Ganges River. This was the place where Ven­er­able Ān­anda di­vided his bod­ily rel­ics between two coun­tries. Ān­anda was a cousin of the Tathāgata and was a man of wide learn­ing and com­pre­hens­ive in­tel­li­gence who had an ex­tens­ive range of know­ledge and a re­tent­ive memory. After the Buddha’s de­mise he suc­ceeded Mahākāśyapa in up­hold­ing the right Dharma and guid­ing the learners. Once, when he was tak­ing a walk in a wood in the coun­try of Magadha, he saw a novice re­cit­ing the scrip­tures in­cor­rectly, with pas­sages and sen­tences in dis­order and the word­ing in con­fu­sion. Hav­ing heard the re­cit­a­tion, Ān­anda re­called the Buddha with a deep feel­ing of sor­row and went slowly to the novice to point out his mis­takes. The novice said with a smile, “Great Vir­tu­ous One, you have be­come senile and whatb you say is wrong. My teacher is a wise man in the prime of life. I have per­son­ally learned from him and there is no mis­take in his in­struc­tions.”

阿難默然，退而歎曰：「我年雖邁，為諸眾生，欲久住世，住持正法。然眾生垢重，難以誨語，久留無利，可速滅度。」

Ān­anda with­drew quietly with a sigh, say­ing, “Even though I am get­ting old I still wish to live longer to up­hold the right Dharma for the be­ne­fit of liv­ing be­ings. But liv­ing be­ings are laden with de­file­ment and are dif­fi­cult to ad­mon­ish. It is use­less for me to live any longer. I will quickly enter nir­vana.”

於是去摩揭陀國，趣吠舍釐城，度殑伽河，泛舟中流。摩揭陀王聞阿難去，情深戀德，即嚴戎駕，疾驅追請，數百千眾營軍南岸。吠舍釐王聞阿難來，悲喜盈心，亦治軍旅，奔馳迎候，數百千眾屯集北岸。兩軍相對，旌旗翳日。阿難恐鬪其兵，更相殺害，從舟中起，上昇虛空，示現神變，即入寂滅，化火焚骸，骸又中折，一墮南岸，一墮北岸。於是二王各得一分，舉軍號慟，俱還本國，起窣堵波，而修供養。

Then he left the coun­try of Magadha for the city of Vaiśālī. While Ān­anda was cross­ing the Ganges in a boat, sail­ing mid­stream, the king of Magadha heard that Ān­anda was go­ing away and, out of deep af­fec­tion and in ad­mir­a­tion of his vir­tue, he ur­gently dis­patched his mil­it­ary car­riages to go quickly in pur­suit of him. Hun­dreds and thou­sands of troops camped on the south­ern bank. [At the same time] the king of Vaiśālī, feel­ing both grief and joy at the news that Ān­anda was com­ing [to his coun­try to enter nir­vana], also sent his troops to march speedily to wel­come him. Hun­dreds and thou­sands of sol­diers were sta­tioned on the north­ern bank. The two armies faced each other and [their flags were so nu­mer­ous that they] ob­scured the sun. Fear­ing that they might start a war and kill each other, Ān­anda as­cen­ded into the air from the boat and entered nir­vana amid the mani­fest­a­tion of su­per­nat­ural powers. A fire burned his body, which fell down in two parts, one drop­ping on the south­ern bank and the other on the north­ern bank. So each of the two kings ob­tained a por­tion of the rel­ics, as their armies wept sor­row­fully. After re­turn­ing to their re­spect­ive coun­tries they erec­ted stu­pas to pay homage to the rel­ics.

[0909c29] 從此東北行五百餘里，至弗栗恃國(北人謂三代恃國。北印度境)。[0910a02] 弗栗恃國，周四千餘里，東西長，南北狹。土地膏腴，花菓茂盛。氣序微寒，人性躁急，多敬外道，少信佛法。伽藍十餘所，僧徒減千人，大小二乘，兼功通學。天祠數十，外道寔眾。國大都城號占戍挐，多已頹毀。故宮城中尚有三千餘家，若村若邑也。

Go­ing from here to the north­east for more than five hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Vṛji (called by the north­ern­ers the coun­try of Sam­vṛji, in the do­main of North In­dia). The coun­try of Vṛji is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit, long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. The soil is fer­tile and abounds in flowers and fruit. The cli­mate is some­what cold and the people are im­petu­ous by nature. Most of them ven­er­ate the heretics and a few be­lieve in the buddha-dharma. There are over ten mon­as­ter­ies with less than a thou­sand monks, who study both the Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana teach­ings. There are sev­eral tens of deva temples with a great num­ber of heretics. The cap­ital city of the coun­try is called Cañśuma, of which the greater part is in mins. In­side the old palace city there are still more than three thou­sand fam­il­ies of in­hab­it­ants liv­ing to­gether like in a vil­lage or town.

[0910a08] 大河東北有伽藍，僧徒寡少，學業清高。[0910a08] 從此西行，依河之濱，有窣堵波，高餘三丈，南帶長流，大悲世尊度漁人處也。越在佛世，五百漁人結疇附黨，漁捕水族，於此河流得一大魚，有十八頭，頭各兩眼。諸漁人方欲害之，如來在吠舍釐國，天眼見，興悲心，乘其時而化導，因其機而啟悟，告諸大眾°：「弗栗恃國有大魚，我欲導之，以悟諸漁人，爾宜知時。」

To the north­east of a big river there is a mon­as­tery with a few monks who are pure and lofty in learn­ing. West of here there is a stupa more than thirty feet high on the bank of the river, which flows like a belt to the south. This was the place where with his great com­pas­sion the Buddha once con­ver­ted some fish­er­men. In the dis­tant past, at the time of the Buddha, there were five hun­dred fish­er­men who worked in groups to catch fish. One day they caught in this river a large fish with eight­een heads, each hav­ing two eyes. As the fish­er­men were get­ting ready to kill the fish the Tathāgata, in the coun­try of Vaiśālī, saw it with his di­vine eye and felt pity for it. He in­ten­ded to take this op­por­tun­ity to edify the fish and to en­lighten the fish­er­men at the same time. He told the as­sembly of monks, “In the coun­try of Vṛji there is a big fish that I in­tend to con­vert so as to en­lighten the fish­er­men. You should know that it is now time to do so.”

於是大眾圍繞，神足凌虛，至于河濱，如常敷座。遂告諸漁人：「爾勿殺魚。」以神通力，開方便門，威被大魚，令知宿命，能作人語，貫解人情。爾時如來知而故問：「汝在前身，曾作何罪，流轉惡趣，受此弊身？」魚曰：「昔承福慶，生自豪族，大婆羅門劫比他者，我身是也。恃其族姓，凌蔑人倫，恃其博物，鄙賤經法；以輕慢心毀讟諸佛，以醜惡語詈辱眾僧，引類形比，謂若駝、驢、象、馬，諸醜形對。由此惡業，受此弊身。尚資宿善，生遭佛世，目覩聖化，親承聖教。」因而懺謝，悔先作業。

Then the Buddha, sur­roun­ded by the as­sembly of monks, as­cen­ded into the air through his power of di­vine feet and flew to the river­side. He laid down his sit­ting cloth as usual and said to the fish­er­men, “Do not kill the fish!” Through his su­per­nat­ural power and in an ex­pedi­ent way, he en­dowed the big fish with the fac­ulties of know­ing its pre­vi­ous life, speak­ing hu­man lan­guage, and un­der­stand­ing hu­man sen­ti­ment. Then the Tathāgata pur­posely asked the fish, though he alreday knew the an­swer, “What sins did you com­mit in your pre­vi­ous life so that you are now in an evil state of re­birth with such an un­for­tu­nate form?” The fish said, “By the ef­fect of good deeds I had done in a former life I was born to a noble fam­ily and I was known as the great brah­man Kapit­tha in my pre­vi­ous life. Due to the in­flu­ence of my caste, I des­pised and bul­lied other people and, con­sid­er­ing my­self learned, I scorned the scrip­tures and the Dharma. I dis­respect­fully slandered the buddhas and re­proached the monks with ab­us­ive lan­guage, com­par­ing them to camels, don­keys, ele­phants, horses, and other ugly an­im­als. Be­cause of these evil deeds I am now suf­fer­ing in this un­for­tu­nate form. But be­cause I did some good deeds in one of my former lives I have been born at a time when a buddha is in the world, and I have now seen the holy Buddha him­self with my own eyes and have heard his holy teach­ings.” Then [the fish] made a con­fes­sion and re­pen­ted his evil deeds done in the past.

如來隨機攝化，如應開導。魚既聞法，於是命終。承茲福力，上生天宮。於是自觀其身，何緣生此？既知宿命，念報佛恩，與諸天眾，肩隨戾止，前禮既畢，右繞退立，以天寶香華，用供養。世尊指告漁人，為說妙法，於即感悟，輸誠禮懺，裂網焚舟，歸真受法。既服染衣，又聞至教，皆出塵垢，俱證聖果。

The Tathāgata taught the fish in ac­cord­ance with its ca­pa­city and en­lightened it as was suit­able to the oc­ca­sion. After hear­ing the Dharma, the fish died and was re­born in heaven through the power of its good deeds. Then he looked at his own ce­les­tial body and wondered why he had been born in heaven. After re­call­ing his past life, he re­membered the Buddha with grat­it­ude and came with other heav­enly be­ings to see him. Hav­ing wor­shiped the Buddha, he cir­cum­am­bu­lated him and stood aside to of­fer him valu­ables and fra­grant flowers brought from heaven. The World-honored One re­lated this an­ec­dote to the fish­er­men, while point­ing at the heav­enly be­ings, and preached the won­der­ñtl Dharma to them. They were moved and awakened [from ig­nor­ance] and sin­cerely wor­shiped the Buddha with re­pent­ance, tore up their fish­ing nets, and burned their boats. They turned their minds to truth and em­braced the Dharma. After don­ning the dyed robes of monks and hav­ing heard the ul­ti­mate, all of them got rid of de­file­ment and at­tained the fruit of saint­hood.

[0910b06] 度漁人東北行百餘里，故城西有窣堵波，無憂王所建，高百餘尺，是佛在昔於此六月說法度諸天、人。此北百四五十步有小窣堵波，如來昔於此處為諸苾芻制戒。次西不遠有如來髮、爪窣堵波。如來昔於此處，近遠邑人相趨輻湊，焚香散花，燈炬不絕。

More than one hun­dred li to the north­east of the place where the fish­er­men were con­ver­ted there is a stupa over one hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka to the west of an old city. This was the place where the Buddha once preached the Dharma for six months to con­vert ce­les­tial and hu­man be­ings. At a dis­tance of one hun­dred forty or fifty paces to the north of this stupa there is a smal­ler stupa mark­ing the place where the Tathāgata laid down the dis­cip­lin­ary rules for the bhikṣus. Not far to the west there is an­other stupa, in which are en­shrined the Tathāgata’s hair and nail rel­ics. People com­ing far and near con­verge at this place to burn in­cense, scat­ter flowers, and light lamps and candles without in­ter­rup­tion.

[0910b12] 從此西北千四五百里，踰山入谷，至尼波羅國(中印度境)。[0910b14] 尼波羅國，周四千餘里，在雪山中。國大都城周二十餘里。山川連屬，宜穀稼，多花菓，出赤銅、犛牛、命命鳥。貨用赤銅錢。氣序寒烈，風俗險詖，人性剛獷，信義輕薄。無學藝，有工巧。形貌醜弊，邪正兼信。伽藍、天祠接堵連隅。僧徒二千餘人，大小二乘，兼功綜習。外道異學，其數不詳。[0910b20] 王，剎帝利栗呫婆種也。志學清高，純信佛法。近代有王，號鴦輸伐摩(唐言光胄)。碩學聰叡，自製《聲明論》，重學敬德，遐邇著聞。

Go­ing from here to the north­w­est for one thou­sand four hun­dred or five hun­dred li, cross­ing over moun­tains and passing through val­leys, I reached the coun­try of Nepāla (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Nepāla is over four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and it is situ­ated among the Snow Moun­tains. The cap­ital city of the coun­try is more than twenty li in cir­cuit and there are hills and val­leys in close con­nec­tion. The soil is suit­able for grow­ing cer­eals and yields many flowers and fruit. The coun­try pro­duces red cop­per, yaks, and jīvamjīvas (two-headed birds). Red cop­per coins are used as the me­dium of ex­change. The cli­mate is pier­cingly cold. The people are sin­is­ter and ini­quit­ous by so­cial cus­tom and are rude and un­res­trained by nature and dis­par­age good faith and right­eous­ness. They have no learn­ing but are skill­ful in crafts­man­ship. They are ugly in ap­pear­ance and be­lieve in both wrong and right doc­trines. The mon­as­ter­ies and deva temples are so close to­gether that they touch each other and there are more than two thou­sand monks, who study both Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana teach­ings; the num­ber of heretics is un­known. The king, be­ing a Lic­chavi of the kṣat­riya caste, is an up­right man with good learn­ing and is a pure Buddhist. In re­cent years there was a king named Amśuvar­man (known as Guang­zhou, “Bril­liant Hel­met,” in Chinese), a learned scholar of in­tel­li­gence and saga­city, who wrote a treat­ise on śab­davidyā (Sanskrit gram­mar). He es­teemed learn­ing and honored the vir­tu­ous, and his fame spread far and near.

[0910b23] 都城東南有小水池，以人火投之，水即焰起，更投餘物，亦變為火。

To the south­east of the cap­ital city there is a small pool. When fire is thrown into it the wa­ter burns, and when other things are cast into it they also be­come fiery.

[0910b24] 從此復還吠舍釐國，南渡殑伽河，至摩揭陀國(舊曰摩伽陀，又曰摩竭提，皆訛也。中印度境)。

From here I re­turned to the coun­try of Vaiśālī and, cross­ing the Ganges River to the south, I reached the coun­try of Magadha (formerly mis­tran­scribed as Moji­atuo or Moji­eti, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第七

End of Fas­cicle VII of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第八(一國)

Fas­cicle VIII

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

摩揭陀國上

The Coun­try of Magadha (Part 1)

[0910c07] 摩揭陀國，周五千餘里。城少居人，邑多編戶。地沃壤，滋稼穡，有異稻種，其粒麁大，香味殊越，光色特甚，彼俗謂之供大人米。土地墊濕，邑居高原，孟夏之後，仲秋之前，平居流水，可以泛舟。風俗淳質，氣序溫暑。崇重志學，遵敬佛法。伽藍五十餘所，僧徒萬有餘人，並多宗習大乘法教。天祠數十，異道寔多。

The coun­try of Magadha is more than five thou­sand li in cir­cuit and the cap­ital city is sparsely pop­u­lated, while in the towns there are many re­gistered fam­il­ies. The soil is fer­tile and good for farm­ing. There is a spe­cial kind of rice of large grain with an un­usual fra­grance, whose luster and color are ex­traordin­ary. The people call it the rice for great per­son­ages. The land is low and hu­mid and the towns are loc­ated on table­lands. After the be­gin­ning of sum­mer and be­fore mid-au­tumn the plains are flooded and boats can be used. The people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom and the cli­mate is mod­er­ately hot. The in­hab­it­ants es­teem learn­ing and revere the buddha-dharma. There are over fifty mon­as­ter­ies with more than ten thou­sand monks, most of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. There are sev­eral tens of deva temples with nu­mer­ous heretics.

[0910c15] 殑伽河南有故城，周七十餘里，荒蕪雖久基址尚在。昔者，人壽無量歲時，號拘蘇摩補羅城(唐言香花宮城)。王宮多花，故以名焉。逮乎人壽數千歲，更名波吒釐子城(舊曰巴連弗邑，訛也)。

To the south of the Ganges River there is an old city over sev­enty li in cir­cuit. Al­though it has been deser­ted for a long time the old found­a­tions are still there. In the past, when the hu­man life span was in­nu­mer­able years, this city was called Kusumapura (known as Xi­anghuagongcheng, “Palace City of Fra­grant Flowers,” in Chinese). The royal city was full of flowers, hence the name of the city. Later on, when the hu­man life span was sev­eral thou­sand years, the name was changed to the city of Pāṭali­putra (formerly mis­tran­scribed as the city of Bali­anfu).

[0910c18] 初，有婆羅門，高才博學，門人數千，傳以受業。諸學徒相從遊觀，有一書生俳佪悵望。同儔謂曰：「夫何憂乎？」曰：「盛色方剛，羈遊履影，歲月已積，藝業無成。顧此為言，憂心彌劇。」於是學徒戲言之曰：「今將子求娉婚親。」乃假立二°人為男父母，二人為女父母，遂坐波吒釐樹，謂「女聲樹也。」採時果，酌清流，陳婚姻之緒，請好合之期。時假女父攀花枝以授書生曰：「斯嘉偶也，幸無辭焉。」書生之心欣然自得，日暮言歸，懷戀而止。學徒曰：「前言戲耳！幸可同歸。林中猛獸恐相殘害。」

There was once a learned brah­man of high tal­ent who had sev­eral thou­sand dis­ciples study­ing un­der him. Some of the dis­ciples went out to­gether on a pleas­ure trip. One of them paced up and down in a mel­an­choly mood and his com­pan­ions asked him why he was so sad. He said, “I am in the prime of life yet I am still a vag­a­bond, with only my shadow to ac­com­pany me, and, moreover, even though a long time has passed I have not made any achieve­ment in learn­ing. On ac­count of this, my mind is heav­ily laden with sor­row.” His school­mates said to him in jest, “In that case we shall now ar­range a ce­re­mony for you to get mar­ried.” They then chose two people to act as the par­ents of the bride­groom and two people as the par­ents of the bride. The young man was then made to sit un­der a pāṭalī tree, which was thus called the Tree of the Son-in-Law. Sea­sonal fruit was gathered and pure wa­ter was served as wine to make a wed­ding feast to cel­eb­rate the nup­tials. The mock father of the ima­gin­ary bride broke off a branch of the tree and handed it to the young scholar, say­ing, “This is your good spouse. I hope you will not re­fuse the of­fer.” The scholar was happy and sat­is­fied. When it was time for the party to re­turn home at dusk the young man did not wish to leave the place and wanted to stay be­hind. The other dis­ciples said to him, “We were merely mak­ing a mock ce­re­mony. Please re­turn home with us now, lest the fierce an­im­als in the woods hurt you.”

書生遂留，往來樹側。景夕之後，異光燭野，管絃清雅，帷帳陳列。俄見老翁策杖來慰，復有一嫗携引少女，並賓從盈路，袨服奏樂。翁乃指少女曰：「此君之弱室也。」酣歌樂宴，經七日焉。

The scholar lingered at the place and walked about the tree. After sun­set a strange light shone brightly in the wil­der­ness and el­eg­ant mu­sic from wind and stringed in­stru­ments was heard. A row of tents was pitched and in a mo­ment an old man, hold­ing a staff, came to ex­tend greet­ings to him. There was also an old wo­man ap­proach­ing with a maiden, fol­lowed by a large num­ber of splen­didly dressed at­tend­ants amid the sound of mu­sic. The old man said to him, while point­ing at the maiden, “This is your wife.” The wed­ding fest­iv­it­ies las­ted seven days.

學徒疑為獸害，往而求之，乃見獨坐樹陰，若對上客，告與同歸，辭不從命。後自入城，拜謁親故，說其始末。聞者驚駭，與諸友人同往林中，咸見花樹是一大第，僮僕役使驅馳往來，而彼老翁從容接對，陳饌奏樂，賓主禮備。諸友還城，具告遠近。

The other dis­ciples, con­cerned that the scholar might be killed by wild an­im­als, came to look for him. Then they saw him sit­ting alone un­der the shade of the tree, as if he were ac­com­pa­ny­ing some guests of honor. They asked him to re­turn with them but he re­fused. Some time later he entered the city by him­self to see his re­l­at­ives and friends and told them what had happened to him. Those who heard the story were amazed. His friends went with him to the woods, where they saw a great man­sion at the place of the flower­ing tree, with ser­vants and slaves busily walk­ing about. The old man re­ceived them po­litely and pre­pared a feast, along with a per­form­ance of mu­sic to en­ter­tain them, ac­cord­ing to the etiquette between hosts and guests. When they re­turned to the city they told everything to people far and near.

朞歲之後，生一子男。謂其妻曰：「吾今欲歸，未忍離阻；適復留止，棲寄飄露。」其妻既聞，具以白父。翁謂書生曰：「人生行樂，詎必故鄉？今將築室，宜無異志。」於是役使之徒，功成不日。香花舊城，遷都此邑。由彼子故，神為築城，自爾之後，因名波吒釐子城焉。

After a year a son was born to the couple and the young scholar said to his wife, “I wish to go home but I can­not bear leav­ing you be­hind. If I re­main here I will al­ways make my lodging in the open wil­der­ness.” Hav­ing heard this, his wife told it to her father, the old man, who said to the young scholar, ‘‘For the en­joy­ment of life one need not go back to one’s nat­ive place. I shall build you a palace. Do not think oth­er­wise.” Through the labor of spir­its the palace was promptly com­pleted. The old City of Fra­grant Flowers was shif­ted to this place and, as the city had been con­struc­ted by spir­its for the [in­fant | son, it was called the City of the Son of Pāṭali (Pāṭali­putra).

[0911a18] 王故宮北有石柱，高數十尺，是無憂王作地獄處。釋迦如來涅槃之後第一百年，有阿輸迦(唐言無憂。舊曰阿育，訛也)王者，頻毘婆羅(唐言影堅。舊曰頻婆娑，訛也)王之曾孫也，自王舍城遷都波吒釐，築外郭，周於故城。年代浸遠，唯餘故基。伽藍、天祠及窣堵波，餘址數百，存者二三。唯故宮北，臨殑伽河，小城中有千餘家。

To the north of the old royal city there is a stone pil­lar sev­eral tens of feet in height, erec­ted at the place where King Aśoka made a hell. In the one- hun­dredth year after the nir­vana of Sākya Tathāgata, King Aśoka (known as Wuyou, “Not Feel­ing Sor­row,” in Chinese, formerly mis­tran­scribed as Ayu), the great-grand­son of King Bimbisāra (known as Yingjian, “Hard Shadow,” in Chinese, formerly mis­tran­scribed as Pin­pisuo), moved his cap­ital from the city of Rā­jagṛha to Pāṭali­putra. After the long pas­sage of time only some old found­a­tions still sur­vive. Of the mon­as­ter­ies, deva temples, and stu­pas, there are sev­eral hun­dred rem­nant sites ly­ing in ru­ins; only two or three re­main in­tact. Only in a small city situ­ated to the north of the old palace and on the banks of the Ganges are there over a thou­sand house­holds.

[0911a24] 初，無憂王嗣位之後，舉措苛暴，乃立地獄，作害生靈。周垣峻峙，隅樓特起，猛焰洪鑪，銛鋒利刃，備諸苦具，擬像幽塗，招募凶人，立為獄主。初以國中犯法罪人，無挍輕重，總入塗炭。後以行經獄次，擒以誅戮，至者皆死，遂滅口焉。

When King Aśoka first suc­ceeded to the throne he was cruel and prac­ticed tyranny. He es­tab­lished a hell to tor­ture people, sur­roun­ded by lofty walls with watchtowers at the corners. Great fur­naces of fierce fire and cut­ters with sharp points and keen edges, as well as other in­stru­ments of tor­ture, were pre­pared in im­it­a­tion of the hells and a sav­age and cruel man was ap­poin­ted to be the jailer. At first it was used for pun­ish­ing all sorts of crim­in­als of the coun­try, re­gard­less of the nature of their mis­deeds. Later on all cas­ual pass­ersby were cap­tured and put to death and all who had entered the hell were killed to pre­vent the secret from leak­ing out.

時有沙門，初入法眾，巡里乞食，遇至獄門，獄吏凶人擒欲殘害。沙門惶怖，請得禮懺。俄見一人，縛來入獄，斬截手足，磔裂形骸，俯仰之間，支體糜散。沙門見已，深增悲悼，成無常觀，證無學果。獄卒曰：「可以死矣。」沙門既證聖果，心夷生死，

A newly ad­mit­ted śramaṇa once came to the gate of the hell in the course of mak­ing his alms­round. The cruel jailer caught him and in­ten­ded to kill him. Ter­ror-stricken, the śramaṇa asked per­mis­sion to per­form a con­fes­sional ce­re­mony [be­fore death]. He im­me­di­ately saw a man who had been bound and sent into the hell, where he was dis­membered and cut into pieces. Presently the broken body be­came rot­ten and de­cayed. The śramaṇa was deeply touched by the sight and he gained the in­sight of im­per­man­ence and real­ized ar­hat­ship. The jailer said to him, “It is now time for you to die.” Hav­ing achieved the fruit of saint­hood the śramaṇa had no dis­crim­in­a­tion between life and death.

雖入鑊湯，若在清池，有大蓮花而為之座。獄主驚駭，馳使白王，王遂躬觀，深讚靈祐。獄主曰：「大王當死。」王曰：「何。」對曰：「王先垂命，令監刑獄，凡至獄垣皆從殺害，不云王入而獨免死。」王曰：「法已一定，理無再變。我先垂令，豈除汝身？汝久濫生，我之咎也。」即命獄卒，投之洪鑪。獄主既死，王乃得出，於是頹牆堙塹，廢獄寬刑。

Even though he was thrown into a cauldron of boil­ing wa­ter it was just as if [he was] in a pond of cool wa­ter and a huge lo­tus flower sprang up for his seat. The jailer was sur­prised by the un­usual spec­tacle and hur­ried to in­form the king, who came to see the sight for him­self and highly praised the spir­itual pro­tec­tion. Then the jailer said, “Your Majesty must die.” “Why?” said the king. The jailer replied, ‘Your Majesty pre­vi­ously is­sued an or­der as a rule of the hell that who­ever has entered the en­clos­ure of the hell must be killed, and it did not say that the king should be ex­cep­ted from the reg­u­la­tion.” The king said, “Once a law is ad­op­ted it should not be altered. But did I make an ex­cep­tion for you when I laid down the rule? It is my fault that you have lived un­til now.” He then ordered the lictors to cast the jailer into the big fur­nace and after the jailer’s death the king came out of the hell. He de­mol­ished the walls, filled up the trenches, ab­ol­ished the hell, and there­after showed le­ni­ency to­ward crim­in­als.

[0911b14] 地獄南不遠有窣堵波，基址傾陷，唯餘覆鉢之勢，寶為廁飾，石作欄檻，即八萬四千之一也。無憂王以人功建於宮焉，中有如來舍利一斗，靈鑒間起，神光時燭。

Not far to the south of the hell there is a stupa whose found­a­tion has col­lapsed on one side so that it has the shape of an over­turned alms­bowl. It is dec­or­ated with gems and has stone bal­us­trades. As it is one of the eighty- four thou­sand stu­pas built by King Aśoka it was con­struc­ted by hu­man labor in his palace. In­side it one don of the Tathāgata’s relic bones is pre­served, and they oc­ca­sion­ally show spir­itual mani­fest­a­tions and is­sue a di­vine light from time to time.

無憂王廢獄之後，遇近護大阿羅漢，方便善誘，隨機導化。王謂羅漢曰：「幸以宿福，位據人尊，慨茲障累，不遭佛化。今者如來遺身舍利，欲重修建諸窣堵波。」羅漢曰：「大王以福德力，役使百靈，以弘誓心匡護三寶，是所願也，今其時矣。」因為廣說獻土之因，如來懸記興建之功。

Hav­ing ab­ol­ished the hell, King Aśoka met the great ar­hat Up­agupta, who in­struc­ted him ac­cord­ing to his ca­pa­city in an ap­pro­pri­ate way. The king said to the ar­hat, “I am lucky to be a lord of hu­mans as a res­ult of good deeds I have done in the past, but be­cause of my spir­itual hindrances I re­gret­fully have not re­ceived edi­fic­a­tion from the Buddha. Now I wish to con­struct stu­pas for the ven­er­a­tion of the Tathāgata’s relic bones.” The ar­hat said, “With your power of bliss and vir­tue you can com­mand vari­ous deit­ies to work for you. It is my wish that you should pro­tect the Triple Gem with great de­term­in­a­tion. Now is the time for you to do so.” Then the ar­hat told the king in de­tail about the lat­ter’s cause of of­fer­ing a hand­ful of earth [to the Buddha in a pre­vi­ous life] and about the mer­its of build­ing stu­pas as pre­dicted by the Tathāgata.

無憂王聞以慶悅，召集鬼神而令之曰：「法王導利，含靈有慶，我資宿善，尊極人中。如來遺身重修供養，今爾鬼神勠°力同心！境極贍部，戶滿拘胝，以佛舍利起窣堵波。心發於我，功成於汝。勝福之利，非欲獨有。宜各營搆，待後告命。」鬼神受旨，在所興功，功既成已，咸來請命。

King Aśoka was pleased to hear the pre­dic­tion. He summoned the spir­its and deit­ies and is­sued an or­der, say­ing, “The King of the Dharma has in­struc­ted liv­ing be­ings for their hap­pi­ness and, due to my good deeds done in the past, I am now the most honored per­son among hu­man­kind. In or­der to ven­er­ate the Tathāgata’s relic bones stu­pas must be con­struc­ted. You spir­its and deit­ies should work with one heart to con­struct stu­pas for the Buddha’s rel­ics at all places in Jam­bud­vīpa, which is in­hab­ited by a lull koṭi of fam­il­ies. Though the pro­ject has been ini­ti­ated by me, it de­pends upon you for its suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion, and I have no in­ten­tion of mono­pol­iz­ing the ad­vant­ages of per­form­ing such su­per­ior good deeds. Each of you should go start the con­struc­tion work and wait for fur­ther in­struc­tions.” Hav­ing re­ceived the edict, the spir­its and deit­ies went away to start the con­struc­tion work at their dif­fer­ent places, and when the work was com­pleted they all came to ask for fur­ther in­struc­tions.

無憂王既開八國所建諸窣堵波，分其舍利，付鬼神已，謂羅漢曰：「我心所欲，諸處同時藏下舍利。心雖此冀，事未從欲。」羅漢曰：「王命神鬼至所期日，日有隱蔽，其狀如手，此時也，宜下舍利。」王承此旨，宣告鬼神。逮乎期日，無憂王觀候光景，日正中時，羅漢以神通力，申手蔽日，營建之所咸皆瞻仰，同於此時功績咸畢。

After hav­ing opened the stu­pas built in eight coun­tries and dis­trib­uted the relic bones [taken out from them] to the spir­its and deit­ies, King Aśoka said to the ar­hat, “My wish is to en­shrine the relic bones in the vari­ous stu­pas at the same time. I hope to do this but I do not know how to ful­fill my wish.” The ar­hat said, “Your Majesty can or­der the deit­ies and spir­its to en­shrine the rel­ics at the same in­stant on the ap­poin­ted date when they see that the sun is ec­lipsed by an ob­ject in the shape of a hand.” The king im­par­ted the in­struc­tion to the spir­its and deit­ies. On the ap­poin­ted date King Aśoka ob­served the sun, and at mid­day the ar­hat, through su­per­nat­ural power, stretched out his arm and covered up the sun with his hand. The ec­lipse was seen by all every­where the stu­pas were be­ing con­struc­ted and at that mo­ment they com­menced work sim­ul­tan­eously.

[0911c10] 窣堵波側不遠，精舍中有大石，如來所履，雙°迹猶存，其長尺有八寸，廣餘六寸矣。兩迹俱有輪相，十指皆°帶花文，魚形映起，光明時照。昔者如來將取寂滅，北趣拘尸那城，南顧摩揭陀國，蹈此石上，告阿難曰：「吾今最後留此足迹，將入寂滅，顧摩揭陀也。百歲之後，有無憂王命世君臨，建都此地，匡護三寶，役使百神。」及無憂王之嗣位也，遷都築邑，掩周迹石，既近宮城，恒親供養。

Not far from the stupa is a temple containing a stone on which the Tathāgata once stood and the traces of his foot­prints are still in ex­ist­ence. The two foot­prints have the wheel signs and the ten toes have floral or­na­ments. The fish pat­terns are vis­ible and some­times is­sue a bright light. In olden times, when the Tathāgata was about to enter nir­vana he pro­ceeded north­ward to the city of Kuśin­agara and looked back at the coun­try of Magadha in the south. He was stand­ing on this stone when he told Ān­anda, “I leave my last foot­prints here, look­ing back at Magadha while I am go­ing to enter nir­vana. One hun­dred years af­ter­ward there will be a King Aśoka who will rule over the world and es­tab­lish his cap­ital at this place. He will pro­tect the Triple Gem and com­mand all kinds of deit­ies to do him ser­vice.” When King Aśoka suc­ceeded to the throne he shif­ted his cap­ital to this place and built a city here, and pro­tec­ted the foot­print stone with a shel­ter. As it was near the palace city the king al­ways came in per­son to make of­fer­ings to it.

後諸國王競欲舉歸，石雖不大，眾莫能轉。近者設賞迦王毀壞佛法，遂即石所，欲滅聖迹，鑿已還平，文彩如故，於是捐棄殑伽河流，尋復本處。其側窣堵波，即過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

Af­ter­ward vari­ous kings vied with one an­other in try­ing to bring the stone home. Al­though it was not very big they could not move it. Re­cently King Saśāñka per­se­cuted the buddha-dharma and went to the place of the stone, in­tend­ing to des­troy the holy ob­ject. He ef­faced the foot­prints with a chisel but they re­appeared with the same traces and pat­terns. Then he threw the stone into the Ganges River but it im­me­di­ately re­turned to its ori­ginal place. The stupa be­side the stone marks the place where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down in olden times.

[0911c24] 佛迹精舍側不遠，有大石柱，高三十餘尺，書記殘缺，其大略曰：「無憂王信根貞固，三以贍部洲施佛、法、僧，三以諸珍寶重自酬贖。」其辭云，大略斯在。

Not far from the temple of the Buddha’s foot­prints there is a huge stone pil­lar more than thirty feet tall. The in­scrip­tion on it has been par­tially erased but it says roughly that King Aśoka was a staunch be­liever who offered Jam­bud­vīpa to the Triple Gem thrice and re­deemed it thrice with valu­able pearls and gems. Such are the frag­ment­ary words that are still legible.

[0911c28] 故宮北有大石室，外若崇山，內廣數丈，是無憂王為出家弟役使神鬼之所建也。初，無憂王有同母弟，名摩醯因陀羅(唐言大帝)。生自貴族，服僣王制，奢侈縱暴，眾庶懷怨。國輔老臣進諫王曰：「驕弟作威，亦已太甚。夫政平則國治，人和則主安，古之則訓，由來久矣。願存國典，收付執法。」

To the north of the palace city is a great rock cham­ber with the ap­pear­ance of a lofty hill and a space sev­eral tens of feet wide in­side, ft was con­struc­ted through the labor of deit­ies and spir­its by the or­der of King Aśoka for his younger brother, who was a monk. King Aśoka had a younger brother by the name of Ma­hendra (known as Dadi, “Great Ruler,” in Chinese). As he was born in a royal fam­ily he pre­sump­tu­ously put on the king’s robe and led a lux­uri­ous and dis­sol­ute life, treat­ing people cruelly un­til they bore a grudge against him. The prime min­is­ter and other senior of­fi­cials ex­hor­ted the king, say­ing, “Your younger brother has gone too far in rid­ing rough­shod over the people. As the say­ing goes, when the gov­ern­ment is im­par­tial the coun­try will be in good or­der, and when the people live in har­mony the ruler will be at peace. This pre­cept has been handed down from an­cient times. We hope that the code of the coun­try will be main­tained and that he will be put on trial ac­cord­ing to the law.”

無憂王泣謂弟曰：「吾承基緒，覆燾生靈，況爾同胞，豈忘惠愛！不先匡導，已陷刑法。上懼先靈，下迫眾議。」

King Aśoka, in tears, said to his younger brother, “Since I suc­ceeded to the throne I have put all liv­ing be­ings un­der my pro­tec­tion. As you are my brother from the same mother, how can I neg­lect to be­ne­fit you? But I did not guard and guide you in time so that you have now in­curred the pun­ish­ment for crim­in­als. I am in fear of my an­cest­ors above and forced by pub­lic cri­ti­cism from be­low.”

摩醯因陀羅稽首謝曰：「不自謹行，敢干國憲，願賜再生，更寬七日。」於是置諸幽室，嚴加守衛，珍羞上饌，進奉無虧。守者唱曰：「已過一日，餘有六日。」至第六日已，既深憂懼，更勵身心，便獲果證，昇虛空，示神迹，尋出塵俗，遠棲巖谷。無憂王躬往謂曰：「昔拘國制，欲致嚴刑。豈意清昇，取證聖果。既無滯累，可以還國。」弟曰：「昔羈愛網，心馳聲色，今出危城，志悅山谷。願棄人間，長從丘壑。」王曰：「欲靜心慮，豈必幽巖？吾從爾志，當為崇樹。」

Ma­hendra bowed to the king apo­lo­get­ic­ally and said, “I am so im­prudent as to have in­fringed the law. I hope you will grant me seven days’ res­pite.” He was then con­fined in a dark cham­ber un­der strict cus­tody but was provided with the best del­ic­acies without neg­li­gence. [At the end of the first day] the guard­ian an­nounced, “One day has passed and there are six more days.” When the sixth day had passed, Ma­hendra, deeply wor­ried and fear­ful, made vig­or­ous ef­forts both phys­ic­ally and men­tally [in spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion], and thereupon he gained the fruit of saint­hood, as­cen­ded into the air, and mani­fes­ted mir­acles. Be­fore long he left the world and went far away to live in a rocky val­ley. King Aśoka went per­son­ally to see him and said, “I was bound by the law of the coun­try so I had to in­flict a severe pen­alty upon you. I did not think that you would el­ev­ate your­self and real­ize the fruit of saint­hood. You are now free from trouble and you may re­turn to our coun­try.” His younger brother said, “Formerly I was caught in the net of pas­sions and my mind was fix­ated on [pleas­ur­able pur­suits]. I am now free from the city of per­ils and I take de­light in stay­ing in the moun­tains and val­leys. I wish to re­lin­quish the hu­man world and al­ways re­main in the hills and vales.” The king said, “If you wish to en­gage your­self in quiet med­it­a­tion it is not ne­ces­sary for you to live in re­mote moun­tains. In com­pli­ance with your wish, how­ever, I will build a cave for you.”

遂召命鬼神而告之曰：「吾於後日廣備珍羞，爾曹相率來集我會，各持大石，自為床座。」諸神受命，至期畢萃。眾會既已，王告神曰：「石座從橫，宜自積聚。因功不勞，壘為虛室。」諸神受命，不日而成。無憂王躬往迎請，止此山廬。

The king then summoned the spir­its and deit­ies and said to them, “I will pre­pare a grand ban­quet of del­ic­acies on the day after to­mor­row. You may all come to at­tend the feast but each of you should bring a large rock to serve as a seat.” By the king’s or­der the deit­ies came at the ap­poin­ted time and, when the feast was over, the king told the deit­ies, “The stone seats are in dis­ar­ray so you should stack them up in proper or­der. I mean to make use of your labor to build a hol­low cham­ber.” Un­der the king’s in­struc­tion the deit­ies com­pleted the work in a few days’ time. King Aśoka then went to in­vite [his younger brother] to stay in the hill cave.

[0912a24] 故宮北，地獄南，有大石槽，是無憂王匠役神功，作為此器，飯僧之時，以儲食也。

To the north of the old palace and south of the hell there is a large trough that was made by di­vine labor un­der the com­mand of King Aśoka. It is used for stor­ing comest­ibles at the time of of­fer­ing food to the monks.

[0912a26] 故宮西南有小石山，周巖谷間，數十石室，無憂王為近護等諸阿羅漢，役使鬼神之所建立。傍有故臺，餘基積石；池沼漣漪，清瀾澄鑒，隣國遠人謂之聖水，若有飲濯，罪垢消滅。

To the south­w­est of the old palace there is a rocky hill, around which there are sev­eral tens of caves that were ex­cav­ated in the steep cliffs by di­vine labor un­der the com­mand of King Aśoka, for Up­agupta and other ar­hats. There used to be a lofty ter­race be­side the hill but it has col­lapsed, leav­ing only a pile of stones as the rem­nant found­a­tion. In a pond there is rip­pling wa­ter as clear and re­flect­ive as a mir­ror. It is re­garded as holy wa­ter by the people of neigh­bor­ing and dis­tant coun­tries. If one drinks or bathes in the wa­ter the soil will be washed away and one’s sins will be ex­pi­ated.

[0912b02] 山西南有五窣堵波，崇基已陷，餘址尚高，遠而望之，欝若山阜，面各數百步，後人於上重更修建小窣堵波。《印度記》曰：「昔無憂王建八萬四千窣堵波已，尚餘五斗舍利，故別崇建五窣堵波，制奇諸處，靈異間起，以表如來五分法身。薄信之徒竊相評議，云是昔者難陀王建此藏，以儲七寶。其後有王，不甚淳信，聞先疑議，肆其貪求，興動軍師，躬臨發掘，地震山傾，雲昏日翳，窣堵波中大聲雷震，士卒僵仆，象馬驚奔。自茲已降，無敢覬覦。」或曰：「眾議雖多，未為確論；循古所記，信得其實。」

To the south­w­est of the hill there are five stu­pas whose lofty found­a­tions have col­lapsed, but the rem­nant por­tions are still high. When viewed from a dis­tance they seem to be verd­ant hil­locks. Each side of the stu­pas has a space sev­eral hun­dred paces wide. People of later times con­struc­ted small stu­pas upon the big ones. It is said in the Re­cord of In­dia that in the old days, after King Aśoka had built eighty-four thou­sand stu­pas, he still had five doit of [the Buddha’s] rel­ics. There­fore he con­struc­ted five more stu­pas in a dif­fer­ent style from that of other places. Mir­acles oc­curred from time to time to testify to the five­fold spir­itual body of the Tathāgata. Some im­pi­ous people dis­cussed the mat­ter in private, say­ing that these stu­pas were con­struc­ted by King Nanda of yore to store his seven kinds of treas­ures. Later a king of little faith heard about the ru­mor and, cov­et­ous of the treas­ures, he sent his troops un­der his per­sonal su­per­vi­sion to ex­cav­ate the stu­pas. But the earth quaked, the moun­tains col­lapsed, clouds en­shrouded the sun, and the stu­pas is­sued a loud sound of thun­der. The sol­diers fell dead and the ele­phants and horses fled in fear. Since then no one has dared an­other at­tempt [to ex­cav­ate] the stu­pas. Some people have said that there were dif­fer­ent ac­counts of this mat­ter, but this could not be un­as­cer­tained. We may get the true facts by fol­low­ing the re­cords of an­cient books.

[0912b14] 故城東南有屈(居勿反)吒阿濫摩(唐言鷄園)僧伽藍，無憂王之所建焉。無憂王初信佛法也，式遵崇建，修殖善種，召集千僧，凡、聖兩眾，四事供養，什物周給。頹毀已久，基址尚在。[0912b17] 伽藍側有大窣堵波，名阿摩落伽者。印度藥果之名也。

To the south­east of the old city is Kukkuṭārāma Mon­as­tery (known as Jiy­uan, “Rooster Garden,” in Chinese), which was built by way of per­form­ing good deeds with ven­er­a­tion by King Aśoka when he first had faith in the buddha-dharma. He summoned one thou­sand monks, both or­din­ary people and saints, [to this mon­as­tery], offered them the four mon­astic re­quis­ites, and provided them with other art­icles for daily use. The mon­as­tery has been in ru­ins for a long time and only the found­a­tions are still in ex­ist­ence. Be­side this mon­as­tery is a great stupa called Āmalaka, which is the name of a sort of medi­cinal fruit (āmalaka; myrobalan) of In­dia.

無憂王搆疾彌留，知命不濟，欲捨珍寶，崇樹福田。權臣執政，誡勿從欲。其後因食，留阿摩落果，玩之半爛，握果長息，問諸臣曰：「贍部洲主今是何人？」諸臣對曰：「唯獨大王。」王曰：「不然。我今非主。唯此半果，而得自在。嗟乎！世間富貴，危甚風燭。位據區宇，名高稱謂，臨終匱乏，見逼強臣，天下非己，半果斯在！」乃命侍臣而告之曰：「持此半果，詣彼雞園，施諸眾僧，作如是說：『昔一贍部洲主，今半阿摩落王，稽首大德僧前，願受最後之施。凡諸所有，皆已喪失，唯斯半果，得少自在。哀愍貧乏，增長福種。』」僧中上座作如是言：「無憂大王宿期弘濟，瘧疾在躬，姦臣擅命，積寶非己，半果為施。承王來命，普施眾僧。」即召典事，羹中總煮。收其果核，起窣堵波。既荷厚恩，遂旌顧命。

King Aśoka, ly­ing ill on his deathbed, knew that he was in­cur­able and he in­ten­ded to give up his gems and jew­els for the per­form­ance of good deeds, but his in­flu­en­tial min­is­ters had seized power and would not al­low him to do what he de­sired. Later he kept an āmalaka fruit from his meal and played with it un­til it had be­come half spoiled. Hold­ing the fruit in his hand, he said to his min­is­ters with a long sigh, ‘‘Who is now the lord of Jam­bud­vīpa?” The min­is­ters said in reply, “Your Majesty is the sole lord of Jam­bud­vīpa.” The king said, “No! I am not the lord now! I have sov­er­eign power only over this half a fruit. What a pity! Worldly wealth and no­bil­ity are more eas­ily ex­tin­guished than a candle burn­ing in the wind. My po­s­i­tion en­titled me to con­trol the whole coun­try and my title is the highest of all des­ig­na­tions, yet I am poor on my deathbed, un­der the com­mand of power­ful min­is­ters. Even though I have lost the em­pire I still pos­sess half a fruit.” Then he ordered bis at­tend­ing of­fi­cial, “Take this half a fruit to Kukkuṭārāma Mon­as­tery and of­fer it to the monks with the fol­low­ing mes­sage: T, the former lord of the whole of Jam­bud­vīpa, now the king of half an āmalaka fruit, beg to pay homage in front of the monks of great vir­tue. I hope that you will ac­cept my last alms. I have lost all that I once pos­sessed, ex­cept for this half a fruit, which is some­how at my dis­posal. Please have pity on my poverty and let my seeds of blessed­ness grow and in­crease. The senior monk of the com­munity said, “King Aśoka used to be gen­er­ous in alms­giv­ing but he now suf­fers from a ser­i­ous ill­ness and treach­er­ous min­is­ters have usurped his power. His ac­cu­mu­lated wealth is no longer his own prop­erty and he has only half a fruit to give as alms. By the king’s or­der we will dis­trib­ute the fruit to all the monks.” So the senior monk in­struc­ted the stew­ard monk to cook the fruit in a thick soup and then col­lec­ted the ker­nel, for which a stupa was built. Since the monks had re­ceived the king’s great be­ne­fi­cence it was fit­ting that they ful­fill his last wish.

[0912c06] 阿摩落伽窣堵波西北，故伽藍中有窣堵波，謂建揵稚聲。[0912c07] 初，此城內伽藍百數，僧徒肅穆，學業清高，外道學人，銷聲緘口。其後僧徒相次徂落，而諸後進莫繼前修。外道師資傅訓成藝，於是命儔召侶，千計萬數，來集僧坊，揚言唱曰：「夫擊揵稚，招集學人！」群愚同止，謬有扣擊。遂白王，請挍優劣。外道諸師高才達學，僧徒雖眾，辭論膚淺。外道曰：「我論勝。自今已後，諸僧伽藍不得擊揵稚以集眾也。」王允其請，依先論制。僧徒受恥，忍詬而退，十二年間不擊揵稚。

In an old mon­as­tery to the north­w­est of Āmalaka Stupa there is a stupa known as Bell Strik­ing. Formerly there were about a hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies in this city. The monks were sol­emn and re­spect­ful and had great learn­ing, and they had si­lenced the heretical schol­ars [in de­bate]. In the course of time the monks even­tu­ally died and their suc­cessors failed to main­tain the tra­di­tion of learn­ing. The heretical teach­ers taught their stu­dents to be­come per­fect in know­ledge and they then summoned their school­mates, thou­sands and myri­ads in num­ber, to as­semble at the mon­astic build­ings, shout­ing aloud, “Strike the bell to call up all your schol­ars!” Groups of ig­nor­ant monks came to­gether and wan­tonly soun­ded the bell and they re­por­ted to the king, re­quest­ing him to be the judge of the con­test. The heretical teach­ers were highly tal­en­ted schol­ars of good learn­ing, and even though there were nu­mer­ous monks their ar­gu­ments were shal­low and su­per­fi­cial. The heretics an­nounced, “We are the win­ners of the de­bate. From now on no mon­as­tery should strike the bell to call as­sem­blies.” The king sanc­tioned the re­quest, ac­cord­ing to the pre­ced­ent reg­u­la­tions of de­bate. Hav­ing been put to shame, the monks with­drew in dis­grace and for twelve years they did not strike the bell.

時南印度那伽閼剌樹那菩薩(唐言龍猛。舊譯曰龍樹，非也)，幼傳雅譽，長擅高名，捨離欲愛，出家修學，深究妙理，位登初地。有大弟子提婆者，智慧明敏，機神警悟，白其師曰：「波吒釐城諸學人等辭屈外道，不擊揵稚，日月驟移，十二年矣。敢欲摧邪見山，然正法炬。」龍猛曰：「波吒釐城外道博學，爾非其儔，吾今行矣。」提婆曰：「欲摧腐草，詎必傾山？敢承指誨，黜諸異學。大師立外道義，而我隨文破析，詳其優劣，然後圖行。」龍猛乃扶立外義，提婆隨破其理，七日之後，龍猛失宗，已而歎曰：「謬辭易失，邪義難扶。爾其行矣，摧彼必矣！」

At that time, Nāgār­juna Bod­hisat­tva (known as Long­meng, “Dragon Valor,” in Chinese, formerly mis­trans­lated as Longshu, “Dragon Tree”) of South In­dia had en­joyed a good repu­ta­tion from his youth, and he en­joyed unique fame when he had grown up he. He re­nounced the world of lust and love and be­came a monk to cul­tiv­ate his learn­ing. He made a pro­found study of the won­der­ful prin­ciples and at­tained the first stage [of a bod­hisat­tva]. He had a great dis­ciple named Deva, a per­son of wis­dom and clev­erness with wits and good un­der­stand­ing. Deva said to his teacher [Nāgār­juna], “The schol­ars of Pāṭali­putra were de­feated in de­bate by the heretics, and time passes so quickly that twelve years have passed since they stopped strik­ing the bell. I would ven­ture to de­mol­ish the hill of er­ro­neous views and light the torch of the Dharma.” Nāgāṇuna said, “The heretics of Pāṭali­putra are eru­dite schol­ars and you are no match for them. I must go in per­son.” Deva said, “To cut off rot­ten grass is it ne­ces­sary to over­turn the whole moun­tain? Un­der your in­struc­tion I ven­ture to re­fute the het­ero­dox schol­ars. May you, my great teacher, raise an ar­gu­ment in fa­vor of the heretical the­or­ies and let me ana­lyze the points against them, and we shall see who will be the win­ner be­fore we plan our ac­tion.” Nāgār­juna then pro­posed a thesis of the heretical the­or­ies, and Deva re­futed his teacher as the lat­ter tried to main­tain his view­points. At the end of seven days Nāgār­juna had failed to up­hold his pro­pos­i­tion. He said with a sigh, “Er­ro­neous views can be eas­ily re­futed and it is dif­fi­cult to de­fend wrong the­or­ies. You may now go; you can surely de­feat them.”

提婆菩薩夙擅高名，波吒釐城外道之聞也，即相召集，馳白王曰：「大王昔紆聽覽，制諸沙門不擊揵稚。願垂告命。令諸門候，隣境異僧勿使入城，恐相黨援，輕改先制。」王允其言，嚴加伺候。提婆既至，不得入城。聞其制令，便易衣服，疊僧加胝，置草束中，褰裳疾驅，負戴而入。既至城中，棄草披衣，至此伽藍，欲求止息。知人既寡，莫有相舍，遂宿揵稚臺上。於晨朝時，便大振擊。眾聞伺察，乃客遊比丘。諸僧伽藍傳聲響應。王聞究問，莫得其先，至此伽藍，咸推提婆。提婆曰：「夫揵稚者，擊以集眾。有而不用，懸之何為？」王人報曰：「先時僧眾論議墮負，制之不擊，已十二年。」提婆曰：「有是乎？吾於今日，重聲法鼓。」

Deva Bod­hisat­tva had al­ways been a man of high renown. When the heretics of Pāṭali­putra heard about his ar­rival they as­sembled and hur­riedly went to re­port to the king, say­ing, “Your Majesty has formerly con­des­cen­ded to hear our sug­ges­tion that a rule be made to pre­vent the monks from strik­ing the bell. We pray that a de­cree be is­sued to or­der the guard­i­ans of the city gates not to al­low a for­eign monk from a neigh­bor­ing coun­try to enter the city, lest he con­spire to reck­lessly over­turn the former rule.” The king con­sen­ted to their pro­posal and ordered the guard­i­ans to keep strict watch. Thus when Deva ar­rived he was barred from en­ter­ing the city. Hear­ing about he re­stric­tion, he changed his clothes, fol­ded his samghāṭi robe, and wrapped it in a bundle of straw. Hold­ing the front piece of his long gown in hand, he hast­ily went into the city, car­ry­ing the straw bundle on his head. After en­ter­ing the city and hav­ing cast away the straw, he put on his re­li­gious robe and came to this mon­as­tery to ask for lodging, but as he had no ac­quaint­ance there no one would provide him with a room. So he spent the night on the ter­race of the bell and early next morn­ing he struck the bell loudly. When the monks heard the sound of the bell they came out to see and found that the trav­el­ing monk [had struck the bell], as the other mon­as­ter­ies did the same in re­sponse to the call of this mon­as­tery. The king, hav­ing heard the sound, in­quired into the mat­ter but could not find out who was the first to strike the bell. When the king’s man came to the mon­as­tery the monks poin­ted out Deva, who said, “Abell is soun­ded for as­sem­bling the monks. If you do not strike it what is the use of hanging it there?” The king’s man said, “Formerly the monks were de­feated in a de­bate, so twelve years ago a rule was laid down to pro­hibit them from strik­ing the bell.” Deva said, “Is that so? I wish to beat the drum of the Dharma again today.”

使報王曰：「有異沙門欲雪前恥。」王乃召集學人，而定制曰：「論失本宗，殺身以謝。」於是外道競陳旗鼓，諠談異義，各曜辭鋒。提婆菩薩既昇論座，聽其先說，隨義析破，曾不浹辰，摧諸異道。國王大臣莫不慶悅，建此靈基，以旌至德。

The mes­sen­ger re­por­ted to the king, say­ing, “A for­eign śramaṇa wishes to avenge a former shame.” The king then summoned the schol­ars and made a rule that one who loses an ar­gu­ment should pay with his life for the fail­ure. Then the heretics dis­played their flags, set out their drums, and bois­ter­ously talked on dif­fer­ent the­or­ies, show­ing off their tal­ent for elo­quence. Hav­ing sat on the seat of dis­cus­sion, Deva listened to their dis­pu­ta­tions and, aim­ing at their dif­fer­ent views, he re­futed them through ana­lysis. In less than twelve days he van­quished all the heretics, to the de­light of the king and his min­is­ters, who built this spir­itual stupa in memory of Deva’s su­preme vir­tue.

[0913a21] 建擊揵稚窣堵波北有故基，昔鬼辯婆羅門所居處也。[0913a22] 初，此城中有婆羅門，葺宇荒藪，不交世路，祠鬼求福，魍魎相依。高論劇談，雅辭響應，人或激難，垂帷以對。舊學高才，無出其右，士庶翕然，仰之猶聖。

To the north of Bell Strik­ing Stupa is the old site of the dwell­ing place of the de­mon-elo­quent brah­man. Formerly there was a brah­man of the city [of Pāṭali­putra] who lived in a thatched hut in a des­ol­ate place, dis­so­ci­at­ing him­self from the world. He wor­shiped demons to be­seech them for blessed­ness and he con­versed with evil spir­its. He had bril­liant ideas, talked vol­ubly, and answered ques­tions with el­eg­ant words. Whenever people held a heated de­bate with him he al­ways re­tor­ted from be­hind a cur­tain. None of the learned schol­ars with high tal­ent could ex­cel him and the com­mon people un­an­im­ously re­spec­ted him as a saint.

有阿濕縛窶沙(唐言馬鳴)菩薩者，智周萬物，道播三乘，每謂人曰：「此婆羅門學不師受，藝無稽古，屏居幽寂，獨擅高名，將非神鬼相依，妖魅所附，何能若是者乎？夫辯資鬼授，言不對人，辭說一聞，莫能再述，吾今往彼，觀其舉措。」遂即其廬，而謂之曰：「仰欽盛德，為日已久。幸願褰帷，敢申宿志。」而婆羅門居然簡傲，垂帷以對，終不面談。馬鳴心知鬼魅，情甚自負，辭畢而退，謂諸人曰：「吾已知矣，摧彼必矣。」尋往白王：「唯願垂許，與彼居士較論劇談。」王聞駭曰：「斯何人哉！若不證三明，具六通，何能與彼論乎？」命駕躬臨，詳鑒辯論。

There was a bod­hisat­tva named Aśvag­hoṣa (known as Mam­ing, “Horse- neigh­ing,” in Chinese), whose wis­dom com­pre­hen­ded everything and whose way ex­ten­ded to the three vehicles. He of­ten re­marked on the mat­ter, say­ing, “This brah­man has no teacher to teach him and his arts are ground­less and without an­cient basis. He lives in se­clu­sion, en­joy­ing great renown all by him­self. How could he be what he is un­less he de­pends on deit­ies and ghosts and is ob­sessed with evil spir­its? One whose abil­ity of elo­quence is en­dowed by a de­mon can­not speak face to face with an­other per­son and he can­not re­it­er­ate what he has said once. I must go there and see how he will be­have.” So he went to the [brah­man’s] hut and said to him, “I have heard of your great fame with ad­mir­a­tion for quite a long time. I hope you will lift the cur­tain so that I may ex­press what is on my mind.” The brah­man re­mained ar­rog­ant, talk­ing from be­hind his cur­tain, and would not speak face to face [with his vis­itor]. Aśvag­hoṣa real­ized that it was the de­mon who was so self-con­ceited. After the con­ver­sa­tion ended he left and told the people, “I have come to know what is what and I am sure to de­feat him.” Then he went to see the king and asked for per­mis­sion to hold a sharp de­bate with the her­mit. The king was sur­prised to hear this and said, “What sort of man are you? Un­less you have gained the three clear in­sights or ob­tained the six su­per­nat­ural powers, how could you con­test with him?” Nev­er­the­less, he ordered that his car­riage be pre­pared and went in per­son to see the de­tails of the con­tro­versy.

是時馬鳴論三藏微言，述五明大義，妙辯縱橫，高論清遠。而婆羅門既述辭已，馬鳴重曰：「失吾旨矣，宜重述之。」時婆羅門默然杜口，馬鳴叱曰：「何不釋難？所事鬼魅宜速授辭！」疾褰其帷，視占其怪。婆羅門惶遽而曰：「止！止！」馬鳴退而言曰：「此子今晨聲問失墜，虛名非久，斯之謂也。」王曰：「非夫盛德，誰鑒左道？知人之哲，絕後光前，國有常典，宜旌茂實。」

At that time Aśvag­hoṣa Bod­hisat­tva dis­cussed the subtle words of the Tripiṭaka and elu­cid­ated the gen­eral mean­ings of the five branches of know­ledge. He talked elo­quently and with great ease and his bril­liant views were lu­cid and far-sighted. After the brah­man had stated his opin­ion, Aśvag­hoṣa said, “In your state­ment you lost the gist of my ar­gu­ment. Please re­peat what you have said.” The brah­man re­mained si­lent and be­came tongue-tied, how­ever. Aśvag­hoṣa re­buked him, say­ing, “Why do you not re­solve my in­ter­rog­a­tion? The de­mon you serve should hasten to give you words.” While say­ing this he hur­riedly lif­ted the cur­tain, try­ing to get a look at the de­mon, but the Brah­man said in a flustered and fear­ful man­ner, “Stop! Stop! ” Aśvag­hoṣa with­drew and re­marked, “That fel­low has lost his fame this morn­ing. As the say­ing goes, false fame can­not last long.” The king said, “If not for your great vir­tue, who could have seen through his sin­is­ter fraud­u­lence? Ac­cord­ing to the reg­u­lar tra­di­tion of the coun­try someone who has an un­pre­ced­en­ted and unique cap­ab­il­ity of dis­cern­ment should be com­men­ded for his per­spica­city.”

[0913b18] 城西南隅二百餘里，有伽藍餘跡。其傍有窣堵波，神光時燭，靈瑞間發，近遠眾庶莫不祈請，是過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

More than two hun­dred li away from the south­w­est corner of the city there are the rem­nant found­a­tions of a mon­as­tery, be­side which is a stupa that of­ten is­sues a di­vine light and mani­fests spir­itual signs. People come here from far and near to say pray­ers. This was a site where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down in an­cient times.

[0913b21] 故伽藍西南行百餘里，至鞮羅釋迦伽藍。庭宇四院，觀閣三層，崇臺累仞，重門洞啟，頻毘娑羅王末孫之所建也。旌召高才，廣延俊德，異域學人，遠方髦彥，同類相趨，肩隨戾止。僧徒千數，並學大乘。中門當塗，有三精舍，上置輪相，鈴鐸虛懸，下建層基，軒檻周列，戶牖棟梁，壖垣階陛，金銅隱起，廁間莊嚴。中精舍佛立像高三丈，左多羅菩薩像，右觀自在菩薩像。凡斯三像，鍮石鑄成，威神肅然，冥鑒遠矣。精舍中各有舍利一升，靈光或照，奇瑞間起。

Go­ing south­w­est for more than one hun­dred li from the old mon­as­tery, I reached Tilad­hāka Mon­as­tery. It con­sists of four courts, three-stor­ied pa­vil­ions, lofty ter­races, and gates that open wide, lead­ing from one to an­other. All of these were built by the last des­cend­ant of King Bimbisāra. He se­lect­ively in­vited people of high tal­ent and widely summoned those of great vir­tue. Schol­ars of for­eign coun­tries and wise people from dis­tant lands, one after an­other, came in groups of the same caliber and stayed [in this mon­as­tery]. There are thou­sands of monks, all of whom study Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. At the end of the path, fa­cing the middle gate, are three shrines that are ad­orned with wheel signs on the roofs and have bells and chimes sus­pen­ded in the air. On the ter­race be­low there are spa­cious bal­us­trades all around. The doors, win­dows, beams, outer walls, and stairs are em­bel­lished with gilt or cop­per or­na­ments in re­lief. In the middle shrine there is a stand­ing statue of the Buddha, thirty feet in height, while in the left one is a statue of Tārā Bodhi- sat­tva and in the right one a statue of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. All three statues, cast in brass, are aus­tere in ap­pear­ance and spread far-reach­ing di­vine pre­cepts. In each of the three shrines there is one sheng of [the Buddha’s] relic bones, which some­times emit a di­vine light and show signs of un­usual aus­pi­cious­ness from time to time.

[0913c02] 鞮羅釋迦伽藍西南九十餘里，至大山，雲石幽蔚，靈僊攸舍，毒蛇、暴龍窟穴其藪，猛獸、鷙鳥棲伏其林。山頂有大盤石，上建窣堵波，其高十餘尺，是佛入定處也。

At a dis­tance of over ninety li to the south­w­est of Tilad­hāka Mon­as­tery I reached a great moun­tain where spir­its and im­mor­tals dwell among the dense clouds and rocks lie in se­clu­sion, venom­ous snakes and vi­ol­ent dragons lurk in the hol­lows of the marshes, fierce an­im­als hide in the woods, and birds of prey perch on the trees. On the sum­mit of the moun­tain is a large flat rock on which is built a stupa over ten feet high. This was a place where the Buddha once sat in samādhi.

昔者如來降神止此，坐斯磐石，入滅盡定，時經宿焉。諸天靈聖供養如來，鼓天樂，雨天花。如來出定，諸天感慕，以寶金銀起窣堵波。去聖逾邈，寶變為石。自古迄今，人未有至。遙望高山，乃見異類，長蛇、猛獸群從右旋，天仙靈聖肩隨讚禮。[0913c11] 山東岡有窣堵波，在昔如來佇觀摩揭陀國所履之處也。

Formerly the Tathāgata once came here through su­per­nat­ural power and sat on this rock in the samādhi of com­plete ces­sa­tion for an en­tire night. The devas, spir­itual be­ings, and saints made of­fer­ings to him, per­formed ce­les­tial mu­sic, and heav­enly flowers rained down. After the Tathāgata had emerged from the state of samādhi the heav­enly be­ings, out of feel­ings of re­spect and ad­mir­a­tion, con­struc­ted a stupa with gems, gold, and sil­ver, but over the course of time the pre­cious sub­stances have turned into stone. Since an­cient times nobody has ever vis­ited the stupa. Look­ing from afar at the high moun­tain one can see strange be­ings, long snakes, and fierce an­im­als cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing to the right around the stupa, and devas, im­mor­tals, spir­its, and saints com­ing one after an­other to sing praise. On a hil­lock to the east of the moun­tain is a stupa built at the place where the Tathāgata once walked and stopped to look back at the coun­try of Magadha.

[0913c13] 山西北三十餘里，山阿有伽藍，負嶺崇基，疎崖峙閣。僧徒五十餘人，並習大乘法教。瞿那末底(唐言德慧)菩薩伏外道之處。

At a spur of a hill over thirty li to the north­w­est of the moun­tain there is a mon­as­tery built on an el­ev­ated place backed by a ridge, with lofty pa­vil­ions ex­cav­ated on the pre­cip­ices. There are more than fifty monks, all of whom study the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. This was the place where Guṇam­ati (known as De­hui, “Vir­tue-wis­dom,” in Chinese) Bod­hisat­tva sub­dued the heretics.

[0913c15] 初，此山中有外道摩沓婆者，祖僧佉之法而習道焉。學窮內外，言極空有，名高前列，德重當時。君王珍敬，謂之國寶，臣庶宗仰，咸曰家師。隣國學人承風仰德，儔之先進，誠博達也。食邑二城，環居封建。

There was once on this moun­tain a brah­man named Mād­hava, who was a fol­lower of the the­or­ies of the Sāmkhya school and prac­ticed the same ac­cord­ingly. He was an ex­pert in both Buddhist and heretical doc­trines and could speak well on the prin­ciples of nonex­ist­ence and ex­ist­ence. His fame ex­celled that of his pre­de­cessors and his vir­tue won the re­spect of his con­tem­por­ar­ies. The king es­teemed him as na­tional treas­ure and the min­is­ters and com­mon people honored him as their per­sonal teacher. Schol­ars of neigh­bor­ing coun­tries ac­cep­ted his style of learn­ing, re­spec­ted him for his vir­tue, and re­garded him as a pi­on­eer. He was in­deed a learned and eru­dite man. He lived on the fief of two cit­ies in an abode sur­roun­ded by feudal lands.

時南印度德慧菩薩幼而敏達，早擅精微，學通三藏，理窮四諦。聞摩沓婆論極幽微，有懷挫銳，命一門人裁書謂曰：「敬問摩沓婆善安樂也。宜忘勞弊，精習舊學，三年之後，摧汝嘉聲。」如是第二、第三年中，每發使報。及將發迹，重裁書曰：「年期已極，學業何如？吾今至矣，汝宜知之。」摩沓婆甚懷惶懼，誡諸門人及以邑戶：「自今之後，不得居止沙門異道，遞相宣告，勿有犯違。」

At that time Guṇam­ati Bod­hisat­tva of South In­dia had been a per­son of in­tel­li­gence since his child­hood. He was ex­quis­ite in learn­ing in his early days, had thor­oughly mastered the Tripiṭaka, and per­fectly un­der­stood the Four Noble Truths. When he heard that Mād­hava’s the­or­ies were most pro­found and ab­struse he de­cided to frus­trate his vain­glory. He sent a dis­ciple to the brah­man with the fol­low­ing mes­sage, “I re­spect­fully in­quire after Mād­hava’s health and hope you are liv­ing in peace and hap­pi­ness. It be­fits you to for­get about fa­tigue and make a good re­view of your past learn­ing. In three years I shall put an end to your good re­pute.” In the second and third years he re­peated the mes­sage to the brah­man. When he was about to start out on the jour­ney [to see the brah­man] he wrote an­other let­ter to him, say­ing, “The time is draw­ing to an end. How is the pro­gress of your stud­ies? You should know that I am com­ing soon.” Greatly wor­ried and afraid, Mād­hava warned his dis­ciples and feudal ten­ants that from then on they should not take in any śramaṇa or hea­then, and he told them to pass the no­tice to all oth­ers and to not in­fringe the ad­mon­i­tion.

時德慧菩薩杖錫而來，至摩沓婆邑，人守約，莫有相舍。諸婆羅門更詈之曰：「斷髮殊服，何異人乎？宜時速去，勿此止也！」德慧菩薩欲摧異道，冀宿其邑，因以慈心，卑辭謝曰：「爾曹世諦之淨行，我又勝義諦之淨行，淨行既同，何為見拒？」婆羅門因不與言，但事驅逐。逐出邑外，入大林中。林中猛獸群行為暴，

At that time Guṇam­ati Bod­hisat­tva came with his pew­ter staff to of Mād­hava’s fief but the ten­ants, in keep­ing with the pre­arrange­ment, re­fused to give him lodging. The brah­man re­proached him, say­ing, “With a ton­sured poll and dressed in a un­usual cos­tume, what a strange fig­ure you are! It be­fits you to go away quickly and not stay here!” Guṇam­ati wished to de­feat the brah­man and de­sired to stay in the lat­ter’s feudal land, so he said in po­lite lan­guage with a mind of com­pas­sion, “You people are pure as­cet­ics fol­low­ing the worldly truth, while I am a pure as­cetic prac­ti­cing the su­per­ior truth. Since we all are pure as­cet­ics, why do you re­ject me?” The brah­man would not speak with him but in­stead drove him away. Hav­ing been driven out of the feudal land Guṇam­ati entered a great forest in which packs of fierce an­im­als wrought havoc.

有淨信者恐為獸害，乃束蘊持仗，謂菩薩曰：「南印度有德慧菩薩者，遠傳聲問，欲來論議，故此邑主懼墜嘉聲，重垂嚴制，勿止沙門。恐為物害，故來相援。行矣自安，勿有他慮。」德慧曰：「良告淨信，德慧者，我是也。」淨信聞已，更深恭敬，謂德慧曰：「誠如所告，宜可速行。」即出深林，止息空澤。淨信縱火持弓，周旋左右，夜分已盡，謂德慧曰：「可以行矣，恐人知聞，來相圖害。」德慧謝曰：「不敢忘德。」

A pure be­liever, fear­ing that Guṇam­ati might be hurt by the an­im­als, came with a torch and a staff in hand and said to the bod­hisat­tva, “A Guṇam­ati Bod­hisat­tva of South In­dia whose fame has spread far is com­ing to hold a de­bate. Thus the lord of the fief, fear­ing that his good name might be lost in the po­lemic, is­sued a strict or­der to his people to not give overnight lodging to any śramaṇa. Fear­ing that he may be harmed by wild an­im­als, I have come here to help him. He may go his way in safety without worry.” Guṇam­ati said, “I must tell you, pure be­liever, that I am Guṇam­ati.” Hav­ing heard these words the pure be­liever showed still deeper re­spect to Guṇam­ati and said to him, “If that is the case, you should quickly leave here.” So they came out of the dense forest and hal­ted in an open marsh­land, where the pure be­liever built a fire. Hold­ing a bow in his hand he walked all around. When the night had passed he said to Guṇam­ati, “You should go now, lest people get wind of you and come to in­jure you.” Guṇam­ati said with thanks, “I will never for­get your kind­ness.”

於是遂行。至王宮，謂門者曰：「今有沙門，自遠而至，願王垂許，與摩沓婆論。」王聞驚曰：「此妄人耳。」即命使臣往摩沓婆所，宣王旨曰：「有異沙門來求談論，今已瑩灑論場，宣告遠近，佇望來儀，願垂降趾。」摩沓婆問王使曰：「豈非南印度德慧論師乎？」曰：「然。」摩沓婆聞，心甚不悅，事難辭免，遂至論場。國王、大臣、士、庶、豪族，咸皆集會，欲聽高談。

He then went to the palace and said to the gate­keeper, “A śramaṇa com­ing from a great dis­tance wishes to ob­tain the per­mis­sion of the king to hold a de­bate with Mād­hava.” Hav­ing heard this an­nounce­ment, the king was amazed and said, “This man must be crazy!” Then he ordered a mes­sen­ger to go to the place of Mād­hava to de­clare his edict, say­ing, “A strange śramaṇa has come and begged to hold a de­bate [with you]. The ground for the ar­gu­ment­a­tion has been swept clean and an an­nounce­ment has been sent out far and near. I hope you will kindly at­tend the meet­ing with your gra­cious pres­ence.” Mād­hava asked the mes­sen­ger, “Is the man the śāstra mas­ter Guṇam­ati of South In­dia?” The mes­sen­ger said, “Yes.” Mād­hava was greatly dis­pleased to hear this but he could not de­cline the in­vit­a­tion, so he went to the venue of con­ten­tion. The king and his min­is­ters, as well as schol­ars, com­mon people, and nobles, gathered at the meet­ing, wish­ing to listen to the learned dis­cus­sion.

德慧先立宗義，洎乎景落，摩沓婆辭以年衰，智惛捷對，請歸靜思，方酬來難。每事言歸，及旦昇座，竟無異論。至第六日，歐血而死。其將終也，顧命妻曰：「爾有高才，無忘所恥！」摩沓婆死，匿不發喪，更服鮮綺，來至論會。眾咸諠譁°，更相謂曰：「摩沓婆自負才高，恥對德慧，故遣婦來，優劣明矣。」德慧菩薩謂其妻曰：「能制汝者，我已制之。」摩沓婆妻知難而退。

Guṇam­ati put for­ward his pro­pos­i­tion first, but up un­til sun­set Mād­hava re­fused to of­fer a re­tort, on the ex­cuse that be­cause of his his ad­vanced age he could not give a prompt reply but had to leave and quietly pon­der the ques­tion be­fore re­turn­ing to give his re­fut­a­tion. For every new point [raised by his op­pon­ent] he al­ways said that he must leave be­fore mak­ing a reply. The next morn­ing, after he had taken his seat in the dis­cus­sion, he could not ut­ter a word in re­fut­a­tion and on the sixth day he died, vomit­ing blood. On his deathbed he said to his wife, “You are a wo­man of great tal­ent and you must not for­get the shame I have suffered.” Mād­hava’s death was kept secret and his wife, at­tired in gor­geous dress, came to the meet­ing. The people in the as­sembly made a hub­bub and said among them­selves, “Mād­hava is self-con­ceited and is too shy to face Guṇam­ati, so he has sent his wife to come to the meet­ing. It is ap­par­ent who is su­per­ior and who is in­ferior.” Guṇam­ati Bod­hisat­tva said to Mād­hava’s wife, “The one who can sub­jug­ate you has been sub­jug­ated by me.” The wo­man then beat a hasty re­treat in the face of these dif­fi­culties.

王曰：「何言之密，彼便默然？」德慧曰：「惜哉，摩沓婆死矣！其妻欲來與我論耳。」王曰：「何以知之？願垂指告。」德慧曰：「其妻之來也，面有死喪之色，言含哀怨之聲，以故知之，沓婆死矣。能制汝者，謂其夫也。」王命使往觀，果如所議。王乃謝曰：「佛法玄妙，英賢繼軌，無為守道，含識霑化，依先國典，褒德有常。」德慧曰：「苟以愚昧，體道居貞，存正足，論濟物，將弘汲引，先摧傲慢，方便攝化，今其時矣。唯願大王以摩沓婆邑戶子孫千代常充僧伽藍人，則垂誡來葉，流美無窮。唯彼淨信見匡護者福延于世，食用同僧，以勸清信，以褒厚德。」於是建此伽藍，式旌勝迹。

The king said [to Guṇam­ati], “What secret words did you say that made the wo­man go away in si­lence?” Guṇam­ati said, “What a pity! Mād­hava is dead! His wife came with the in­ten­tion of hold­ing the de­bate with me.” The king said, “How do you know this? Please tell me.” Guṇam­ati said in reply, “When she came she had a sor­row­ful look of mourn­ing and her voice be­trayed her feel­ings of grief and sad­ness. That is how I knew that Mād­hava had died. By say­ing ‘the one who can sub­jug­ate you,’ I was re­fer­ring to her hus­band.” The king then sent someone to see what had happened and he found that the situ­ation was just as had been de­scribed. The king said in self-re­proach, “The buddha-dharma is ab­struse and won­der­ful and has bril­liant sages com­ing forth in suc­ces­sion; non­ac­tion is the way that be­ne­fits liv­ing be­ings. Ac­cord­ing to the ori­ginal in­sti­tu­tions and reg­u­la­tions of our coun­try, I shall praise and honor people of vir­tue in the usual maimer.” Guṇam­ati said, “Stu­pid as I am, I prac­tice the Way and abide by chastity; I ob­serve the pre­cepts of con­tent­ment and self-re­straint and study the means to help oth­ers. Whenever I at­tempt to in­duce someone [to the right path] I al­ways first sup­press his ar­rog­ance and then con­vert him in an ap­pro­pri­ate way. Now it is time for me to re­quest Your Majesty to as­sign all the ten­ants of Mād­hava’s fiefs to be­come [monks] in the mon­as­tery for in­nu­mer­able gen­er­a­tions, so as to leave an ex­ample for people in the fu­ture and trans­mit the fame of these good deeds forever. As for the pure be­liever who gave me pro­tec­tion, I hope he will live bliss­fully in the world and en­joy the same pro­vi­sions that are given to the monks, in or­der to per­suade people to have pure faith, as well as to ex­alt his pro­found good­ness.” Thus this mon­as­tery was con­struc­ted for the glor­i­fic­a­tion of this su­per­ior event.

[0914b17] 初，摩沓婆論敗之後，十數淨行逃難隣國，告諸外道恥辱之事，招募英俊，來雪前恥。王既珍敬德慧，躬往請曰：「今諸外道不自量力，結黨連群，敢聲論鼓，唯願大師摧諸異道。」德慧曰：「宜集論者。」於是外道學人欣然相慰：「我曹今日，勝其必矣。」時諸外道闡揚義理，德慧菩薩曰：「今諸外道逃難遠遊，如王先制，皆是賤人，我今如何與彼對論？」德慧有負座竪，素聞餘論，頗閑微旨，侍°立於側，聽諸高談。德慧拊其座而言曰：「床，汝可論。」眾咸驚駭，異其所命。時負座竪便即發難，深義泉涌，清辯響應。三復之後，外道失宗，重挫其銳，再折其翮。自伏論已來，立為伽藍邑戶。

When Mād­hava was first van­guished in the de­bate, dozens of brah­mans fled to take refuge in a neigh­bor­ing coun­try, and they in­formed the brah­mans of that land about the shame­ful af­fair. They re­cruited bril­liant schol­ars and re­turned home to seek ven­geance for the former in­sult. As the king re­spec­ted Guṇam­ati, he went in per­son to in­vite the lat­ter, say­ing, “Some heretics who over­rate their own abil­it­ies have or­gan­ized a party, formed cliques, and ven­tured to sound the drum to de­mand that a de­bate be held. I hope that you, Ven­er­able Sir, will crush these heretics.” Guṇam­ati said, “The de­baters may be called to an as­sembly.” The heretical schol­ars were de­lighted to hear this and said among them­selves in con­sol­a­tion, “We shall cer­tainly win the case today!” Then the heretics ex­pounded their the­or­et­ical prin­ciples. Guṇam­ati Bod­hisat­tva said, “These heretics here have taken refuge in a dis­tant land and, ac­cord­ing to the king’s former or­din­ance, they have be­come con­tempt­ible. How can I de­bate with them face to face?” At that time Guṇam­ati had a page to serve him as a seat car­rier, and that man of­ten heard his mas­ter’s su­per­erog­at­ory dis­pu­ta­tions and had be­come ad­ept in dis­cuss­ing the gist of subtle teach­ings. As he stood by the side of his mas­ter, listen­ing to his elo­quent talk, Guṇam­ati clapped his seat and said, “Seat car­rier, you may de­bate with them.” All the people in the as­sembly were sur­prised by this. The page then began to raise ques­tions. His words of deep mean­ing flowed like a spring and his clear elo­quence echoed in the air. In three rounds the heretics were van­quished in the dis­pu­ta­tion, the sharp­ness of their tongues blun­ted and the shafts of the fletch­ing of their ar­rows broken. Be­cause they had been de­feated in the de­bate they were made feudal ten­ants of the mon­as­tery.

[0914c02] 德慧伽藍西南二十餘里，至孤山，有伽藍，尸羅跋陀羅(唐言戒賢)論師論義得勝，捨邑建焉。竦一危峯，如窣堵波，置佛舍利。[0914c04] 論師，三摩呾吒國之王族，婆羅門之種也。少好學，有風操，遊諸印度，詢求明哲。至此國那爛陀僧伽藍，遇護法菩薩，聞法信悟。請服染衣，諮以究竟之致，問以解脫之路，既窮至理，亦究微言，名擅當時，聲高異域。

More than twenty li to the south­w­est of Guṇam­ati Mon­as­tery is an isol­ated hill, with a mon­as­tery built by the śāstra mas­ter Sīlabhadra (known as Jiexian, “Pre­cept-vir­tue,” in Chinese) with the rev­enue of a city that was donated to him as a re­ward for a suc­cess­ful dis­cus­sion. The shape of the isol­ated hill re­sembled a stupa for the pre­ser­va­tion of the Buddha’s rel­ics. The śāstra mas­ter, a brah­man by caste, was the scion of the royal fam­ily of the coun­try of Samataṭa. When he was young he was fond of learn­ing and had a good char­ac­ter. He traveled to vari­ous parts of In­dia in search of people of wis­dom. When he came to Nālandā Mon­as­tery in this coun­try he met with Dharmapāla Bod­hisat­tva, from whom he heard about the Dharma with faith and un­der­stand­ing, and un­der whose guid­ance he donned the dyed robe of a monk. He in­quired into the con­sum­mate prin­ciples and sought the way of eman­cip­a­tion. He mastered both the ul­ti­mate truth and the subtle the­or­ies. He was well known in his own time and his fame was high in for­eign re­gions.

南印度有外道，探賾索隱，窮幽洞微，聞護法高名，起我慢深嫉，不阻山川，擊鼓求論，曰：「我，南印度之人也。承王國內有大論師，我雖不敏，願與詳議。」王曰：「有之，誠如議也。」乃命使臣請護法曰：「南印度有外道，不遠千里，來求較論，唯願降跡，赴集論場。」

There was then in South In­dia a heretic who sought into pro­found teach­ings and delved into what was kept secret, hav­ing a thor­ough com­pre­hen­sion of ab­struse know­ledge and a keen in­sight into subtle ten­ets. Hear­ing of Dharmapāla’s high re­pute, he be­came deeply j cal­ous and re­sent­ful. Des­pite the obstacles of moun­tains and rivers he came to beat the drum and de­man­ded to hold a dis­cus­sion with him. He said [to the king], “I am a man from South In­dia. I have heard that in your king­dom there is a great śāstra mas­ter. Al­though I am not clever I wish to have a full dis­cus­sion with him.” The king said, “Yes, we have such a per­son, as you say.” Then he sent a mes­sen­ger to in­vite Dharmapāla, say­ing, “A heretic of South In­dia has come from a dis­tance of no less than one thou­sand li, wish­ing to hold a com­pet­it­ive dis­cus­sion with you. I hope you will con­des­cend to come to the de­bate ground.”

護法聞已，攝衣將往。門人戒賢者，後進之翹楚也，前進請曰：「何遽行乎？」護法曰：「自慧日潛暉，傳燈寂照，外道蟻聚，異學蜂飛，故我今者，將摧彼論。」戒賢曰：「恭聞餘論，敢摧異道。」護法知其俊也，因而允焉。是時戒賢年甫三十，眾輕其少，恐難獨任。護法知眾心之不平，乃解之曰：「有貴高明，無云齒歲，以今觀之，破彼必矣。」逮乎集論之日，遠近相趨，少長咸萃。外道弘闡大猷，盡其幽致；戒賢循理責實，深極幽玄。外道辭窮，蒙恥而退。

Hav­ing heard this mes­sage, Dharmapāla ti­died his robe and made ready to go. His dis­ciple Sīlabhadra, an out­stand­ing young man, stepped for­ward and said, “Why are you go­ing in such a hurry?” Dharmapāla said, “Since the Sun of Wis­dom ceased to shine and the Lamp of Trans­mit­ting the Dharma be­came ex­tinct, heretics have massed like ants and het­ero­dox views have spread like wasps fly­ing in swarms. There­fore I must go crush that de­bater.” Sīlabhadra said, “I have heard with re­spect your su­per­erog­at­ory dis­cus­sions, with which I dare to de­feat the het­ero­dox fol­lower.” Know­ing that he was a man of out­stand­ing tal­ent, Dharmapāla gave his con­sent to the re­quest. Sīlabhadra was then just thirty years old and the as­sembly slighted him as be­ing too young, fear­ing that it would be dif­fi­cult for him to com­bat his op­pon­ent by him­self. Know­ing that the as­sembly was not con­tent with the choice, Dharmapāla said in ex­plan­a­tion, “What is val­ued in a per­son is his good learn­ing and in­tel­li­gence, not his age. In view of the present situ­ation [Śīlabadhra] is sure to de­feat the heretic.” On the day of the dis­cus­sion young and old people com­ing from far and near gathered to­gether. The heretic widely ex­pounded his the­or­ies to the ut­most ex­tent, but Sīlabhadra re­futed him through reas­on­ing in a most pro­found and ab­struse way. Hav­ing ex­hausted his words, the heretic de­par­ted in shame.

王用酬德，封此邑城。論師辭曰：「染衣之士，事資知足，清淨自守，何以邑為？」王曰：「法王晦迹，智舟淪湑，不有旌別，無勵後學。為弘正法，願垂哀納。」論師辭不獲已，受此邑焉，便建伽藍，窮諸規矩，捨其邑戶，式修供養。

As a re­ward for [Sīlabhadra’s] vir­tue the king wished to give him this city as a fief. The śāstra mas­ter de­clined the of­fer, say­ing, “I am a monk dressed in the dyed robe, liv­ing in con­tent­ment and keep­ing my­self in pur­ity. What is the use of a fief for me?” The king said, “The King of the Dharma has dis­ap­peared and the Ships of Wis­dom have sunk, one after an­other. If there is no dis­tinc­tion [made to the worthy ones] how can we en­cour­age schol­ars of the younger gen­er­a­tion? In or­der to spread the right Dharma I hope you will kindly ac­cept the gift.” Un­able to de­cline the of­fer, śāstra mas­ter Sīlabhadra ac­cep­ted the city as his fief. He con­struc­ted a mon­as­tery ac­cord­ing to the reg­u­la­tions and provided daily ne­ces­sit­ies for the monks with the rev­enue from the city.

[0915a03] 戒賢伽藍西南行四五十里，渡尼連禪河，至伽耶城。甚險固，少居人，唯婆羅門有千餘家，大仙人祚胤也，王所不臣，眾咸宗敬。城北三十餘里，有清泉，印度相傳謂之聖水，凡有飲濯，罪垢消除。[0915a08] 城西南五六里至伽耶山。谿°谷杳冥，峯巖危險，印度國俗稱曰靈山，自昔君王馭宇承統，化洽遠人，德隆前代，莫不登封而告成功。山頂上有石窣堵波，高百餘尺，無憂王之所建也，靈鑒潛被，神光時燭，昔如來於此演說《寶雲》等經。

Go­ing south­w­est for forty or fifty li from Sīlabhadra Mon­as­tery, I crossed the Nair­añ­janā River and reached the city of Gayā. This city is strongly built but only sparsely pop­u­lated, hav­ing only some one thou­sand brah­man fam­il­ies, the des­cend­ants of a great ṛṣi. The king did not make them his sub­jects and the people honor them re­spect­fully. More than thirty li to the north of the city is a clear spring, which is re­garded in In­dian tra­di­tion as holy wa­ter. [It is be­lieved that] when one drinks the wa­ter or washes in it his or her sin­ful de­file­ments are pur­i­fied. Five or six li to the south­w­est of the city is Gayā Moun­tain, with deep val­leys and far-reach­ing streams among steep peaks and high cliffs. In In­dia it is tra­di­tion­ally called Spir­itual Moun­tain. Since an­cient times whenever kings and mon­archs as­cen­ded the throne, ex­er­ted in­flu­ence on dis­tant peoples, or ex­celled their pre­de­cessors in vir­tue, they all came to this moun­tain to make an an­nounce­ment of their achieve­ments. On top of the moun­tain is a stone stupa more than one hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. It has lat­ent spir­itual power and emits a di­vine light from time to time. This is the place where the Tathāgata formerly preached the Rat­namegha-sūtra and other scrip­tures.

[0915a14] 伽耶山東南有窣堵波，迦葉波本生邑也。其南有二窣堵波，則伽耶迦葉波、捺地迦葉波(舊曰那提迦葉，訛也。洎諸迦葉，例無波字，略也)事火之處。[0915a16] 伽耶迦葉波事火東，渡大河，至鉢羅笈菩提山(唐言前正覺山，如來將證正覺，先登此山，故云前正覺也)。如來勤求六歲，未成正覺，後捨苦行，示受乳糜，行自東北，遊目此山，有懷幽寂，欲證正覺。自東北岡登以至頂，地既震動，山又傾搖。山神惶懼，告菩薩曰：「此山者，非成正覺之福地也。若止於此，入金剛定，地當震陷，山亦傾覆。」菩薩下自西南，山半崖中，背巖面澗，有大石室，菩薩即之，加趺坐焉，地又震動，山復傾搖。時淨居天空中唱曰：「此非如來成正覺處。自此西南十四五里，去苦行處不遠，有卑鉢羅樹，下有金剛座，去來諸佛咸於此座而成正覺，願當就彼。」菩薩方起，室中龍曰：「斯室清勝，可以證聖，唯願慈悲，勿有遺棄。」菩薩既知非取證所，為遂龍意，留影而去(影在昔日，賢愚咸覩：洎於今時，或有得見)。諸天前導，往菩提樹。逮乎無憂王之興也，菩薩登山上下之迹，皆樹旌表，建窣堵波，度量雖殊，靈應莫異，或天花雨空中，或光照幽谷。每歲罷安居日，異方法俗，登修供養，信宿乃還。

To the south­east of Gayā Moun­tain is a stupa built at the birth­place of Kāśyapa, and to the south are two stu­pas built at the places where Gayā- Kāśyapa and Nadī-Kāśyapa wor­shiped fire. At the place where Gayā-Kāśyapa wor­shiped fire, cross­ing a big river to the east, one reaches Prāg­bodhi Moun­tain (known as Qi­an­zhengjue­shan, “Preen­light­en­ment Moun­tain,” in Chinese, as the Tathāgata as­cen­ded this moun­tain prior to his real­iz­a­tion of per­fect en­light­en­ment). After striv­ing hard for six years he had not yet at­tained per­fect en­light­en­ment so he gave up aus­ter­it­ies and ac­cep­ted milk gruel. When the Tathāgata came from the north­east to this moun­tain he saw that it was a quiet place and wished to gain en­light­en­ment there. From the north­east ridge he climbed up to the sum­mit of the moun­tain, and the earth quaked and the moun­tain trembled. The moun­tain god was frightened and told the Bod­hisat­tva, “This moun­tain is not a blessed place for you to achieve en­light­en­ment. If you stay here and enter the dia­mond samādhi the earth will sink and the moun­tain will topple over.” The Bod­hisat­tva came down by the south­w­est side of the moun­tain. Halfway down the moun­tain there was a large cave with its back to the crag and its mouth open­ing on a brook in front. The Bod­hisat­tva went in and sat cross-legged. The earth quaked again and the moun­tain trembled for a second time. At that time be­ings of the Heaven of Pure Abode chanted in the air, “This is not the place for the Tathāgata to achieve en­light­en­ment. Four­teen or fif­teen li south­w­est from here, not far from the place where you prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies, there is a pipal tree, un­der which is a dia­mond seat. It is on this seat that all the buddhas of the past and fu­ture sit to achieve per­fect en­light­en­ment. Please go there!” But the dragon of the cave said, “This cave is a quiet and suit­able place for you to at­tain saint­hood. May you have com­pas­sion and not re­lin­quish it.” Know­ing that this was not the place for him to real­ize buddha­hood the Bod­hisat­tva left his shadow in the cave to sat­isfy the dragon’s wishes and de­par­ted. (This shadow was formerly vis­ible to both the wise and the ig­nor­ant but now only some people are able to see it.) Pre­ceded by heav­enly be­ings, the Bod­hisat­tva went to the bodhi tree. Later, after King Aśoka rose to power, he built monu­ments and stu­pas at the sites where the Bod­hisat­tva as­cen­ded and des­cen­ded the moun­tain. Though these monu­ments dif­fer in size they are the same in show­ing spir­itual signs, either rain­ing ce­les­tial flowers or emit­ting a light that il­lu­min­ates the deep val­leys. Every year at the end of the sum­mer re­treat monks and laypeople from dif­fer­ent places come here to make of­fer­ings and spend two nights be­fore go­ing home.

[0915b07] 前正覺山西南行十四五里，至菩提樹。周垣壘甎，崇峻險固。東西長，南北狹，周五百餘步。奇樹名花，連陰接影；細沙異草，彌漫綠被。正門東闢，對尼連禪河，南門接大花池，西阨險固，北門通大伽藍。壖垣內地，聖迹相隣，或窣堵波，或復精舍，並贍部洲諸國君王、大臣、豪族欽承遺教，建以記焉。

Go­ing south­w­est from Prāg­bodhi Moun­tain for four­teen or fif­teen li, I reached the bodhi tree. The sur­round­ing walls are built high and strong out of brick; they are long from east to west and nar­row from south to north, and are about five hun­dred paces in cir­cuit. Exotic trees and fam­ous flowers cast con­tinu­ous shade on the ground, and fine sand and strange plants cover the earth with a green quilt. The main gate opens east to­ward the Nair­añ­janā River and the south­ern gate is near a large flower pool. The west side is an in­ac­cess­ible nat­ural bar­rier, while the north­ern gate leads to a big mon­as­tery. In­side the en­clos­ure the sac­red sites are con­nec­ted with one an­other. The stu­pas or shrines were all built by mon­archs, min­is­terial of­fi­cials, and nobles of vari­ous coun­tries of Jam­bud­vīpa as me­mori­als to their ac­cept­ance of the be­queathed teach­ings of the Buddha.

[0915b15] 菩提樹垣正中，有金剛座。昔賢劫初成，與大地俱起，據三千大千世界中，下極金輪，上侵地際，金剛所成，周百餘步，賢劫千佛坐之而入金剛定，故曰金剛座焉。證聖道所，亦曰道場，大地震動，獨無傾搖。是故如來將證正覺也，歷此四隅，地皆傾動，後至此處，安靜不傾。自入末劫，正法浸微，沙土彌覆，無復得見。佛涅槃後，諸國君王傳聞佛說金剛座量，遂以兩軀觀自在菩薩像，南北標界，東面而坐。聞諸耆舊曰：「此菩薩像身沒不見，佛法當盡。」今南隅菩薩沒過胸臆矣。

At the cen­ter of the en­clos­ure of the bodhi tree is the dia­mond seat, which came into ex­ist­ence to­gether with the great earth at the be­gin­ning of the bhad­rakalpa. It is in the middle of the three-thou­sand great chiliocosm, reach­ing down to the golden wheel be­low the sur­face of the earth. It is made of dia­mond and is over a hun­dred paces in cir­cuit. Be­cause the one thou­sand buddhas of the bhad­rakalpa all sit on it to enter the dia­mond samādhi, it is called the dia­mond seat, and be­cause it is the place for real­iz­ing the sac­red Way it is also called the bod­hi­maṇda (“seat for real­iz­ing buddha­hood”). Whenever the earth quakes this spot alone re­mains stable. Thus, when the Tathāgata was about to at­tain en­light­en­ment, the four corners of this seat trembled in the dir­ec­tions of where he had traveled to, but when he came here it was calm and quiet, without agit­a­tion. Since the be­gin­ning of the period of de­cline at the end of the kalpa, when the right Dharma star­ted to de­teri­or­ate, this site was covered by sand and earth and was lost to view. After the Buddha’s nir­vana the mon­archs of vari­ous coun­tries set up two sit­ting statues of Avalokiteśvara fa­cing east at the south­ern and north­ern lim­its of the en­clos­ure, ac­cord­ing to the Buddha’s de­scrip­tion as they had heard from the tra­di­tion. Some old people said that when the statues of [Avalokiteśvara] dis­ap­pear and be­come in­vis­ible the buddha-dharma will come to an end. The statue at the south corner has already sunk down up to the chest.

[0915b27] 金剛座上菩提樹者，即畢鉢羅之樹也。昔佛在世，高數百尺，屢經殘伐，猶高四五丈。佛坐其下成等正覺，因而謂之菩提樹焉。莖幹黃白，枝葉青翠，冬夏不凋，光鮮無變。每至如來涅槃之日，葉皆凋落，頃之復故。是日也，諸國君王，異方法俗，數千萬眾，不召而集，香水香乳，以溉以洗，於是奏音樂，列香花，燈炬繼日，競修供養。

The bodhi tree at the dia­mond seat is a pipal tree, which was sev­eral hun­dred feet tall in the time of the Buddha, and al­though it has been cut down or dam­aged sev­eral times it still re­mains forty or fifty feet high. Be­cause the Buddha at­tained full en­light­en­ment while sit­ting un­der this tree, it is called the bodhi tree (“tree of en­light­en­ment”). The trank of the tree is yel­low­ish- white in color and its branches and leaves are al­ways green; they never wither nor does their luster de­crease, whether in winter or sum­mer. Each year on the day of the Tathāgata’s nir­vana the leaves fade and fall but they grow out again very soon. On that day the mon­archs of vari­ous coun­tries and monks and laypeople from dif­fer­ent places, thou­sands and myri­ads in num­ber, gather here of their own will to wa­ter and bathe the tree with scen­ted wa­ter and milk, ac­com­pan­ied by mu­sic. With ar­rays of fra­grant flowers and lamps burn­ing un­in­ter­rup­tedly, the de­votees vie with each other in mak­ing of­fer­ings to the tree.

如來寂滅之後，無憂王之初嗣位也，信受邪道，毀佛遺迹，興發兵徒，躬臨剪伐。根莖枝葉，分寸斬截，次西數十步而積聚焉，令事火婆羅門燒以祠天，煙焰未靜，忽生兩樹，猛火之中，茂葉含翠，因而謂之灰菩提樹。無憂王覩異悔過，以香乳溉餘根，洎乎將旦，樹生如本。王見靈怪，重深欣慶，躬修供養，樂以忘歸。王妃素信外道，密遣使人，夜分之後，重伐其樹。無憂王旦將禮敬，唯見櫱°株，深增悲慨，至誠祈請，香乳溉灌，不日還生。王深敬異，壘石周垣，其高十餘尺，今猶見在。近設賞迦王者，信受外道，毀嫉佛法，壞僧伽藍，伐菩提樹，掘至泉水，不盡根柢，乃縱火焚燒，以甘蔗汁沃之，欲其燋爛，絕滅遺萌。數月後，摩揭陀國補剌拏伐摩王(唐言滿胄)，無憂王之末孫也，聞而歎曰：「慧日已隱，唯餘佛樹，今復摧殘，生靈何覩！」舉身投地，哀感動物。以數千牛搆乳而溉，經夜樹生，其高丈餘。恐後剪伐，周峙石垣，高二丈四尺。故今菩提樹隱於石壁，出一丈餘。

After the Tathāgata’s de­mise, when King Aśoka first as­cen­ded the throne he be­lieved in heretical doc­trines and he des­troyed the sites left by the Buddha. He sent his troops and came in per­son to cut down the bodhi tree. He chopped the roots, stalks, branches, and leaves into small pieces and had them heaped up at a spot a few tens of paces to the west, where fire-wor­ship­ing brah­mans were ordered to burn the pile as a sac­ri­fice to their god. Be­fore the smoke and flames had dis­sip­ated, how­ever, two trees with lux­uri­ant and verd­ant leaves grew out of the furi­ous fire; these trees were thus called ash bodhi trees. On see­ing this strange sight, King Aśoka re­pen­ted his mis­deeds and wa­ter the rem­nant roots with sweet milk. When it was nearly dawn the tree grew up as be­fore. The king, greatly ex­hil­ar­ated to have seen this spir­itual won­der, made of­fer­ings to the tree in per­son with such de­light that he for­got to re­turn home. The queen, a heretical be­liever, secretly sent someone to cut down the tree after night­fall. When King Aśoka went to wor­ship the tree at dawn he was very sad to see only the stump of the tree. He prayed earn­estly and watered the stump with sweet milk, and in a few days the tree grew up once again. With deep re­spect and as­ton­ish­ment the king built a stone en­clos­ure to the height of more than ten feet around the tree, which is still in ex­ist­ence. Re­cently King Śaśāṅka, a heretical be­liever, de­nounced the buddha- dharma out of jeal­ousy, des­troyed mon­as­ter­ies, and cut down the bodhi tree [again]. He dug the ground so deep as to reach spring wa­ter but he could not get at the ends of the roots, so he set fire to burn it and soaked it with sug­ar­cane juice with the in­ten­tion of mak­ing it rot­ten and pre­vent it from sprout­ing. Sev­eral months later, King Pūrṇav­ar­man (known as Man­zhou, “Full Ar­mor,” in Chinese) of Magadha, the last des­cend­ant of King Aśoka, heard about the event and said with a sigh of re­gret, “The Sun of Wis­dom has sunk and only the Buddha’s tree re­mained in the world; now that the tree has been des­troyed what else is there for liv­ing be­ings to see?” He pros­trated him­self on the ground and wept piteously. He watered the tree with milk ob­tained from sev­eral thou­sand cows and it grew up to some ten feet high in one night. Fear­ing that people of later times might cut it down [again], he sur­roun­ded it with a stone en­clos­ure to the height of twenty-four feet. Thus the bodhi tree at present is be­hind the stone wall, and more than ten feet of branches grow out above the wall.

[0915c26] 菩提樹東有精舍，高百六七十尺，下基面廣二十餘步，壘以青甎，塗以石灰，層龕皆有金像，四壁鏤作奇製，或連珠形，或天仙像，上置金銅阿摩落迦果(亦謂寶瓶，又稱寶臺)。東面接為重閣，檐宇特起三層，榱柱棟梁，戶扉寮牖，金銀彫鏤以飾之，珠玉廁錯以填之，奧室邃宇，洞戶三重。外門左右各有龕室，左則觀自在菩薩像，右則慈氏菩薩像，白銀鑄成，高十餘尺。

To the east of the bodhi tree is a shrine, one hun­dred and sixty or sev­enty feet high, built on a base whose front side is more than twenty paces wide. It was built with brick and plastered with lime. In all the niches ar­ranged in tiers there are golden im­ages, and on the four walls are mar­velous carvings in the shapes of strings of pearls or fig­ures of spir­its. On top is in­stalled a gil­ded cop­per āmalaka fruit (also said to be a pre­cious bottle or a pre­cious pot). It is con­nec­ted with a stor­ied pa­vil­ion at the east, the eaves of which are in three lay­ers. The rafters, pil­lars, ridge­poles, beams, doors, and win­dows are ad­orned with gold and sil­ver carvings and stud­ded with a mix­ture of pearls and jade. The in­ner­most cham­ber of the shrine has three doors con­nect­ing with the other parts of the struc­ture. On each side of the outer door there is a niche con­tain­ing an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva on the left side and one of Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva on the right side, both cast in sil­ver and more than ten feet in height.

[0916a05] 精舍故地，無憂王先建小精舍，後有婆羅門更廣建焉。初，有婆羅門，不信佛法，事大自在天，傳聞天神在雪山中，遂與其弟往求願焉。天曰：「凡諸願求，有福方果。非汝所祈，非我能遂。」婆羅門曰：「修何福可以遂心？」天曰：「欲植善種，求勝福田，菩提樹者，證佛果處也。宜時速反，往菩提樹，建大精舍，穿大水池，興諸供養，所願當遂。」婆羅門受天命，發大信心，相率而返，兄建精舍，弟鑿水池，於是廣修供養，勤求心願，後皆果遂，為王大臣，凡得祿賞，皆入檀捨。

Formerly King Aśoka built a small shrine at the site of the [present] shrine and a brah­man later ex­ten­ded it. There was once a brah­man who did not be­lieve in the buddha-dharma but wor­shiped the deity Ma­heśvara. He heard that the deity was liv­ing in the Snow Moun­tains, so he went with his younger brother to seek the ful­fill­ment of his wishes from the deity. The deity said, “Your wishes can be ful­filled only when you have done mer­it­ori­ous deeds. It is not that you can get things by merely say­ing pray­ers, nor can I make you sat­is­fied.” The brah­man said, “What mer­it­ori­ous deed should I do so that my mind can be sat­is­fied?” The deity said, “If you wish to plant the seed of good­ness you should find the field of blessed­ness. The bodhi tree is the place where the Buddha at­tained buddha­hood, so you should quickly go back to the bodhi tree and build a great shrine, dig out a large pond, and make vari­ous of­fer­ings. Then your wishes will be ful­filled.” Un­der the deity’s in­junc­tion the brah­man, cher­ish­ing a mind of great faith, re­turned with his younger brother. The elder one built the shrine and the younger one ex­cav­ated the pond. Then they made rich of­fer­ings to seek the ful­fill­ment of their wishes. They fi­nally real­ized their wishes and be­came cab­inet min­is­ters to the king. They gave away as alms whatever emolu­ments or re­wards they re­ceived.

[0916a16] 精舍既成，招募工人，欲圖如來初成佛像。曠以歲月，無人應召。久之，有婆羅門來告眾曰：「我善圖寫如來妙相。」眾曰：「今將造像，夫何所須？」曰：「香泥耳。宜置精舍之中，并一燈照，我入已，堅閉其戶，六月後乃可開門。」時諸僧眾皆如其命。尚餘四日，未滿六月，眾咸駭異，開以觀之。見精舍內佛像儼然，結加趺坐，右足居上，左手斂，右手垂，東面而坐，肅然如在。座高四尺二寸，廣丈二尺五寸，像高丈一尺五寸，兩膝相去八尺八寸，兩肩六尺二寸，相好具足，慈顏若真，唯右乳上圖瑩未周。既不見人，方驗神鑒，眾咸悲歎，慇懃請知。有一沙門，宿心淳質，乃感夢見往婆羅門而告曰：「我是慈氏菩薩，恐工人之思不測聖容，故我躬來圖寫佛像。垂右手者，昔如來之將證佛果，天魔來嬈，地神告至，其一先出，助佛降魔，如來告曰：『汝勿憂怖，吾以忍力，降彼必矣。』魔王曰：『誰為明證？』如來乃垂手指地，言：『此有證。』是時第二地神踊出作證，故今像手倣昔下垂。」眾知靈鑒，莫不悲感。於是乳上未周，填廁眾寶，珠瓔°寶冠，奇珍交飾。

When the shrine was com­pleted artists were in­vited to make an im­age of the Tathāgata as he ap­peared at the time of at­tain­ing buddha­hood, but for a long time no one answered the call for the job. At last a brah­man came and said to the monks, “I am good at mak­ing fine im­ages of the Tathāgata.” The monks said, “What do you need for mak­ing the im­age?” The brah­man said, “I only need some scen­ted clay and a lamp to be placed in­side the shrine. After I have entered the shrine the door should be tightly closed, and only opened again after six months.” The monks did as they were told, but just four days short of six months they opened the door out of curi­os­ity to see [what was go­ing on]. They saw that the im­age in­side the shrine was in the pos­ture of sit­ting cross-legged fa­cing the east, with the right foot upon [the left thigh]; the left hand was drawn back and the right one poin­ted down­ward. It was just as if the fig­ure was alive. The ped­es­tal was four feet two inches high and twelve feet five inches wide, and the im­age was el­even feet five inches tall. The two knees were eight feet eight inches apart, and the width from one shoulder to an­other meas­ured six feet two inches. All the aus­pi­cious phys­ical sym­bols of a buddha were com­plete and the com­pas­sion­ate fea­tures were true to real­ity, ex­cept that a little spot above the right breast was un­fin­ished. The monks saw no one in the shrine and real­ized that a di­vine hand was at work. They were all filled with amazement and eagerly wished to know about the af­fair. One of the śramaṇas, a simple man of hon­est mind, had a dream in which he saw the brah­man, who said to him, “I am Maitreya Bod­hisat­tva. Con­cerned that artists could not ima­gine the holy fea­tures of the Buddha, I came in per­son to make the im­age. It is made with the right hand point­ing down­ward be­cause just as the Tathāgata was about to at­tain buddha­hood. Māra came to dis­turb him, but the earth gods in­formed him of Mara’s ar­rival. One of the earth gods came out first to as­sist the Buddha in sub­jug­at­ing Māra but the Tathāgata said to the god, ‘Do not worry. I can surely sub­jug­ate him with my power of for­bear­ance. ’ Māra said, ‘Who will bear you wit­ness?’ The Tathāgata then poin­ted his hand to the earth, say­ing, ‘This one here will bear me wit­ness!’ At that mo­ment the second earth god emerged to bear wit­ness. There­fore the im­age is made with the right hand point­ing down­ward.” The monks came to know that this was a di­vine mani­fest­a­tion and they were all moved to tears. The un­fin­ished spot above the breast was fin­ished with vari­ous gems and the im­age was ad­orned with a neck­lace of pearls, crowned with a cor­onet, and em­bel­lished with other valu­able or­na­ments.

設賞迦王伐菩提樹已，欲毀此像，既覩慈顏，心不安忍，迴駕將返，命宰臣曰：「宜除此佛像，置大自在天形。」宰臣受旨，懼而歎曰：「毀佛像則歷劫招殃，違王命乃喪身滅族，進退若此，何所宜行！」乃召信心以為役使，遂於像前橫壘甎壁，心慚冥闇，又置明燈，甎壁之前畫自在天。功成報命，王聞心懼，舉身生皰，肌膚攫裂，居未久之，便喪沒矣。

When King Śaśāṅka felled the bodhi tree he also wished to des­troy this im­age. But when he looked at the com­pas­sion­ate fea­tures of the im­age he did not have the heart to do so. On re­turn­ing home he told his at­tend­ant min­is­ter, “You should re­move this im­age of the Buddha and re­place it with that of Ma­heśvara.” Hav­ing re­ceived the king’s edict, the at­tend­ant min­is­ter was afraid and said with a sigh, “If I des­troy the Buddha’s im­age I will suf­fer dis­aster for many kal­pas, but if I dis­obey the king’s or­der I will not only lose my own life but also bring about the ex­term­in­a­tion of my en­tire fam­ily. What should I do in this awk­ward plight?” He then called some Buddhist be­liev­ers to work as his ser­vants and had them build a brick wall in front of the Buddha’s im­age. Be­cause he was ashamed to see the im­age in ut­ter dark­ness he lit a lamp for it. On the front of the brick wall he drew a pic­ture of Ma­heśvara. When this was done he made a re­port to the king. On hear­ing the re­port the king dreaded the con­sequences. He suffered from blisters all over his body, his skin be­came cracked, and be­fore long he died.

宰臣馳返，毀除障壁，時經多日，燈猶不滅。像今尚在，神工不虧。既處奧室，燈炬相繼，欲覩慈顏，莫由審察，必於晨朝持大明鏡，引光內照，乃覩靈相。夫有見者，自增悲感。

The at­tend­ant min­is­ter hur­riedly went back to the im­age and de­mol­ished the brick wall [that screened it from view]. Though many days had passed the lamp still burned, without ex­tinc­tion. The im­age is still in ex­ist­ence and be­cause it is in a deep in­ner cham­ber lamps and torches burn con­tinu­ally. The com­pas­sion­ate fea­tures can­not be clearly seen un­less early-mo­m­ing sun­light is re­flec­ted into the cham­ber with a big mir­ror to il­lu­min­ate the di­vine statue. Those who have the chance to see the im­age are struck with emo­tion.

[0916b20] 如來以印度吠舍佉月後半八日成等正覺，當此三月八日也。上座部則吠舍佉月後半十五日成等正覺，當此三月十五日也。是時如來年三十矣。或曰年三十五矣。

The Tathāgata at­tained per­fect en­light­en­ment on the eighth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha in the In­dian cal­en­dar, cor­res­pond­ing to the eighth day of the third month in our cal­en­dar, but ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion of the Sthavira school the event oc­curred on the fif­teenth day of the second half of the month of Vaiśākha, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the third month in our cal­en­dar. He was then around thirty or thirty-five years old.

[0916b25] 菩提樹北有佛經行之處。如來成正覺已，不起于座，七日寂定。其起也，至菩提樹北，七日經行，東西往來，行十餘步，異華隨迹十有八文。後人於此壘甎為基，高餘三尺。聞諸先志曰：此聖迹基，表人命之脩短也，先發誠願，後乃度量，隨壽脩短，數有增減。

To the north of the bodhi tree is a place where the Buddha walked up and down. After achiev­ing per­fect en­light­en­ment the Tathāgata did not rise from his seat but sat in med­it­a­tion for seven days. When he rose to his feet he went to the north of the bodhi tree, where he walked to and fro, east and west, for seven days. When he had walked over ten paces signs of won­drous flowers fol­lowed his foot­prints at eight­een points. People of later times built a brick prom­en­ade about three feet high at this place. It is said in a pre­vi­ous re­cord that this sac­red site can fore­tell the length of one’s life. One should make a sin­cere vow be­fore tak­ing the meas­ure. The length of the prom­en­ade var­ies ac­cord­ing to the pos­sible life spans of those who meas­ure it.

[0916c03] 經行基北，道右，盤石上，大精舍中，有佛像，舉目上望。昔者，如來於此七日觀菩提樹，目不暫捨。為報樹恩，故此瞻望。

To the north of the prom­en­ade, on a huge rock on the right side of the road, is a big shrine in which there is an im­age of the Buddha with its eyes gaz­ing up­ward. Formerly the Tathāgata looked at the bodhi tree from this place for seven days without blink­ing, gaz­ing at the tree at­tent­ively with a feel­ing of grat­it­ude.

[0916c06] 菩提樹西不遠，大精舍中，有鍮石佛像，飾以奇珍，東面而立。前有青石，奇文異采，是昔如來初成正覺，梵王起七寶堂，帝釋建七寶座，佛於其上七日思惟，放異光明，照菩提樹。去聖悠遠，寶變為石。

Not far to the west of the bodhi tree is a great shrine with a brass im­age of the Buddha in the stand­ing pos­ture, fa­cing east, ad­orned with rare jew­els. In front of the im­age is a blue stone with won­der­ful veins of vari­ous hues. This is the place where Brahma built a hall out of the seven pre­cious sub­stances and In­dra made a seat, also with the seven pre­cious sub­stances, at the time when the Tathāgata first at­tained en­light­en­ment. On this seat he sat in med­it­a­tion for seven days and emit­ted an un­usual light that shone upon the bodhi tree. The pre­cious sub­stances have since turned into stone be­cause the event oc­curred in the re­mote past.

[0916c11] 菩提樹南不遠，有窣堵波，高百餘尺，無憂王之所建也。菩薩既濯尼連河，將趣菩提樹，竊自思念何以為座？尋自發明當須淨草。天帝釋化其身為刈草人，荷而逐路。菩薩謂曰：「所荷之草頗能惠耶？」化人聞命，恭以草奉，菩薩受已，執而前進。

Not far to the south of the bodhi tree is a stupa more than one hun­dred feet high built by King Aśoka. After hav­ing bathed him­self in the Nair­añ­janā River, the Bod­hisat­tva was go­ing to the bodhi tree and pondered what he should use for a seat. He got the idea of us­ing some clean grass to make a seat Mean­while In­dra trans­formed him­self into a grass cut­ter, car­ry­ing a bundle of grass go­ing on his way. The Bod­hisat­tva said to him, “Can you fa­vor me with some of your grass?” The trans­formed fig­ure re­spect­fully offered him some grass and, after re­ceiv­ing the grass, the Bod­hisat­tva pro­ceeded on his way.

[0916c17] 受草東北不遠，有窣堵波，是菩薩將證佛果，青雀、群鹿呈祥之處。印度休徵，斯為嘉應，故淨居天隨順世間，群從飛繞，効靈顯聖。

Not far to the north­east of the spot of re­ceiv­ing grass is a stupa built at the place where some blue­birds (Eo­phona per­son­ata) and a herd of deer came as a good omen when the Bod­hisat­tva was about to achieve buddha­hood. Among the signs of aus­pi­cious­ness in In­dia their pres­ence is con­sidered to be the most lucky sym­bol. Thus, in com­pli­ance with the cus­tom of the hu­man world, the ce­les­tial be­ings of the Heaven of Pure Abode made the blue­birds fly around the Bod­hisat­tva to in­dic­ate his spir­itu­al­ity and holi­ness.

[0916c20] 菩提樹東，大路左右，各一窣堵波，是魔王嬈菩薩處也。菩薩將證佛果，魔王勸受輪王，策說不行，殷憂而返。魔王之女請往誘焉，菩薩威神，衰變冶容，扶羸策杖，相携而退。

To the east of the bodhi tree are two stu­pas, one on the left and the other on the right side of the main road. This is the place where the King of Maras dis­turbed the Bod­hisat­tva. When the Bod­hisat­tva was about to at­tain buddha­hood the King of Maras ex­hor­ted him to be­come a su­preme ruler [in­stead of a buddha]. As this device was in­ef­fect­ive, the King of Maras with­drew in deep sad­ness. His daugh­ters vo­lun­teered to go to se­duce the Bod­hisat­tva but with his di­vine power he changed the beau­ti­ful girls into de­crepit old wo­men. They re­treated, cling­ing to each other, hold­ing sticks to sup­port their slender frames.

[0916c25] 菩提樹西北，精舍中，有迦葉波佛像，既稱靈聖，時燭光明。聞諸先記曰：若人至誠，旋繞七周，在所生處，得宿命智。

In a shrine to the north­w­est of the bodhi tree there is an im­age of Kāśyapa Buddha. Well known for its spir­itu­al­ity and sanc­tity, it of­ten emits a bright light. It is said in a pre­vi­ous re­cord that if a per­son walks around the im­age seven times with ut­most sin­cer­ity he may gain the wis­dom of know­ing where he was born in his past life.

[0916c28] 迦葉波佛精舍西北二甎室，各有地神之像。昔者如來將成正覺，一報魔至，一為佛證。後人念功，圖形旌德。

To the north­w­est of the shrine of Kāśyapa Buddha there are two brick cham­bers, each hous­ing an im­age of an earth god. One in­formed the Buddha of the ar­rival of Māra and the other bore wit­ness for the Buddha. People of later times made these im­ages of the gods in memory of their mer­its.

[0917a02] 菩提樹垣西不遠，有窣堵波，謂欝金香，高四十餘尺，漕炬吒國商主之所建也。昔漕炬吒國有大商主，宗事天神，祠求福利，輕蔑佛法，不信因果。其後將諸商侶，貿遷有無，泛舟南海，遭風失路，波濤飄浪，時經三歲，資糧罄竭，糊口不充。同舟之人，朝不謀夕，勠力同志，念所事天，心慮已勞，冥功不濟。俄見大山，崇崖峻嶺，兩日聯暉，重明照朗。時諸商侶更相慰曰：「我曹有福，過此大山，宜於中止，得安樂。」商主曰：「非山也，乃摩竭魚耳。崇崖峻嶺，鬚鬣也；兩日聯暉，眼光也。」言聲未靜，舟帆飄湊。於是商主告諸侶曰：「我聞觀自在菩薩於諸危厄能施安樂，宜各至誠，稱其名字。」遂即同聲，歸命稱念。崇山既隱，兩日亦沒。俄見沙門，威儀庠序，杖錫凌虛，而來拯溺，不踰時而至本國矣。因即信心貞固，求福不回，建窣堵波，式修供養，以欝金香泥而周塗上下。

Not far to the west of the bodhi tree en­clos­ure is a stupa more than forty feet high, known as Saf­fron Stupa, built by a mer­chant lord of the coun­try of Jāguda. Formerly in the coun­try of Jāguda there was a great mer­chant lord who wor­shiped heav­enly gods to pray for wealth, and he des­pised the buddha- dharma and did not be­lieve in the law of caus­al­ity. He once led a group of fel­low traders to do busi­ness and sailed to the South Sea, where they en­countered a typhoon and lost their way. They drif­ted along with the roar­ing waves and sailed on the sea for three years un­til their ra­tions were ex­hausted and they had noth­ing more to eat. All those who were aboard the ship were in a pre­cari­ous situ­ation and they earn­estly prayed to the gods they wor­shiped with one mind. They be­come quite fa­tigued with their la­bor­i­ous pray­ers and had failed to re­ceive di­vine res­cue, when they sud­denly saw a huge moun­tain with lofty cliffs and steep peaks un­der the light of two bright suns. The mer­chants said to com­fort one an­other, “We are lucky to have come across this huge moun­tain. We should stop here to get peace and hap­pi­ness.” The mer­chant lord said, “It is not a moun­tain but a makara fish (a sea mon­ster). The lofty cliffs and steep peaks are its fins and whiskers and the two bright suns are its eyes.” Just as they had barely fin­ished talk­ing the ship floated to­ward the mon­ster. The mer­chant lord told his fel­low traders, “I have heard that Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva will be­stow peace and hap­pi­ness on those who are in peril and ad­versity. Let us call his name with a mind of com­plete sin­cer­ity.” Then they all re­peated the name of [Avalokiteśvara] Bod­hisat­tva in uni­son and sought refuge un­der his spir­itual pro­tec­tion. The lofty moun­tain dis­ap­peared and the two suns sub­merged. In a mo­ment they saw a śramaṇa with a quiet and peace­ful man­ner com­ing through the air, re­li­gious staff in hand, to res­cue them from be­ing drowned. Very soon they re­turned to their own coun­try. There­after they cher­ished minds of res­ol­ute faith and tried to per­form good deeds in­defatig­ably. They built a stupa for mak­ing of­fer­ings and plastered the whole struc­ture with saf­fron clay.

既發信心，率其同志，躬禮聖迹，觀菩提樹。未暇言歸，已淹晦朔。商侶同遊，更相謂曰：「山川悠間，鄉國遼遠，昔所建立窣堵波者，我曹在此，誰其灑掃？」言訖，旋繞至此，忽見窣堵波，駭其由致，即前瞻察，乃本國所建窣堵波也。故今印度因以欝金為名。

Hav­ing cher­ished the mind of faith, the mer­chant lord led his fel­low traders to wor­ship the holy sites and visit the bodhi tree. They spent a whole month in pil­grim­age be­fore they thought of re­turn­ing home. The traders, while trav­el­ing to­gether, said among them­selves, “We are far away from our home­land, sep­ar­ated by moun­tains and rivers. Since we are here, who will sweep and clean the stupa we have built?” Hav­ing said this, they came in a round­about way to this place and sud­denly saw a stupa. Sur­prised at the sight, they went up to have a close look at the stupa and found that it was the one they had built at home. Thus it was named the Saf­fron Stupa in In­dia.

[0917a26] 菩提樹垣東南隅，尼拘律樹側，窣堵波傍有精舍，中作佛坐像。昔如來初證佛果，大梵天王於此勸請轉妙法輪。[0917a28] 菩提樹垣內，四隅皆有大窣堵波。在昔如來受吉祥草已，趣菩提樹，先歷四隅，大地震動，至金剛座，方得安靜。樹垣之內，聖迹鱗次，差難遍舉。[0917b03] 菩提樹垣外，西南窣堵波，奉乳糜二牧女故宅。其側窣堵波，牧女於此煮糜。次此窣堵波，如來受糜處也。

At the south­east corner of the bodhi tree en­clos­ure there is a ban­yan tree, and next to it are a stupa and temple. A statue of the seated Buddha is en­shrined in the temple. Formerly, when the Tathāgata had just at­tained buddha­hood, Mahābrahmā came here and en­treated him to turn the won­der­ful wheel of the Dharma. At each of the four corners in­side the bodhi tree en­clos­ure there is a great stupa. Formerly, when the Tathāgata had re­ceived the aus­pi­cious grass, he went to the bodhi tree. He went first to the four corners and the earth quaked but it be­came quiet and calm when he reached the dia­mond seat. In­side the en­clos­ure are many sac­red sites loc­ated as closely to­gether as the scales of a fish, and it is dif­fi­cult to de­scribe them all in full de­tail. At the south­w­est corner out­side the bodhi tree en­clos­ure is a stupa that marks the site of the old house of the two milk­maids who offered milk gruel [to the Buddha]. Be­side it is an­other stupa, mark­ing the place where the milk­maids cooked the gruel, and next to this stupa is the place where the Tathāgata re­ceived the gruel.

[0917b06] 菩提樹垣南門外有大池，周七百餘步，清瀾澄鏡，龍魚潛宅，婆羅門兄弟承大自在天命之所鑿也。次南一池，在昔如來初成正覺，方欲浣濯，天帝釋為佛化成池。西有大石，佛浣衣已，方欲曝°曬，天帝釋自大雪山持來也。其側窣堵波，如來於此納故衣。次南林中窣堵波，如來受貧老母施故衣處。

Out­side the south gate of the bodhi tree en­clos­ure is a big pond more than seven hun­dred paces in cir­cuit, with clear and lu­cid wa­ter in which dragons and fish dwell. It was dug by the younger brother of a brah­man un­der the or­der of Ma­heśvara. Next, to the south is a pool that was ma­gic­ally pro­duced by In­dra when the Tathāgata wished to wash his clothes after hav­ing at­tained en­light­en­ment. At the west of the pool is a big rock that was brought here by In­dra from the Great Snow Moun­tains when the Buddha wished to dry his washed clothes in the sun. Be­side the rock is a stupa where the Tathāgata men­ded his old clothes. Next, to the south is a stupa in a wood, which was the place where the Tathāgata ac­cep­ted the old clothes offered by a poor old wo­man as alms.

[0917b13] 帝釋化池東，林中有目支隣陀龍王池，其水清黑，其味甘美。西岸有小精舍，中作佛像。昔如來初成正覺，於此宴坐，七日入定。時此龍王警衛如來，即以其身繞佛七匝，化出多頭，俯垂為蓋，故池東岸有其室焉。

To the east of the pool pro­duced by In­dra there is a wood in which the pond of the dragon king Mu­cilinda is loc­ated; the wa­ter is clear, dark, and sweet-tast­ing. On the west bank is a small shrine in which is in­stalled an im­age of the Buddha. Formerly, after the Tathāgata had just at­tained en­light­en­ment he sat in med­it­a­tion for seven days in this place. The dragon king pro­tec­ted the Tathāgata by sur­round­ing him with his body in seven coils, while its many heads reached over him to serve as a can­opy. On the east bank of the old pool is the cham­ber of the dragon king.

[0917b18] 目支隣陀龍池東，林中精舍有佛羸瘦之像。其側有經行之所，長七十餘步，南北各有卑鉢羅樹。故今土俗，諸有嬰疾，香油塗像，多蒙除差。是菩薩修苦行處。如來為伏外道，又受魔請，於是苦行六年，日食一麻一麥，形容憔悴，膚體羸瘠，經行往來，攀樹後起。

In a wood to the east of the dragon Mu­cilinda’s pool is a shrine with an im­age of the Buddha in an ema­ci­ated con­di­tion. Be­side the shrine is the place where he walked up and down, more than sev­enty paces long, and there are two pipal trees, one at the south and the other at the north side of the prom­en­ade. In the past and at present it is the cus­tom of the local people to anoint the im­age with fra­grant oil when they are af­flic­ted with a dis­ease, and in most cases they are cured of their ill­ness. This was the place where the Buddha prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies. In or­der to sub­due the heretics, and also at Mara’s re­quest, he prac­ticed as­ceti­cism for six years, eat­ing only one grain of ses­ame and one grain of rice each day, re­du­cing him­self to a mere skel­eton and be­com­ing so feeble that he had to hold onto the branch of a tree to stand up to take a walk.

[0917b25] 菩薩苦行卑鉢羅樹側有窣堵波，是阿若憍陳如等五人住處。初，太子之捨家也，彷徨山澤，棲息林泉，時淨飯王乃命五人隨瞻侍焉。太子既修苦行，憍陳如等亦即勤求。

Be­side the pipal tree where the Bod­hisat­tva prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies is a stupa at the place where Ājñāta-Kauṇd­inya and his four com­pan­ions made their abode. After Prince [Siddhārtha] re­nounced his home to wander in the moun­tains and marsh­lands and dwell in woods or by springs, King Śuddhodana sent these five men to look after and serve him. Be­cause the prince prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies, Ājñāta-Kauṇd­inya and the oth­ers also di­li­gently did the same.

憍陳如等住處東南有窣堵波，菩薩入尼連禪那河沐浴之處。河側不遠，菩薩於此受食乳糜。其側窣堵波，二長者獻麨蜜處。佛在樹下結加趺坐，寂然宴默，受解脫樂，過七日後，方從定起。時二商主行次林外，而彼林神告商主曰：「釋種太子今在此中，初證佛果，心凝寂定，四十九日未有所食，隨有奉上，獲大善利。」時二商主各持行資麨蜜奉上，世尊納受。

To the south­east of the abode of Ājñāta-Kauṇd­inya and the oth­ers is a stupa where the Bod­hisat­tva entered the Nair­añ­janā River to bathe. Not far from the river is the spot where the Bod­hisat­tva ac­cep­ted and ate the milk gruel. The stupa be­side the spot is the place where two eld­ers offered baked bar­ley and honey [to the Buddha]. The Buddha was sit­ting cross-legged in si­lent med­it­a­tion un­der a tree, en­joy­ing the bliss of eman­cip­a­tion for seven days be­fore he emerged from the state of tran­quil­ity, when two mer­chants passed by out­side the wood. The god of the wood told the mer­chants, “The prince of the Śākya clan is now in this wood. He has just at­tained buddha­hood and has been sit­ting in si­lent con­cen­tra­tion with a fixed mind for forty-nine days without tak­ing any food. If you of­fer him whatever food you may have with you, you will re­ceive great be­ne­fit.” Each mer­chant then took out from his ra­tion bag some baked bar­ley and honey to give as of­fer­ings, which the World-honored One ac­cep­ted.

[0917c09] 長者獻麨側有窣堵波，四天奉鉢處。商主既獻麨蜜，世尊思以何器受之。時四天從四方來，各持金鉢，而以奉上。世尊默然，而不納受，以為出家不宜此器。四天王捨金鉢，奉銀鉢，乃至頗胝、琉璃、馬腦、車渠、真珠等鉢，世尊如是皆不為受。四天王各還宮，奉持石鉢，紺青映徹，重以進獻。世尊斷彼此故，而總受之，次第重疊，按為一鉢，故其外則有四隆焉。

Be­side the place where the eld­ers offered baked bar­ley is a stupa where the four devarā­jas offered alms­bowls [to the Buddha]. When the mer­chants had offered the baked bar­ley and honey to him, the World-honored One con­sidered what ves­sels he should use to hold the food. At that time the four devarā­jas came from the four quar­ters and each offered him a golden bowl, but the World-honored One de­clined the of­fer by keep­ing si­lent, think­ing that it was un­suit­able for a men­dic­ant to use such an [op­u­lent] bowl. The four devarā­jas took away the golden bowls and offered sil­ver ones, and in suc­ces­sion they presen­ted bowls of crys­tal, lapis lazuli, agate, coral, and pearl, but the World-honored One de­clined them all. The four devarā­jas then re­turned to their re­spect­ive palaces and brought back stone bowls of a dark vi­olet color with a bril­liant luster. In or­der to avoid show­ing par­ti­al­ity the World-honored One ac­cep­ted all four bowls, which he stacked and pressed to­gether into one bowl. That is why his alms­bowl has four rims on the out­side.

[0917c18] 四天王獻鉢側不遠，有窣堵波，如來為母說法處也。如來既成正覺，稱天人師，其母摩耶自天宮降於此處，世尊隨機示教利喜。其側涸池岸有窣堵波，在昔如來見諸神變化有緣處。[0917c22] 現神變側有窣堵波，如來度優樓頻螺迦葉波三兄弟及千門人處。如來方垂善道，隨應降伏，時優樓頻螺迦葉波五百門人請受佛教，迦葉波曰：「吾亦與爾俱返迷途。」於是相從來至佛所。如來告曰：「棄鹿皮衣，捨祭火具。」時諸梵志恭承聖教，以其服用投尼連河。捺地迦葉波見諸祭器隨流漂泛，與其門人候兄動靜，既見改轍，亦隨染衣。伽耶迦葉波二百門人。聞其兄之捨法也，亦至佛所，願修梵行。

Not far from the place where the four devarā­jas offered alms­bowls is a stupa where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for his mother. After the Tathāgata had at­tained per­fect en­light­en­ment with the title of Teacher of Heav­enly and Hu­man Be­ings, his mother, Lady Mahāmāyā, des­cen­ded from her heav­enly palace and the World-honored One taught her ac­cord­ing to her ca­pa­city for her be­ne­fit and hap­pi­ness. Be­side this place, on the bank of a dried-up pond, is a stupa where the Tathāgata once mani­fes­ted su­per­nat­ural powers to con­vert those who had the good causes to be present on the oc­ca­sion. Be­side the place of show­ing su­per­nat­ural powers is a stupa where the Tathāgata con­ver­ted Ur­uvilvā-Kāśyapa and his two younger broth­ers along with their one thou­sand dis­ciples. As time passed the Tathāgata spread the good Way to con­quer people, Ur­uvilvā-Kāśyapa’s five hun­dred dis­ciples wished to ac­cept the Buddha’s teach­ings. Kāśyapa said to them, “I shall also go with you to give up the er­ro­neous way.” So all of them came to the place where the Buddha was and the Tathāgata told them, “Throw away your deer­skin garb and re­lin­quish the utensils for fire wor­ship.” In ac­cord with the Buddha’s holy in­struc­tion, the brah­mans cast their gar­ments and utensils into the Nair­añ­janā River. See­ing the sac­ri­fi­cial utensils drift­ing away on the cur­rent, Nadī-Kāśyapa and his dis­ciples waited to see what meas­ures his elder brother would take next. When they saw that his elder brother had changed his re­li­gion they also fol­lowed his ex­ample and donned the dyed robes to be­come Buddhist monks. When Gayā-Kāśyapa and his two hun­dred dis­ciples heard that his elder broth­ers had given up their prac­tice, they also came to where the Buddha was and wished to lead the life of pur­ity.

[0918a02] 度迦葉波兄弟西北窣堵波，是如來伏迦葉波所事火龍處。如來將化其人，克伏所宗，乃止梵志火龍之°室。夜分已後，龍吐煙焰，佛既入定，亦起火光，其室洞然，猛焰炎熾。諸梵志師恐火害佛，莫不奔赴，悲號愍惜。優樓頻螺迦葉波謂其徒曰：「以今觀之，未必火也，當是沙門伏火龍耳。」如來乃以火龍盛置鉢中，清旦持示外道門人。其側窣堵波，五百獨覺同入涅槃處也。

To the north­w­est of the place where the Kāśyapa broth­ers were con­ver­ted is a stupa where the Tathāgata sub­dued the fire dragon wor­shiped by the Kāśyapas. Whenever the Tathāgata wished to con­vert someone he first sub­dued the ob­ject of that per­son’s wor­ship. So he went to stay in the cave of the brah­mans’ fire dragon. Late in the night the dragon spouted smoke and flames and the Buddha, who was sit­ting in med­it­a­tion, also is­sued a bright light, il­lu­min­at­ing the cave with the light of furi­ous flames and blaz­ing fire. The brah­man teach­ers, fear­ing that the fire might hurt the Buddha, hur­ried to the spot, wail­ing piteously. Ur­uvilvā-Kāśyapa said to his dis­ciples, “In view of the present situ­ation it may not be a fire. The śramaṇa may be sub­jug­at­ing the fire dragon.” The Tathāgata then put the fire dragon into his alms­bowl and showed it to the heretical dis­ciples at dawn. The stupa be­side this spot was the place where five hun­dred pratyeka­buddhas entered nir­vana sim­ul­tan­eously.

[0918a12] 目支隣陀龍池南窣堵波，迦葉波救如來溺水處也。迦葉兄弟時推神通，遠近仰德，黎庶歸心。世尊方導迷°徒，大權攝化，興布密雲，降澍暴雨，周佛所居，令獨無水。迦葉是時見此雲雨，謂門人曰：「沙門住處將不漂溺？」泛舟來救，乃見世尊履水如地，蹈河中流，水分沙現。迦葉見已，心伏而退。

To the south of the pool of the dragon Mu­cilinda is a stupa where the Kāśyapas went to res­cue the Tathāgata from drown­ing. The Kāśyapa broth­ers were highly es­teemed for their su­per­nat­ural powers and were re­spec­ted for their vir­tue by people from far and near who had faith in them. In the course of ex­ert­ing his great power in an ap­pro­pri­ate way to guide and con­vert those who had gone astray, the World-honored One caused a dense cloud that poured down tor­ren­tial rains; only the Buddha’s lodging re­mained dry. See­ing the clouds and rain, the Kāśyapas said to their dis­ciples, “Might the lodging of the śramaṇa not be flooded?” They sailed in a boat to res­cue the World- honored One but saw that he was walk­ing on the sur­face of the wa­ter just as if walk­ing on earth, and when he walked into the river the wa­ter gave way to him and the sand on the bot­tom ap­peared [to sup­port him]. At this sight, the Kāśyapas were re­as­sured and de­par­ted.

[0918a19] 菩提樹垣東門外二三里，有盲°龍室。此龍者，殃累宿積，報受生盲。如來自前正覺山欲趣菩提樹，途次室側，龍眼忽明，乃見菩薩將趣佛樹，謂菩薩曰：「仁今不久當成正覺。我眼盲冥，于茲已久，有佛興世，我眼輒明。賢劫之中，過去三佛出興世時，已得明視。仁今至此，我眼忽開，以故知之，當成佛矣。」

Two or three li out­side the en­clos­ure of the bodhi tree is the cave of a blind dragon. Be­cause this dragon had done evil deeds in its pre­vi­ous lives it had been re­born blind as its re­tri­bu­tion. As the Tathāgata was pro­ceed­ing from Prāg­bodhi Moun­tain to the bodhi tree he passed by the cave of the blind dragon. The dragon sud­denly re­covered its sight and saw that the Bod­hisat­tva was on his way to the bodhi tree. [The dragon] said to the Bod­hisat­tva, “Kind sir, you will soon gain per­fect en­light­en­ment. I have been blind for quite a long time but whenever a buddha emerges in the world I re­gain my eye­sight. When the past three buddhas of the bhad­rakalpa ap­peared in the world I re­covered my sight on each oc­ca­sion. Now you have come here and my eyes sud­denly re­gained per­cep­tion. From this I know that you will be­come a buddha.”

[0918a27] 菩提樹垣東門側有窣堵波，魔王怖菩薩之處。初，魔王知菩薩將成正覺也，誘亂不遂，憂惶無賴，集諸神眾，齊整魔軍，治兵振旅，將脅菩薩。於是風雨飄注，雷電晦冥，縱火飛煙，揚沙激石，備矛楯之具，極弦矢之用。菩薩於是入大慈定，凡厥兵杖變為蓮華。魔軍怖駭，奔馳退散。其側不遠有二窣堵波，帝釋、梵王之所建也。

Be­side the east gate of the en­clos­ure of the bodhi tree is a stupa where the King of Māras [tried to] frighten the Bod­hisat­tva. Know­ing that the Bodhi- sat­tva was go­ing to achieve en­light­en­ment and hav­ing failed to tempt him, the King of Māras did not know what to do. Wor­ried, he called vari­ous gods to a meet­ing and ar­rayed his de­mon troops, ar­ran­ging them in proper or­der, to men­ace the Bod­hisat­tva. A storm rose up, thun­der and light­ning flashed in the dark night, fire blazed and smoke rose high, and sand and stones were churned up and blown into the air. Spears and shields were fully pre­pared and bows and ar­rows em­ployed to the ut­most, but the Bod­hisat­tva re­mained in the med­it­a­tion of great com­pas­sion and all the weapons turned into lo­tus flowers. Māra’s troops be­came ter­ri­fied and re­treated in dis­order. Not far from this place are two stu­pas, built by In­dra and Brahmā.

[0918b06] 菩提樹北門外摩訶菩提僧伽藍，其先僧伽羅國王之所建也。庭宇六院，觀閣三層，周堵垣牆高三四丈，極工人之妙，窮丹青之飾。至於佛像，鑄以金銀，凡厥莊嚴，廁以珍寶。諸窣堵波高廣妙飾，中有如來舍利，其骨舍利大如手指節。光潤鮮白皎徹中外。其肉舍利如大真珠，色帶紅縹。每歲至如來大神變月滿之日，出示眾(即印度十二月三十日，當此正月十五日也)。此時也，或放光，或雨花。僧徒減千人，習學大乘、上座部法，律儀清肅，戒行貞明。

Out­side the north gate of [the en­clos­ure of] the bodhi tree is Mahābodhi Mon­as­tery, built by a former king of the coun­try of Siṃhala. The build­ings con­sist of six court­yards and three-stor­ied pa­vil­ions, sur­roun­ded by walls thirty or forty feet high. The work­man­ship is most won­der­ful and the dec­or­at­ive paint­ings are ex­quis­itely done. The Buddha’s im­age is made of gold and sil­ver and all the or­na­ments are em­bed­ded with gems and jew­els. The stu­pas are lofty and spa­cious with won­der­ful ad­orn­ments and they con­tain rel­ics of the Tathāgata. The bone rel­ics are of the size of a fin­ger joint, lus­trous and pure white in color and semitrans­par­ent. The flesh rel­ics, as big as pearls, are of a pink­ish-blue color. Every year on the full moon day of the month of show­ing the Tathāgata’s di­vine power of ubi­quity (i.e., on the thir­ti­eth day of the twelfth month in the In­dian cal­en­dar, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the first month in China) these rel­ics are shown to the pub­lic and a light is emit­ted or flowers rain down in showers. There are fewer than a thou­sand monks, who study the teach­ings of both the Ma­hay­ana and Sthavira schools. They rig­or­ously ob­serve the Vinaya rales, are pure in con­duct, and have moral in­teg­rity.

[0918b15] 昔者，南海僧伽羅國，其王淳信佛法，發自天然。有族弟出家，想佛聖迹，遠遊印度，寓諸伽藍，咸輕邊鄙。於是返迹本國，王躬遠迎，沙門悲耿，似若不能言。王曰：「將何所負，若此殷憂？」沙門曰：「憑恃國威，遊方問道，羈旅異域，載罹寒暑，動遭凌辱，語見譏誚。負斯憂恥，詎得歡心？」曰：「若是者何謂也？」曰：「誠願大王福田為意，於諸印度建立伽藍，既旌聖迹，又擅高名，福資先王，恩及後嗣。」曰：「斯事甚美，聞之何晚？」

Formerly, the king of the coun­try of Siṃhala in the South Sea was a de­vout Buddhist by birth. He had a cousin who had be­come a monk and de­sired to visit the holy traces of the Buddha. So he traveled far to In­dia and sought lodging in vari­ous mon­as­ter­ies, but all the local monks des­pised him as a fron­ti­ers­man. He re­turned to his home­land and the king went out some dis­tance to wel­come him. The śramaṇa sobbed piteously and could not speak prop­erly. The king said, ‘‘What is wrong with you, why are you so sad?” The śramaṇa said, “De­pend­ing upon the prestige of our coun­try I traveled far to seek the Way. I so­journed in a for­eign land and ex­per­i­enced the dis­com­fort of cold and hot weather. I was of­ten in­sul­ted for my be­ha­vior and ri­diculed for my ut­ter­ances. How could I be happy un­der such wor­ri­some and shame­ful con­di­tions?” The king said, “If that is the case, what should I do?” The śramaṇa said, “I sin­cerely hope that Your Majesty will pay at­ten­tion to the per­form­ance of good deeds and con­struct a mon­as­tery in In­dia. That will not only glor­ify the holy site but also build a good repu­ta­tion for your­self. The blessed­ness of the deed will honor our fore­fath­ers and be­ne­fit our des­cend­ants as well.” The king said, “That is a good idea. How is it that I hear of it so late?”

於是以國中寶獻印度王。王既納貢，義存懷遠，謂使臣曰：「我今將何持報來命？」使臣曰：「僧伽羅王稽首印度大吉祥王！威德遠振，惠澤遐被，下土沙門，欽風慕化，敢遊上國，展敬聖迹，寓諸伽藍，莫之見館，艱辛已極，蒙恥而歸。竊圖遠謀，貽範來葉，於諸印度建此伽藍，使客遊乞士，息肩有所，兩國交歡，行人無替。」王曰：「如來潛化，遺風斯在，聖迹之所，任取一焉。」

The king [of Siṃhala] then offered all the treas­ures of his coun­try to the king of In­dia, who, after ac­cept­ing the trib­ute and wish­ing to foster friend­ship with a dis­tant ruler, said to the en­voy, “What shall I give you to take back as a re­turn gift?” The en­voy said, “The king of Siṃhala pays homage to the King of Great Aus­pi­cious­ness of In­dia. Your prestige and vir­tue ex­tend far and your kind­ness and be­ne­vol­ence cover all liv­ing be­ings. A śramaṇa of our humble land, out of re­spect and ad­mir­a­tion for the mor­als and man­ners of your coun­try, ven­tured to travel to your es­teemed land to pay ven­er­a­tion to the holy sites. He sought lodging in vari­ous mon­as­ter­ies but none would house him. After un­der­go­ing ex­treme dif­fi­culties, he re­turned home in shame. I humbly pro­pose a far-reach­ing pro­ject that may serve as an ex­ample for com­ing gen­er­a­tions: to build a mon­as­tery in In­dia in or­der to provide a rest­ing place for trav­el­ing monks, to pro­mote good re­la­tions between our two coun­tries, and to al­low en­voys to be ex­changed without lapse.” The king said, “The tra­di­tion of the Tathāgata’s subtle edi­fic­a­tion is still ex­tant. You may choose any of the holy sites [for the con­struc­tion].”

使者奉辭報命，群臣拜賀，遂乃集諸沙門，評議建立。沙門曰：「菩提樹者，去來諸佛咸此證聖，考之異議，無出此謀。」於是捨國珍寶，建此伽藍，以其國僧而修供養，乃刻銅為記曰：「夫周給無私，諸佛至教；慧濟有緣，先聖明訓。今我小子，丕承王業，式建伽藍，用旌聖迹，福資祖考，惠被黎元。唯我國僧而得自在，及有國人亦同僧例。傳之後嗣，永永無窮。」故此伽藍多執師子國僧也。

Bear­ing this mes­sage the en­voy re­turned home to re­port to the king [of Siṃhala], The king’s min­is­ters pros­trated them­selves be­fore him in con­grat­u­la­tion. The śramaṇas were then con­vened to dis­cuss the mat­ter of con­struct­ing a mon­as­tery and they said, “As the bodhi tree is the place where the past buddhas at­tained [buddha­hood] and fu­ture buddhas will at­tain buddha­hood, there is no bet­ter place among all the sug­ges­tions.” The treas­ures of the coun­try were donated for the con­struc­tion of this mon­as­tery, and monks from file coun­try [of Siṃhala] were sent to look after it. A cop­per plate was in­scribed with the fol­low­ing words: “Self­less alms­giv­ing is the su­preme teach­ing taught by all buddhas and ren­der­ing as­sist­ance to those who have the cause to re­ceive it is the ex­pli­cit in­struc­tion of former sages. I, this humble per­son, after hav­ing suc­ceeded to the throne, have built this mon­as­tery to glor­ify the holy site and to render blessed­ness to my an­cest­ors, as well as to be­ne­fit the com­mon people. The monks of my coun­try may have free ac­cess to it and the people of the coun­try where it stands may also en­joy the same priv­ilege as the monks. This tra­di­tion is to be trans­mit­ted to pos­ter­ity into the in­def­in­ite fu­ture.” Thus most of the monks in this mon­as­tery come from the Land of Lions.

[0918c13] 菩提樹南十餘里，聖迹相隣，難以備舉。每歲比丘解安居，四方法俗百千萬眾，七日七夜，持香花，鼓音樂，遍遊林中，禮拜供養。

More than ten li to the south of the bodhi tree the sac­red sites are loc­ated so closely to each other that it is dif­fi­cult to tell of them all in de­tail. Each year when the bhikṣus end the rains re­treat, monks and laypeople, hun­dreds and thou­sands in num­ber, come here from the four quar­ters, hold­ing flowers, play­ing mu­sic, and wan­der­ing in the woods to per­form acts of ven­er­a­tion and make of­fer­ings for seven days and nights.

印度僧徒依佛聖教，皆以室羅伐拏月前半一日入兩安居，當此五月十六日；以頞濕縛庾闍月後半十五日解兩安居，當此八月十五日。印度月名，依星而建，古今不易，諸部無差。良以方言未融，傳譯有謬，分時計月，致斯乖異，故以四月十六日入安居，七月十五日解安居也。

Ac­cord­ing to the Buddha’s holy teach­ings, the monks of In­dia com­mence the rains re­treat on the first day of the first half of the month of Srāvaṇa, cor­res­pond­ing to the six­teenth day of the fifth month in China, and the re­treat ends on the fif­teenth day of the second half of the month of Aśvay­uja, cor­res­pond­ing to the fif­teenth day of the eighth month in China. In In­dia, as the months are named after the con­stel­la­tions, the course of time has not changed from an­cient times to the present and it is in­vari­ably ac­cep­ted by all schools. Prob­ably due to mis­un­der­stand­ing or mis­trans­la­tion from the for­eign lan­guage dif­fer­ences in the cal­cu­la­tions for the di­vi­sion of time and the fix­a­tion of the months arose. Thus [in China] the rains re­treat be­gins on the six­teenth day of the fourth month and ends on the fif­teenth day of the sev­enth month (one month earlier than in In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第八

End of Fas­cicle VIII of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第九(一國)

Fas­cicle IX

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

摩伽陀國下

The Coun­try of Magadha (Part 2)

[0919a07] 菩提樹東渡尼連禪那河，大林中有窣堵波。其北有池，香象侍母處也。如來在昔修菩薩行，為香象子，居北山中，遊此池側°。其母盲也，採藕根，汲清水，恭行孝養，與時推移。屬有一人，遊林迷路，彷徨往來，悲號慟哭。象子聞而愍焉，導之以示歸路。是人既還，遂白王曰：「我知香象遊舍林藪，此奇貨也，可往捕之。」

To the east of the bodhi tree and across the Nair­añ­janā River there is a stupa in a great wood, and to the north of the stupa is a pond where a fra­grant ele­phant at­ten­ded his mother. In the past, when the Tathāgata was prac­ti­cing the deeds of a bod­hisat­tva, he was born as the son of a fra­grant ele­phant, liv­ing on North Moun­tain, and he came to the pond for pleas­ure. As his mother was blind, he drew pure wa­ter and fetched lo­tus roots to feed her with re­spect and fi­lial piety; this he did for a long time. A man once lost his way while trav­el­ing through the wood, and walked back and forth, weep­ing piteously. Hear­ing the sound, the young ele­phant felt pity for the man, guided him out of the wood, and showed him the way home. After the man re­turned home he re­por­ted to the king, “I know that a fra­grant ele­phant is wan­der­ing about the pond in the wood. This is a rare an­imal and you can go cap­ture it.”

王納其言，興兵往狩，是人前導，指象示王，即時兩臂墮落，若有斬截者。其王雖驚此異，仍縛象子以歸。象子既已維縶多時，而不食水草，典廐者以聞，王遂親問之。象子曰：「我母盲冥，累日飢餓，今見幽厄，詎能甘食？」王愍其情也，故遂放之。[0919a20] 其側窣堵波，前建石柱，是昔迦葉波佛於此宴坐。其側有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

The king agreed and sent sol­diers to cap­ture the ele­phant. The man ac­com­pan­ied them as a guide but at the very mo­ment he poin­ted out the young ele­phant for the king, both his arms fell off as if they had been severed. Even though the king was sur­prised by the sight he still cap­tured the young ele­phant and brought him home. The young ele­phant re­fused to eat grass or drink wa­ter for a long time after he was caught. The stable keeper in­formed the king, who went per­son­ally to in­quire into the mat­ter. The young ele­phant said, “My mother is blind and is starving all day long. As I am now a cap­tive, how can I en­joy de­li­cious food?” Moved by the ele­phant’s fi­lial sen­ti­ment, the king re­leased him. In front of the stupa be­side the pond is a stone pil­lar where Kāśyapa Buddha sat in med­it­a­tion in the past. Be­side it are places where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down.

[0919a23] 四佛坐東渡莫訶河，至大林中，有石柱，是外道入定發惡願處。昔有外道欝頭藍子者，志逸煙霞，身遺草澤，於此法林栖神匿迹。既具五神通，得第一有定。摩揭陀王特深宗敬，每至中時，請就宮食。欝頭藍子凌虛履空，往來無替。摩揭陀王候時瞻望，亦既至已，捧接置座。

After cross­ing the Mahā River to the east of the seats of the four past buddhas, I reached a great wood in which there is a stone pil­lar mark­ing the place where a heretic sat in med­it­a­tion and made an evil vow. In the past the heretic Udraka Rāmaputra was someone who as­pired to spir­itual at­tain­ment and made his abode in the wil­der­ness. He en­gaged his mind in med­it­a­tion and lived in se­clu­sion in this wood of re­li­gious prac­tice. As he had gained the five su­per­nor­mal powers and achieved the samādhi of neither thought nor non-thought, the king of Magadha highly re­spec­ted him and in­vited the her­mit to the palace for a meal every day at noon. Udraka Rāmaputra traveled through the air to and fro without in­ter­rup­tion and the king of Magadha would look into the air and wait for him. On his ar­rival the king re­ceived him and gave him a seat.

王將出遊，欲委留事，簡擢中宮，無堪承命。有少息女，淑慎令儀，既親且賢，無出其右，摩揭陀王召而命曰：「吾方遠遊，將有所委，爾宜悉心，慎終其事。彼欝頭藍仙，宿所宗敬，時至來飯，如我所奉。」勅誡既已，便即巡覽。少女承旨，瞻候如儀，大仙至已，捧而置座。欝頭藍子既觸女人，起欲界染，退失神通，

Once the king was about to go out on a pleas­ure trip and in­ten­ded to en­trust 919b someone to serve the her­mit. But there was no one in the in­ner palace who was com­pet­ent to an­swer the call, ex­cept his own daugh­ter, a cour­teous, well be­haved, and prudent young lady with a kind heart whom no one ex­celled in ami­ab­il­ity and vir­tue. The king of Magadha summoned his daugh­ter and ordered her, ‘I am trav­el­ing to a dis­tant place and have some­thing to en­trust to you. Please be care­ful to ful­fill this duty to com­ple­tion. The her­mit Udraka Rāmaputra is someone I al­ways ven­er­ate re­spect­fully. When he comes at meal­times you should serve him as I do.” Hav­ing given this in­struc­tion the king star­ted on his jour­ney. Un­der the king’ or­der the young maid waited for the her­mit as usual, and upon his ar­rival she re­ceived him and took him to his seat. Due to hav­ing been in con­tact with a wo­man, Udraka Rāmaputra felt an im­pulse of de­sire and lost his su­per­nor­mal powers.

飯訖言歸，不得虛遊。中心愧恥，詭謂女曰：「吾比修道業，入定怡神，凌虛往來，略無暇景，國人願覩，聞之久矣。然先達垂訓，利物為務，豈守獨善，忘其兼濟？今欲從門而出，履地而往，使夫覩見之徒，咸蒙福利。」王女聞已，宣告遠近。是時人以馳競，灑掃衢路，百千萬眾，佇望來儀。

After the meal was over and he was about to re­turn the her­mit found that he was no longer able to fly. Ashamed, he said de­ceit­fully to the maid, “I have been prac­ti­cing the Way and sit­ting in med­it­a­tion with a peace­ful mind for many years, and I am used to fly­ing through the air without any leis­ure mo­ments. I heard long ago that the people of the coun­try wished to see me. Pre­vi­ous teach­ers taught us that we should work for the be­ne­fit of oth­ers as our duty. How can one work only for one’s own good and for­get about al­tru­istic con­sid­er­a­tions? I now wish to de­part through the door and walk on the earth so that those who see me may gain bliss and be­ne­fit.” On hear­ing these words, the prin­cess made a pub­lic an­nounce­ment. Thereupon, the people hur­riedly sprinkled wa­ter and swept the thor­ough­fare clean, and hun­dreds and thou­sands of people stood still for a long time, wait­ing for the ap­pear­ance of the her­mit.

欝頭藍子步自王宮，至彼法林，宴坐入定，心馳外境，棲林則烏鳥嚶囀，臨池乃魚鼈諠聲，情散心亂，失神廢定。乃生忿恚，即發惡願：「願我當來為暴惡獸，狸身鳥翼，搏食生類，身廣三千里，兩翅各廣千五百里，投林噉諸羽族，入流食彼水生。」發願既已，忿心漸息，勤求頃之，復得本定。不久命終，生第一有天，壽八萬劫。如來記之，天壽畢已，當果昔願，得此弊身。從是流轉惡道，未期出離。

Udraka Rāmaputra walked from the palace to the re­li­gious wood and sat down to prac­tice med­it­a­tion, but his mind was dis­turbed by the ex­ternal en­vir­on­ment. When he stayed in the wood he heard the crow­ing and chirp­ing of crows and other birds, and when he was near the pond the splash­ing of fish and turtles an­noyed him. His at­ten­tion was dis­trac­ted and his mind con­fused, and he lost his spirit and was un­able to prac­tice med­it­a­tion. He be­came en­raged and made an evil vow, say­ing, ‘‘Let me be in the fu­ture a fierce and wicked an­imal with the body of a leo­pard and the wings of a bird, prey­ing on liv­ing creatures. My body will be three thou­sand li in width and each of the wings fif­teen hun­dred li in length. I shall haunt the forests to de­vour the feathered tribes (birds) and enter the wa­ters to eat aquatic an­im­als.” After he made this vow his an­ger gradu­ally abated, and through hard work he re­gained his ori­ginal med­it­at­ive state soon af­ter­ward. Be­fore long he died and was re­born in the Heaven of Neither Thought Nor Non-thought, en­joy­ing a life span of eighty thou­sand kal­pas. The Tathāgata pre­dicted that after the con­clu­sion of his heav­enly life the her­mit would real­ize his ori­ginal vow and be re­born as the ugly creature. From that time on he would cycle in the evil states of trans­mi­gra­tion without a fixed time for his re­lease.

[0919b24] 莫訶河東入大林野，行百餘里，至屈屈(居勿反)吒播陀山(唐言雞足)，亦謂窶盧播陀山(唐言尊足)。高巒陗，無極深，壑洞無涯，山麓谿澗，喬林羅谷，岡岑嶺嶂，繁草被巖，峻起三峯，傍挺絕崿，氣將天接，形與雲同。其後尊者大迦葉波居中寂滅，不敢指言，故云尊足。

To the east of the Mahā River I entered a great jungle and, go­ing for more than one hun­dred li, I reached Kukkuṭapāda (known as Jizu, “Cock’s Foot,” in Chinese) Moun­tain, also called Gurupāda (known as Zunzu, “Sage’s Foot,” in Chinese) Moun­tain. The lofty peaks are ex­tremely steep and the deep val­leys seem to be bot­tom­less. At the foot of the moun­tain and among the brooks there are tall trees in the val­leys, and the peaks and cliffs are covered in lux­uri­ant green grass. There are three pre­cip­it­ous, cloud-capped peaks, nearly touch­ing the sky. Be­cause Ven­er­able Mahākāśyapa entered nir­vana on this moun­tain people of later times, not wish­ing to men­tion his name in­ap­pro­pri­ately, called it Guru’s Foot Moun­tain.

摩訶迦葉波者，聲聞弟子也，得六神通，具八解脫。如來化緣斯畢，垂將涅槃，告迦葉波曰：「我於曠劫勤修苦行，為諸眾生求無上法，昔所願期，今已果滿。我今將欲入大涅槃，以諸法藏囑累於汝，住持宣布，勿有失墜。姨母所獻金縷袈裟，慈氏成佛，留以傳付。我遺法中諸修行者，若比丘、比丘尼、鄔波索迦、(唐言近事男。舊曰伊蒱塞，又曰優波塞，又曰優婆塞，皆訛也)、鄔波斯迦(唐言近事女。舊曰優婆斯，又曰優婆夷，皆訛也)，皆先濟渡，令離流轉。」

Mahākāśyapa was a śrāvaka dis­ciple [of the Buddha] who achieved the six su­per­nat­ural powers and pos­sessed the eight forms of lib­er­a­tion. When the Tathāgata had com­pleted his ca­reer of edi­fic­a­tion and was about to enter nir­vana, he told Kāśyapa, “For in­nu­mer­able kal­pas I di­li­gently prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies seek­ing the su­preme Dharma for the be­ne­fit of all liv­ing be­ings. As I have now ful­filled my de­sire and ex­pect­a­tion that I wished for in the past, I am go­ing to enter mahānir­vāṇa. I en­trust to you the Dharma piṭaka and you should pre­serve and spread it and never let it de­grade. I will leave be­hind the golden-thread kaṣāya that my aunt offered to me, to be trans­mit­ted to Maitreya when he be­comes a buddha in the fu­ture. All those who cul­tiv­ate them­selves in my be­queathed teach­ing, whether bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, up­ā­sa­kas, or up­āsikās (male and fe­male lay de­votees), should first be de­livered from the cycle of trans­mi­gra­tion.”

迦葉承旨，住持正法。結集既已，至第二十年，厭世無常，將入寂滅。乃往雞足山，山陰而上，屈盤取路，至西南岡。山峯險阻，崖徑槃薄，乃以錫扣，剖之如割。山徑既開，逐路而進，槃紆曲折，迴互斜通，至于山頂，東北面出，既入三峯之中，捧佛袈裟而立，以願力故，三峯斂覆，故今此山三脊隆起。

Hav­ing re­ceived the Buddha’s in­struc­tions, Kāśyapa up­held the right Dharma. In the twen­ti­eth year after the con­clu­sion of the Great Coun­cil he grew tired of the im­per­man­ent world and wished to enter nir­vana. He went to Kukkuṭa Moun­tain and climbed the north side of the moun­tain; go­ing by a round­about route he reached the south­w­est ridge. The peaks are dan­ger­ous and dif­fi­cult to as­cend, and the paths are tor­tu­ous and over­grown with weeds. He cleared the way with his pew­ter staff and cut down the weeds as if he were us­ing a knife. After he had opened the moun­tain path he pro­ceeded along the round­about route in a cris­scross man­ner. On reach­ing the sum­mit he faced the north­east. Stand­ing amid the three peaks, he held the Buddha’s kaśāya [robe] in both hands and, by the power of his vow, the three peaks closed to­gether, leav­ing be­hind the three pro­tuber­ant ridges we see now.

當來慈氏世尊之興世也，三會說法之後，餘有無量憍慢眾生，將登此山，至迦葉所。慈氏彈指，山峯自開，彼諸眾生既見迦葉，更增憍慢。時大迦葉授衣致辭，禮敬已畢，身昇虛空，示諸神變，化火焚身，遂入寂滅。時眾瞻仰，憍慢心除，因而感悟，皆證聖果。故今山上建窣堵波，靜夜遠望，或見明炬，及有登山，遂無所覩。

When Maitreya comes to the world as a World-honored One he will preach the Dharma in three as­sem­blies. After that there will still be nu­mer­ous ar­rog­ant people who will as­cend this moun­tain and come to the place of Kāśyapa. Maitreya will snap his fin­gers, and the moun­tain peaks will open by them­selves, and, see­ing Kāśyapa, the people will be­come all the more ar­rog­ant. At this mo­ment Mahākāśyapa will hand over the kaṣāya [to Maitreya]. After mak­ing a speech and pay­ing homage [to the new buddha] Kāśyapa will rise into the air and mani­fest vari­ous di­vine trans­form­a­tions. A fire will burst forth to cremate his body and in this man­ner he will enter nir­vana. Hav­ing seen this sight, the people will aban­don their pride and then will be awakened and real­ize saint­hood. There­fore a stupa has been built on the moun­tain. On quiet nights a burn­ing torch can be seen from a dis­tance, but if one goes up the moun­tain noth­ing can be seen.

[0920a01] 鷄足山東北行百餘里，至佛陀伐那山。峯崖崇峻，巘崿隱嶙，巖間石室，佛嘗降止。傍有盤石，帝釋、梵王摩牛頭栴檀塗飾如來，今其石上餘香郁烈。五百羅漢潛靈於此，諸有感遇，或得覩見，時作沙彌之形，入里乞食，隱顯靈奇之迹，羌難以述。

Go­ing more than one hun­dred li north­east from Kukkuṭapāda Moun­tain I reached Buddhavana Moun­tain with its lofty peaks and steep cliffs. Among the rocks is a cave where the Buddha once stayed. Be­side the cave is a huge rock on which In­dra and Brahma pul­ver­ized ox­head san­dal­wood and rubbed the body of the Tathāgata with the powder. Even now the rock re­tains a strong fra­grance. The lat­ent spir­its of the five hun­dred ar­hats re­main here. Those who have the chance to meet them may see them ap­pear­ing as śrāmaṇeras go­ing to the vil­lages to col­lect alms. Their mi­ra­cu­lous deeds, whether secret or mani­fest, are dif­fi­cult to re­late in de­tail.

佛陀伐那山空谷中東行三十餘里，至洩(移結反)瑟知林(唐言杖林)。林竹修篠，被山滿谷。其先有婆羅門，聞釋迦佛身長丈六，常懷疑惑，未之信也，乃以丈六竹杖，欲量佛身。恒於杖端出過丈六，如是增高，莫能窮實，遂投杖而去，因°植根焉。中有大窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。如來在昔，於此七日為諸天、人現大神通，說深妙法。

Go­ing east for more than thirty li in the deep val­leys of Buddhavana Moun­tain, I reached Yaṣṭi Wood (known as “Stick Wood” in Chinese), full of bam­boo that cov­ers the moun­tain and val­leys. Formerly there was a brah­man who heard that Sākya Buddha was six­teen feet tall, but he doubted this and did not be­lieve it. So he used a six­teen-foot-long long bam­boo stick to meas­ure the height of the Buddha but each time he did so, the Buddha’s height al­ways ex­ceeded the length of the stick by six­teen feet. In this man­ner the brah­man found the Buddha’s height be­com­ing higher and higher and he could not as­cer­tain his ac­tual height. He cast off the stick and went away; the stick took root, [giv­ing rise to the bam­boo grove]. In the wood there is a great stupa built by King Aśoka. Formerly the Tathāgata showed great su­per­nat­ural powers and preached the deep and subtle Dharma for vari­ous heav­enly and hu­man be­ings at this place for seven days.

[0920a15] 杖林中近有鄔波索迦闍耶犀那者(唐言勝軍)，西印度剎帝利種也，志尚夷簡，情悅山林，迹居幻境，心遊真際，內外典籍，窮究幽微，辭論清高，儀範閑雅。諸沙門、婆羅門、外道、異學、國王、大臣、長者、豪右，相趨通謁，伏膺請益。受業門人，十室而六。年漸七十，耽讀不倦，餘藝捐廢，唯習佛經，策勵身心，不舍晝夜。

In Yaṣṭi Wood there was re­cently an up­ā­saka named Jay­asena (known as Shengjun, “Vic­tori­ous Army,” in Chinese), a man of the kṣat­riya caste of West In­dia. He pre­ferred to live a plain and simple life in the moun­tains and forests, and while he stayed in the world of il­lu­sion his mind dwelled in the state of real­ity. He was learned in the subtle mean­ings of both Buddhist and heretical texts, elo­quent in dis­cus­sion and per­spicu­ous in think­ing. Vari­ous śramaṇas, brah­mans, heretical and het­ero­dox schol­ars, kings, min­is­ters, eld­ers, and wealthy and power­ful people ap­proached him to seek his in­struc­tions with full con­vic­tion. His dis­ciples could be found in six fam­il­ies out of ten. When he was nearly sev­enty years old he still de­voted him­self to ar­du­ous study without fa­tigue. He gave up all other sub­jects of learn­ing and en­gaged him­self solely in the study of Buddhist scrip­tures, ex­ert­ing him­self men­tally and phys­ic­ally day and night.

印度之法，香末為泥，作小窣堵波，高五六寸，書寫經文，以置其中，謂之法舍利也；數漸盈積，建大窣堵波，總聚於內，常修供養。故勝軍之為業也，口則宣說妙法，導誘學人，手乃作窣堵波，式崇勝福，夜又經行禮誦，宴坐思惟，寢食不遑，晝夜無怠。年百歲矣，志業不衰。三十年間，凡作七拘胝(唐言億)法舍利窣堵波。每滿一拘胝，建大窣堵波，而總置中，盛修供養，請諸僧眾，法會稱慶，其時神光燭曜，靈異昭彰，自茲厥後，時放光明。

In In­dia it is the cus­tom to make mini­ature stu­pas, five or six inches high, out of scen­ted clay. Cop­ies of scrip­tures are put in­side these stu­pas, which are known as Dharma rel­ics. When a large num­ber of such stu­pas has been ac­cu­mu­lated a great stupa is con­struc­ted to con­tain them all for per­petual ven­er­a­tion. Whenever Jay­asena was teach­ing his dis­ciples, as he or­ally in­cul­cated them with the won­der­ful Dharma his hands were busy mak­ing small stu­pas in or­der to ac­cu­mu­late su­preme bliss. At night he walked to and fro, or wor­shiped and re­cited scrip­tures, or sat in quiet med­it­a­tion, tak­ing no time to sleep or eat, and he never re­laxed in the day­time or at night. Even when he was a hun­dred years old he did not lessen his ef­fort, and over a period of thirty years he made seven koṭis of Dharma relic stu­pas. Each time he com­pleted one koṭi of stu­pas he con­struc­ted a great stupa to con­tain all the small ones for people to make of­fer­ings to, and monks were in­vited to cel­eb­rate re­li­gious func­tions. On each oc­ca­sion a di­vine light shone brightly, an ap­par­ent spir­itual mani­fest­a­tion, and after that a light was emit­ted from time to time.

[0920b04] 杖林西南十餘里，大山陽，有二溫泉，其水甚熱。在昔如來化出此水，於中浴焉。今者尚存，清流無減，遠近之人，皆來就浴，沈痾宿疹，無不除差。其傍則有窣堵波，如來經行之處也。杖林東南行六七里，至大山，橫嶺之前有石窣堵波，昔如來兩三月為諸人、天於此說法，時頻毘娑羅王欲來聽法，乃疏山積石，壘階以進，廣二十餘步，長三四里。

More than ten li to the south­w­est of Yaṣṭi Wood there are two hot springs to the south of a great moun­tain. The wa­ter is very hot and after the Buddha had caused these springs he bathed in them. They are still in ex­ist­ence and the flow of clear wa­ter has never di­min­ished. People come here from far and near to bathe and the springs may ef­fect a cure for those who suf­fer from chronic ill­ness. Be­side the springs is a stupa built at a place where the Tathā- gata walked up and down. Go­ing south­east for six or seven li from Yaṣṭi Wood, I reached a great moun­tain. In front of a ridge of the moun­tain there is a stone stupa. In the past the Tathāgata once preached the Dharma at this place for the three months of the rains re­treat. At that time King Bimbisāra wished to come to listen to the Dharma, so a pas­sage­way through the moun­tain, with stone steps more than twenty paces wide and three or four li in length, was built to the site.

[0920b13] 大山北三四里，有孤山，昔廣博仙人棲隱於此，鑿°崖為室，餘趾尚存，傳教門人，遺風猶扇。[0920b15] 孤山東北四五里，有小孤山，山壁石室廣袤可坐千餘人矣，如來在昔於此三月說法。石室上有大磐石，帝釋、梵王摩牛頭栴檀塗飾佛身，石上餘香，于今郁烈。

Three or four li to the north of the great moun­tain is an isol­ated hill where the her­mit Vyāsa once dwelled. The cave he ex­cav­ated in the rock is still in ex­ist­ence. He im­par­ted his teach­ings to his dis­ciples and the sys­tem of his learn­ing is still pre­val­ent. Four or five li to the north­east of this isol­ated hill is a smal­ler isol­ated hill. The size of the cave ex­cav­ated in the rock of the hill is large enough to provide seats for over one thou­sand people. In the past the Tathāgata once preached the Dharma at this place for three months. Above the cave is a big rock on which In­dra and Brahma ground ox­head san­dal­wood to rub the powder on the Buddha’s body. The fra­grance linger­ing on the rock is still very strong.

[0920b19] 石室西南隅有巖岫，印度謂之阿素洛(舊曰阿修羅，又曰阿須倫，又曰阿修羅，皆訛也)宮也。往有好事者，深閑呪術，顧儔命侶，十有四人，約契同志，入此巖岫。行三四十里，廓然大明，乃見城邑臺觀，皆是金銀琉璃。是人至已，有諸少女佇立門側，歡喜迎接，甚加禮遇。於是漸進至內城門，有二婢使各捧金盤，盛滿花香，而來迎候。謂諸人曰：「宜就池浴，塗冠香花，已而後入，斯為美矣。唯彼術士，宜時速進。」餘十三人遂即沐浴，既入池已，恍若有忘，乃坐稻田中，去此之北平川中，已三四十里矣。

At the south­w­est corner of the cave there is a grotto known in In­dia as As­ura’s Palace. A mis­chiev­ous man, skill­ful in the art of sor­cery, once in­vited [thir­teen] close friends who shared the same in­terests, and the group of four­teen went to­gether into the grotto. After go­ing for thirty or forty li they came out into an open, bright place and saw city walls, ter­races, and pa­vil­ions all made of gold, sil­ver, and lapis lazuli. When they ap­proached the city some young maid­ens stand­ing by the city gate pleas­ntly and cor­di­ally wel­comed them. Then they pro­ceeded and even­tu­ally ar­rived at the in­ner city, where two maid­ser­vants, stand­ing by the gate, each hold­ing a golden tray full of flowers and in­cense, greeted them and said, “You must bathe yourselves in the pool, rub your bod­ies with in­cense, and put on gar­lands be­fore you can be ad­mit­ted in the proper man­ner. The sor­cerer may go in right away, how­ever.” The thir­teen friends went to bathe but as soon as they entered the bathing pool they for­got everything and found them­selves sit­ting in a paddy field on a plain thirty or forty li to the north of the grotto.

[0920c02] 石室側有棧道，廣十餘步，長四五里。昔頻毘娑羅王將往佛所，乃斬石通谷，疏崖填川，或壘石，或鑿°巖，作為階級，以至佛所。

Be­side the grotto there is a via­duct more than ten paces wide and four or five li in length. In the past, when King Bimbisāra was about to go to the place of the Buddha, rocks were cleared from the val­ley, pre­cip­ices were leveled to dredge the stream, and stones were piled up and cliffs ex­cav­ated to make steps lead­ing to the place of the Buddha.

從此大山中東行六十餘里，至矩奢揭羅補羅城(唐言上茅宮城)。上茅宮城，摩揭陀國之正中，古先君王之所都，多出勝上吉祥香茅，以故謂之上茅城也。崇山四周，以為外郭，西通峽徑，北闢山門，東西長，南北狹，周一百五十餘里。內城餘趾周三十餘里。羯尼迦樹遍諸蹊徑，花含殊馥，色爛黃金，暮春之月，林皆金色。

From this great moun­tain go­ing east for more than sixty li, I reached the city of Kuśā­grapura (known as Shang­mao­gongcheng, “Su­per­ior Reed Palace City,” in Chinese). Kuśā­grapura, in the cen­ter of the coun­try of Magadha, was the cap­ital of pre­vi­ous kings in an­cient times. It is so called be­cause it abounds in su­per­ior and lucky fra­grant reeds. The sur­round­ing hills serve as its outer walls, with a nar­row path lead­ing to the west and a pas­sage open­ing to the north. It is long from east to west, nar­row from south to north, and more than one hun­dred fifty li in cir­cuit. Karṇikāra (may­eng) trees grow every­where on the moun­tain paths. The flowers have a spe­cial fra­grance and are golden in color. Late in spring the whole wood be­comes golden-colored.

[0920c13] 宮城北門外有窣堵波，是提婆達多與未生怨王共為親友，乃放護財醉象，欲害如來。如來指端出五師子，醉象於此馴伏而前。

Out­side the north gate of the palace city is a stupa built at the place where Devad­atta, who was on in­tim­ate terms with Ajātaśatru, loosed the in­tox­ic­ated ele­phant Dhanapāla in an at­tempt to hurt the Tathāgata. The Tathāgata pro­duced five lions from the tips of [his] five fin­gers to tame the drunken ele­phant be­fore go­ing on his way.

[0920c16] 伏醉象東北有窣堵波，是舍利子聞阿濕婆恃比丘(唐言馬勝)說法證果之處。初，舍利子在家也，高才雅量，見重當時，門生學徒，傳以受業。此時將入王舍大城，馬勝比丘亦方乞食。時舍利子遙見馬勝，謂門生曰：「彼來者甚庠序，不證聖果，豈斯調寂？宜少佇待，觀其進趣。」馬勝比丘已證羅漢，心得自在，容止和雅，振錫來儀。舍利子曰：「長老善安樂耶？師何人，證何法，若此之悅豫乎？」馬勝謂曰：「爾不知耶，淨飯王太子，捨轉輪王位，悲愍六趣，苦行六年，證三菩提，具一切智，是吾師也。夫法者，非有非空，難用銓緒，唯佛與佛乃能究述，豈伊愚昧所能詳°議？」因為頌說，稱讚佛法。舍利子聞已，便獲果證。

To the north­east of the place where the drunken ele­phant was sub­dued was the spot where Śāri­putra at­tained saint­hood on hear­ing the Dharma preached by Aśvajit (known as Masheng, “Vic­tori­ous Horse,” in Chinese) Bhikṣu. When Śāri­putra was a lay­man he was well known for his high tal­ents and broad­minded­ness, and he had dis­ciples and pu­pils study­ing un­der his in­struc­tion. He was once go­ing to the great city of Rā­jagṛha when Aśvajit Bhikṣu was on alms­round. See­ing Aśvajit from a dis­tance, Śāri­putra said to his dis­ciples, “That man over there looks very grace­ful and re­fined in de­port­ment. He could not be so calm and quiet in de­meanor un­less he has at­tained saint­hood Let us wait here a mo­ment and see where he is go­ing.” Be­ing an ar­hat, Aśvajit Bhikṣu was free from men­tal de­file­ments and car­ried him­self in a gentle and peace­ful man­ner, hold­ing a re­li­gious staff in hand. Śāri­putra said to him, “Elder Sir, are you liv­ing in good health and hap­pi­ness? Who is your teacher and what Dharma have you real­ized that you look so happy and con­ten­ted?” Aśvajit said, “Do you not know that the prince of King Śuddhodana re­lin­quished his po­s­i­tion as a wheel-turn­ing mon­arch and, out of pity for all be­ings in the six paths of trans­mi­gra­tion, he prac­ticed aus­ter­it­ies for six years and at­tained per­fect en­light­en­ment and now pos­sesses all-know­ing wis­dom? He is my teacher. As re­gards the Dharma, it is neither real nor empty and it is dif­fi­cult to give a sys­tem­atic ex­pos­i­tion of it. It can be fully ex­plained only by the buddhas. How could I, an ig­nor­ant per­son, dis­cuss the mat­ter in de­tail?” Aśvajit then uttered a stanza in praise of the buddha-dharma and Śāri­putra at­tained saint­hood on hear­ing the stanza.

[0921a02] 舍利子證果北不遠，有大深坑，傍建窣堵波，是室利毱多(唐言勝密)以火坑、毒飯欲害佛處。勝密者，宗信外道，深著邪見。諸梵志曰：「喬答摩國人尊敬，遂令我徒無所恃賴，汝今可請至家飯會，門穿大坑，滿中縱火，棧以朽木，覆以燥土。凡諸飲食，皆雜毒藥，若免火坑，當遭毒食。」勝密承命，便設毒會。城中之人皆知勝密於世尊所起惡害心，咸皆勸請，願佛勿往。世尊告曰：「無得懷憂。如來之身，物莫能害。」於是受請而往。足履門閫，火坑成池，清瀾澄鑒，蓮花彌漫。勝密見已，憂惶無措，謂其徒曰：「以術免火，尚有毒食。」世尊飯食已訖，為說妙法，勝密聞已，謝咎歸依。

Not far to the north of the place where Śāri­putra at­tained saint­hood there is a large, deep pit be­side which a stupa has been built. This was the place where Śrīgupta (known as Shengmi, “Aus­pi­cious Secrecy,” in Chinese) at­temp­ted to kill the Buddha in a fire pit and with poisoned rice. Śrīgupta had faith in the heretics and held fast to er­ro­neous views. Some brah­mans said to him, “Gautama is re­spec­ted by the people of the coun­try so we have lost our sup­port­ers. In­vite him to a meal at your home. At the gate of your house dig a big pit, light a fire in it, then cover the pit with some rot­ten tim­ber and cam­ou­flage it with dry earth. Poison should be put into all food and drink you serve him. Even if he es­capes the fire pit he will be poisoned to death.” Fol­low­ing this sug­ges­tion, Śrīgupta pre­pared a meal and poisoned the food. All the people in the city knew that Śrīgupta plot­ted against the World-honored One with an evil in­ten­tion, and they all ex­hor­ted the Buddha not to go [to his house] for the meal. The World-honored One told them, “Do not worry! Noth­ing can harm the body of a tathāgata.” He ac­cep­ted the in­vit­a­tion and went, and as soon as his foot touched the doorsill the fire pit turned into a pool full of lo­tus flowers grow­ing out of clear, lu­cid wa­ter. Śrīgupta was panic-stricken at this but said to his dis­ciples, “Even if the Buddha has es­caped the fire pit through ma­gical power there is still poisoned food for him.” After the World-honored One had taken the meal he preached the won­der­ful Dharma and, on hear­ing the Dharma, Śrīgupta apo­lo­gized for his mis­deeds and took refuge in the Buddha.

[0921a16] 勝密火坑東北，山城之曲，有窣堵波，是時縛迦大醫(舊°曰耆婆，訛也)於此為佛建說法堂，周其壖垣種植花菓，餘趾蘖株尚有遺迹。如來在世，多於中止。其傍復有縛迦故宅，餘基舊井，墟坎猶存。

At a bend of the moun­tain city to the north­east of Śrīgupta’s fire pit is a stupa where the great phys­i­cian Jīvaka (wrongly trans­lit­er­ated as Qipo in Chinese) built a preach­ing hall for the Buddha. Flowers and fruit trees were planted at the open spaces around the build­ing, and re­mains of the struc­ture and new sprouts from the old plants can still be seen. When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world he stayed mostly in this hall. Be­side it is the site of Jīvaka’s private res­id­ence; the rem­nant found­a­tions and an old well still ex­ist in ru­ins.

宮城東北行十四五里，至姞栗陀羅矩吒山(唐言鷲峯，亦謂鷲臺。舊曰耆闍崛山，訛也)。接北山之陽，孤摽特起，既棲鷲鳥，又類高臺，空翠相映，濃淡分色。如來御世垂五十年，多居此山，廣說妙法。

Go­ing north­east for four­teen or fif­teen li from the palace city, I reached Gṛdhrakūṭa Moun­tain (known in China as “Vul­ture Peak” or “[Vul­ture] Ter­race,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Qishejue Moun­tain). It links with the south side of North Moun­tain, pro­trud­ing all alone to a great height, where vul­tures perch; it also re­sembles a high ter­race. The verd­ant moun­tain presents a dis­tinct color in con­trast with the sky. Dur­ing the fifty years of his mis­sion­ary ca­reer the Tathāgata stayed on this moun­tain on many oc­ca­sions to preach the won­der­ful Dharma.

頻毘娑羅王為聞法故，興發人徒，自山麓至峯岑，跨谷凌巖，編石為階，廣十餘步，長五六里。中路有二小窣堵波，一謂下乘，即王至此徒行以進；一謂退凡，即簡凡人不令同往。其山頂則東西長，南北狹。臨崖西埵有甎精舍，高廣奇製，東闢其戶，如來在昔多居說法，今作說法之像，量等如來之身。

In or­der to hear the Buddha’s preach­ing, King Bimbisāra sent men to build a road lead­ing from the foot of the moun­tain to the sum­mit, more than ten paces wide and five or six li in length, across val­leys and over rocks, with stones piled up into steps. There are two small stu­pas on the way. One is known as the place of alight­ing, where the king [dis­moun­ted from his car­riage] to walk on foot, pro­ceed­ing on his way; the other stupa is the place of where or­din­ary people were barred from go­ing farther [with the king]. The sum­mit is ob­long from east to west and nar­row from south to north. On the brink of the west side of the pre­cip­ice is a brick shrine, high and spa­cious, built in a mar­velous style, with its door open­ing to the east. The Tathāgata preached the Dharma at this place many times. There is now a life-size statue of the Tathāgata in the pos­ture of de­liv­er­ing a ser­mon.

[0921b03] 精舍東有長石，如來經行所履也。傍有大石，高丈四五尺，周三十餘步，是提婆達多遙擲擊佛處也。其南崖下有窣堵波，在昔如來於此說《法花經》。精舍南山崖側有大石室，如來在昔於此入定。[0921b08] 佛石室西北，石室前有大磐石，阿難為魔怖處也。尊者阿難於此入定，魔王化作鷲鳥，於黑月夜分據其大石，奮翼驚鳴，以怖尊者。尊者是時驚懼無措，如來鑒見，伸手安慰，通過石壁，摩阿難頂，以大慈言而告之曰：「魔所變化，宜無怖懼。」阿難蒙慰，身心安樂。石上鳥迹、崖中通穴，歲月雖久，于今尚存。[0921b16] 精舍側有數石室，舍利子等諸大羅漢於此入定。舍利子石室前有一大井，枯涸無水，墟坎猶存。

To the east of the shrine is an ob­long stone on which the Tathāgata walked to and fro. Be­side it is a great rock, four­teen or fif­teen feet high and more than thirty paces in cir­cum­fer­ence. This was the place where Devad­atta hurled a stone from a dis­tance to strike the Buddha. To the south and be­low the cliff was the place where the Tathāgata preached the Saddharmapuṇdarīka-sītra in olden times. To the south of the shrine and be­side a steep rock is a cave where the Tathāgata sat in med­it­a­tion in days of yore. To the north­w­est of the Buddha’s cave there is an­other cave, in front of which is a huge rock where Ān­anda was frightened by Māra. Once when Ven­er­able Ān­anda was sit­ting in med­it­a­tion at this place, Māra trans­formed him­self into a vul­ture and oc­cu­pied the huge rock one night in the black half of the month, flap­ping his wings vi­ol­ently and shriek­ing ter­rific­ally to frighten Ān­anda. The ven­er­able monk was alarmed and ter­ror-stricken. The Tathāgata, see­ing him in trouble, stretched out a com­fort­ing hand through the stone wall of the cave, stroked Ān­anda’s head, and said to him with great com­pas­sion, “It is merely a phantom of Māra. Do not be frightened!” Re­as­sured, Ān­anda felt at ease and happy both phys­ic­ally and men­tally. The traces left by the bird on the rock and the hole made in the stone wall in the cave still ex­ist des­pite the long pas­sage of time. Be­side the shrine there are sev­eral caves in which Śāri­putra and other great ar­hats prac­ticed med­it­a­tion. In front of Śāri­putra’s cave is a big well; it is now dried up but the mouth of the well still ex­ists in the ru­ins.

[0921b19] 精舍東北石澗中有大磐石，是如來曬袈裟之處，衣文明徹，皎如彫刻。其傍石上有佛脚迹，輪文雖暗，規摸可察。北山頂有窣堵波，是如來望摩揭陀城，於此七日說法。

A huge flat rock in the stony gully to the north­east of the shrine is the place where the Tathāgata dried his kaṣāya. The stripes of the robe left on the rock are as dis­tinct as if they were carved on it. Be­side the rock are the foot­prints of the Buddha. Al­though the traces are ob­scure their size and shape are still dis­cern­ible. On top of North Moun­tain is a stupa at the place where the Tathāgata gazed at the city of Magadha and preached the Dharma for seven days.

[0921b23] 山城北門西有毘布羅山，聞之土俗曰：山西南崖陰，昔有五百溫泉，今者數十而已，然猶有冷有暖，未盡溫也。其泉源發雪山之南無熱惱池，潛流至此，水甚清美，味同本池。流經五百枝小熱地獄，火熱上炎，致斯溫熱。泉流之口，並皆彫石，或作師子、白象之首，或作石筒懸流之道，下乃編石為池。諸方異域咸來此浴，浴者宿疾多差。溫泉左右諸窣堵波及精舍，基址鱗次，並是過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。此處既山水相帶，仁智攸居，隱淪之士蓋亦多矣。

To the west of the north gate of the moun­tain city is Vi­p­ula Hill. I heard the local people say that on the north side of the cliff, south­w­est of the hill, there used to be five hun­dred hot springs but now there are only a few score, Not all of them are hot springs, as some are cold and oth­ers are warm. The source of these springs is Anavata­pta Lake to the south of the Snow Moun­tains; the wa­ter flows un­der­ground to this place. It is nice and clear and tastes the same as the wa­ter in its lake of ori­gin. The wa­ter flows out in five hun­dred streams through the small hot hells, and as the fire of the hells rises up it makes the wa­ter of the springs luke­warm. All the mouths of the springs have stone carvings in the shapes of the heads of lions or white ele­phants; aque­ducts lead the wa­ter be­low into tanks made of slabs of stone. People come from vari­ous places in dif­fer­ent re­gions to bathe in the tanks and they can of­ten wash away their old mal­ad­ies. On both the right and the left sides of the hot springs stu­pas and shrines were built with their found­a­tions laid as closely to­gether as the scales of a fish, and all of these are sites where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down in an­cient times. This place of moun­tains and streams is an ideal her­mit­age for wise and be­ne­vol­ent people to take up their abodes and there must be many re­cluses liv­ing in se­clu­sion in this loc­al­ity.

[0921c05] 溫泉西有卑鉢羅石室，世尊在昔恒居其中。後壁洞穴是阿素洛宮也。習定比丘多居此室。時出怪異龍、蛇、師子之形，見之者心發狂亂。然斯勝地，靈聖所止，躡迹欽風，忘其災禍。近有比丘，戒行貞潔，心樂幽寂，欲於此室匿迹習定。或有諫曰：「勿往彼也。彼多災異，為害不少，既難取定，亦恐喪身。宜鑒前事，勿貽後悔。」比丘曰：「不然。我方志求佛果，摧伏天魔，若此之害，夫何足言？」便即振錫而往室焉。於是設壇場，誦禁呪。旬日之後，穴出少女，謂比丘曰：「尊者染衣守戒，為含識歸依；修慧習定，作生靈善導。而今居此，驚懼我曹。如來之教，豈若是耶？」比丘曰：「我守淨戒，遵聖教也。匿迹山谷，遠諠雜也。忽此見譏，其咎安在？」對曰：「尊者誦呪聲發，火從外入，燒我居室，苦我枝屬。唯願悲愍，勿復誦呪。」比丘曰：「誦呪自護，非欲害物。往者，行人居此習定，期於聖果，以濟幽塗，覩怪驚懼，喪棄身命，汝之辜也，其何辭乎？」對曰：「罪障既重，智慧斯淺。自今已來，屏居守分，亦願尊者勿誦神呪。」比丘於是修定如初，安靜無害。

To the west of the hot springs is Pip­pala Cave, in which the World-honored One al­ways made his abode. The cav­ern be­hind the back wall of the cave is As­ura’s Palace. Bhikṣus who prac­ticed med­it­a­tion mostly resided in this cave. Strange phantoms in the shapes of dragons, snakes, and lions of­ten ap­peared in this cave and those who saw them were driven in­sane. But be­cause this is a well-known place where holy and spir­itual people stayed, oth­ers, in ad­mir­a­tion of their edi­fic­a­tion, braved the danger and came here one after an­other. Re­cently a bhikṣu who was pure in ob­serving the dis­cip­lin­ary rules and took de­light in lodging at quiet and peace­ful places de­sired to live in this cave to prac­tice med­it­a­tion. Someone ad­vised him, “Do not go to that cave—it is full of dis­asters and many people have been killed. It will be dif­fi­cult for you to gain men­tal con­cen­tra­tion there and you might even lose your life. Heed the warn­ings from pre­vi­ous ac­ci­dents and not cause your­self re­gret in the fu­ture.” The bhikṣu said, “No, it is not so. I am aim­ing my ef­forts at at­tain­ing buddha­hood in or­der to sub­jug­ate the heav­enly Mara. What mis­chief could be worth men­tion­ing?” He shook his pew­ter staff and went to the cave, where he pre­pared an al­tar and re­cited man­tras. After ten days a young wo­man came out of the cav­ern and said to the bhikṣu, “Ven­er­able Sir, you wear the dyed robe [of a monk] and keep the dis­cip­lin­ary rules so that liv­ing be­ings may take refuge un­der you, and you cul­tiv­ate wis­dom and prac­tice med­it­a­tion to be a good guide for liv­ing creatures. But now you are stay­ing here and we are frightened. Is this what the Tathāgata has taught you to do?” The bhikṣu said, “I ob­serve the pure rules in ac­cord­ance with the Buddha’s holy teach­ings and live in se­clu­sion in the moun­tains in or­der to avoid the hub­bub and ex­cite­ment of so­cial life. What is wrong with my be­ing here that causes you to ac­cuse me?” The wo­man said, “When you ut­ter man­tras the sound of your voice causes a fire burn from the out­side into my dwell­ing and causes trouble for my kinsfolk. Will you have pity on us and not re­peat man­tras any more?” The bhikṣu said, “I re­cite man­tras for self-pro­tec­tion, not to do harm to oth­ers. In the past when monks stayed here to prac­tice med­it­a­tion in the hope of gain­ing saint­hood, so as to save those who were suf­fer­ing in the dark path of trans­mi­gra­tion, they were scared to death by the sight of your ter­riffy­ing ap­pear­ance. It was all your fault. What do you say to this?” The wo­man said in reply, “Heavy is my sin and shal­low my wis­dom. From now on I will live in se­clu­sion and keep my­self within bounds. But I also hope that you, Ven­er­able Sir, will not re­peat man­tras.” So the bhikṣu prac­ticed med­it­a­tion in peace and was not harmed.

[0921c28] 毘布羅山上有窣堵波，昔者如來說法之處。今有露形外道，多依此住，修習苦行，夙夜匪懈，自旦至昏，旋轉觀察。

On Vi­p­ula Moun­tain is a stupa where the Tathāgata formerly preached the Dharma. Now many na­ked heretics stay at this place, prac­ti­cing aus­ter­it­ies without neg­li­gence day and night, and from dawn to dusk they turn round to watch [the sun’s] move­ment.

山城北門左，南崖陰，東行二三里，至大石室，昔提婆達多於°此入定。[0922a04] 石室東不遠，磐石上有班采°，狀血染，傍建窣堵波，是習定比丘自害證果之處。昔有比丘，勤勵心身，屏居修定，歲月逾遠，不證聖果。退而自咎，竊復歎曰：「無學之果，終不時證；有累之身，徒生何益！」便就此石自刺其頸，是時即證阿羅漢果，上昇虛空，示現神變，化火焚身，而入寂滅。美其雅操，建以記功。

Go­ing east for two or three li from the north side of the south cliff, on the left side of the north gate of the moun­tain city, I came to a great cave in which Devad­atta sat in med­it­a­tion in olden times. On a fiat rock not far to the east of this cave there are traces re­sem­bling blood­stains. Be­side it is a stupa built at the spot where a bhikṣu who prac­ticed med­it­a­tion com­mit­ted sui­cide and at­tained saint­hood. This bhikṣu ex­er­ted men­tal and phys­ical ef­fort in prac­ti­cing med­it­a­tion in se­clu­sion but he failed to at­tain saint­hood after long time had passed. He blamed him­self and said re­gret­fully, “I could not at­tain the per­fect stage of saint­hood with noth­ing more to learn in a timely way. What is the use of keep­ing this body of mine, which is really a bur­den to me?” So he came to this rock and cut his throat. At that very mo­ment he real­ized ar­hat­ship, as­cen­ded into the air, per­formed mi­ra­cu­lous trans­form­a­tions, pro­duced a fire to cremate his body, and entered nir­vana. This stupa was built in memory of his mer­its and to ex­tol his sub­lime char­ac­ter.

[0922a12] 比丘證果東石崖上，有石窣堵波，習定比丘投崖證果之處。昔在佛世，有一比丘，宴坐山林，修證果定，精勤已久，不得果證，晝夜繼念，無忘靜定。如來知其根機將發也，遂往彼而成之，自竹林園至山崖下，彈指而召，佇立以待。此比丘遙覩聖眾，身意勇悅，投崖而下，猶其淨心，敬信佛語，未至于地，已獲果證。世尊告曰：「宜知是時。」即昇虛空，示現神變。用彰淨信，故斯封記。

On the cliff to the east of the place where the bhikṣu [com­mit­ted sui­cide and] at­tained saint­hood is a stone stupa at the spot where an­other bhikṣu prac­ticed med­it­a­tion, threw him­self down the cliff, and gained saint­hood. At the time of the Buddha there was once a bhikṣu who sat in the woods and moun­tains, prac­ti­cing med­it­a­tion in or­der to achieve saint­hood. He worked hard for a long time but could not real­ize his wish. Day and night he never for­got to fix his mind in tran­quil med­it­a­tion. Know­ing that the fun­da­mental abil­ity of the bhikṣu was about to be fully de­veloped, the Tathāgata went to render as­sist­ance to him. He came from the Bam­boo Grove to the foot of the cliff, snapped his fin­gers to call the bhikṣu, and stood there wait­ing for him. See­ing the holy monks from a dis­tance, the bhikṣu was en­cour­aged and jumped down the cliff with de­light. As his mind was pure and he had faith in the Buddha’s words, he gained saint­hood be­fore his body reached the ground. The World-honored One told him, “You should know it isn ow the time!” The bhikṣu then as­cen­ded into the air and showed di­vine mani­fest­a­tions. In or­der to ex­alt the bhikṣu’s pure faith this stupa was built as a me­morial.

[0922a21] 山城北門行一里餘，至迦蘭陀竹園。今有精舍，石基甎室，東闢其戶。如來在世，多居此中，說法開化，導凡拯俗。今作如來之身。初，此城中有大長者迦蘭陀，時稱豪貴，以大竹園施諸外道。及見如來，聞法淨信，追昔竹園居彼異眾，今天人師無以館舍。時諸神鬼感其誠心，斥逐外道，而告之曰：「長者迦蘭陀當以竹園起佛精舍，汝宜速去，得免危厄。」外道憤恚，含怒而去。長者於此建立精舍，功成事畢，躬往請佛，如來是時遂受其施。

Go­ing out of the north gate of the moun­tain city for about one li, I reached Kalandaka Bam­boo Garden, in which there is now a temple, a brick cham­ber built on stone bases with a door open­ing to the east. When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world he spent much time in this temple, preach­ing the Dharma for the edi­fic­a­tion and guid­ance of the com­mon people and con­vert­ing the sec­u­lar folk. There is a life-size im­age of the Tathāgata of re­cent ori­gin. At the be­gin­ning there was an em­in­ent elder named Kalandaka, well known for his no­bil­ity and enorm­ous wealth. He presen­ted this great Bam­boo Garden to the heretics but after he saw the Tathāgata and heard the Dharma with pure faith, he re­gret­ted that he had given his garden as a lodging for the het­ero­dox be­liev­ers and now did not have a place to house the Teacher of Hu­man and Heav­enly Be­ings. At that time vari­ous gods and spir­its, moved by the elder’s sin­cer­ity, ex­pelled the heretics and told them, “Elder Kalandaka wishes to build a temple for the Buddha in Bam­boo Garden. You should quickly go away so as to avoid mis­hap and dis­aster.” The heretics left the garden in an­ger and re­sent­ment. The elder built a temple in the garden and when the con­struc­tion was com­pleted he went in per­son to in­vite the Buddha, who then ac­cep­ted the gift.

[0922b03] 迦蘭陀竹園東有窣堵波，阿闍多設咄路王(唐言未生怨，舊曰阿闍世，訛略也)之所建也。如來涅槃之後，諸王共分舍利，未生怨王得以持歸，式遵崇建，而修供養。無憂王之發信心也，開取舍利，建窣堵波，尚有遺餘，時燭光景。

To the east of Kalandaka Bam­boo Garden is a stupa built by King Ajāta- śatru (known in Chinese as Weishengy­uan, “En­emy Be­fore Birth,” formerly abridged wrongly as Asheshi). After the Tathāgata’s nir­vana the vari­ous kings shared his relic bones and King Ajātaśatru ob­tained his por­tion, for which he built this stupa with ven­er­a­tion to make of­fer­ings to the rel­ics. Later, after King Aśoka had faith in the buddha-dharma, he opened this stupa and took out the rel­ics for build­ing more stu­pas. There are still some rem­nant rel­ics in the stupa, which of­ten emits a bright light.

[0922b08] 未生怨王窣堵波，有尊者阿難半身舍利。昔尊者將寂滅也，去摩揭陀國，趣吠舍釐城。兩國交爭，欲興兵甲。尊者傷愍，遂分其身，摩揭陀王奉歸供養，即斯勝地，式修崇建。其傍則有如來經行之處。次此不遠有窣堵波，是舍利子及沒特伽羅子等安°居之所。

In an­other stupa be­side the one built by Ajātaśatru are en­tombed the rel­ics of Ven­er­able Ān­anda’s half-body. When Ven­er­able Ān­anda was about to enter nir­vana he left the coun­try of Magadha and pro­ceeded to the city of Vaiśālī. The two coun­tries con­ten­ded with each other [to keep Ān­anda’s body] and were on the brink of war. Out of pity for them, Ān­anda di­vided his body. When the king of Magadha got his por­tion he brought it back and built a stupa for it at this su­per­ior place. Be­side it is the spot where the Tathā- gata formerly walked up and down. Not far from here is a stupa built at the place where Sāri­putra and Maudgalaputra stayed to ob­serve the sum­mer re­treat dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

[0922b14] 竹林園西南行五六里，南山之陰，大竹林中，有大石室，是尊者摩訶迦葉在此與九百九十大阿羅漢，如來涅槃後結集三藏。前有故基，未生怨王為集法藏諸大羅漢建此堂宇。[0922b18] 初，大迦葉宴坐山林，忽燭光明，又覩地震，曰：「是何祥變，若此之異？」以天眼觀，見佛世尊於雙樹林間入般涅槃，尋命徒屬趣拘尸城。路逢梵志，手執天花。迦葉問曰：「汝從何來？知我大師今在何處？」梵志對曰：「我適從彼拘尸城來，見汝大師已入涅槃，天、人大眾咸興供養，我所持花，自彼得也。」

Five or six li to the south­w­est from the Bam­boo Garden and to the north of South Moun­tain, there is a large cave in a great bam­boo grove. Mahā- kāśyapa and nine hun­dred and ninety-nine great ar­hats stayed here to col­lect the Tripiṭaka after the nir­vana of the Tathāgata. In front of the cave are the old found­a­tions of a hall built by King Ajātaśatru for the great ar­hats who took part in col­lect­ing the Dharma piṭaka. In the be­gin­ning, Mahākāśyapa was sit­ting at leis­ure in a moun­tain forest when he sud­denly saw a bril­liant light and the earth quaked. He said, “What does this strange phe­nomenon au­gur?” He ob­served with his di­vine eye and saw that the Buddha, the World-honored One, had entered nir­vana at the twin [śala] trees. He ordered his dis­ciples to go with him to the city of Kuśin­agara and on the road they met a brah­man hold­ing some ce­les­tial flowers in his hand. Kāśyapa asked him, “Where do you come from? Do you know where my great teacher is?” The brah­man said, “I have just come from the city of Kuśin­agara and I have seen that your great teacher has entered nir­vana. Hu­man and heav­enly be­ings in a great as­sembly are mak­ing of­fer­ings to him. These flowers in my hand were ob­tained from them.”

迦葉聞已，謂其徒曰：「慧日淪照，世界闇冥，善導遐棄，眾生顛墜。」懈怠比丘更相賀曰：「如來寂滅，我曹安樂，若有所犯，誰能訶制？」迦葉聞已，深更感傷，思集法藏，據教治犯。遂至雙樹，觀化禮敬。

Hear­ing these words, Kāśyapa said to his dis­ciples, “The Sun of Wis­dom has sunk and the world is en­vel­oped in dark­ness. The Good Guide has aban­doned us and liv­ing be­ings will stumble and fall.” The in­dol­ent bhikṣus, how­ever, felt happy and said to each other glee­fully, “Since the Tathāgata has entered nir­vana we will be able to live an easy life. No one will re­proach or re­strain us if we com­mit any fault.” Hav­ing heard these words, Kāśyapa felt all the more sor­row­ful and thought about col­lect­ing the Dharma piṭaka as a guid­ing prin­ciple to pre­vent the vi­ol­a­tion of moral reg­u­la­tions taught by the Buddha. He then went to the twin [śala] trees to see and wor­ship the Buddha.

既而法王去世，人、天無導，諸大羅漢亦取滅度。時大迦葉作是思惟：「承順佛教，宜集法藏。」於是登蘇迷盧山，擊大揵稚，唱如是言：「今王舍城將有法事，諸證果人宜時速集！」揵稚聲中傳迦葉教，遍至三千大千世界，得神通者聞皆集會。是時迦葉告諸眾曰：「如來寂滅，世界空虛，當集法藏，用報佛恩。今將集法，務從簡靜，豈恃群居，不成勝業？其有具三明，得六通，聞持不謬，辯才無礙，如斯上人，可應結集。自餘果學，各歸其居。」於是得九百九十人，除阿難在學地，大迦葉召而謂曰：「汝未盡漏，宜出聖眾。」曰：「隨侍如來，多歷年所，每有法議，曾未棄遺。今將結集，而見擯斥，法王寂滅，失所依怙。」迦葉告曰：「勿懷憂惱。汝親侍佛，誠復多聞，然愛惑未盡，習結未斷。」阿難辭屈而出，至空寂處，欲取無學，勤求不證。既已疲怠，便欲假寐，未及伏枕，遂證羅漢。往結集所，叩門白至。迦葉問曰：「汝結盡耶？宜運神通，非門而入。」阿難承命，從鑰隙入，禮僧已畢，退而復坐。是時安居初十五日也。

After the de­mise of the King of the Dharma hu­man and heav­enly be­ings lost their guide, and vari­ous great ar­hats also entered nir­vana. At that time Mahākāśyapa con­sidered that the Dharmapiṭaka should be col­lec­ted in obed­i­ence to the Buddha’s teach­ings. So he as­cen­ded Mount Sumeru, shuck a big bell, and made an an­nounce­ment, say­ing, “A Dharma event is to be con­duc­ted in the city of Rā­jagṛha. All those who have at­tained saint­hood should promptly as­semble!” Kāśyapa’s sum­mons was car­ried by the sound of the bell to all the three-thou­sand great chiliocosms,and, on hear­ing the sum­mons, all those who had ac­quired su­per­nat­ural powers came to the as­sembly. At that time Kāśyapa told the con­greg­a­tion, “The Tathāgata has entered nir­vana and the world is now empty. We should col­lect the Dharma piṭaka in or­der to re­pay the Buddha’s kind­ness. Only a se­lect num­ber of people may take part in col­lect­ing the Dharma, so that they may work in peace. We should not flock into a crowd and up­set this sub­lime task. Only su­per­ior people who pos­sess the three kinds of know­ledge and the six su­per­nat­ural powers, who have heard and prac­ticed what is not er­ro­neous, and who are elo­quent without hindrance are in­vited to take part in the col­lec­tion, while those who have more to learn should re­turn to their re­spect­ive abodes.” A total of nine hun­dred and ninety-nine per­sons was se­lec­ted. Ān­anda was not in­cluded in the list, as he was still in the stage of learn­ing. Mahākāśyapa called to him and said, “Be­cause you have not be­come spir­itu­ally per­fect it is fit­ting for you to leave the holy as­sembly.” [Ān­anda] said, “I at­ten­ded the Tathāgata for many con­sec­ut­ive years. Whenever there was a dis­cus­sion on the Dharma I never missed it. Now I am not al­lowed to take part in the task of col­lect­ing the Dharma. The King of the Dharma has entered nir­vana and I have lost what I re­lied on.” Kāśyapa told him, “Do not be vexed! It is true that you have been the Buddha’s per­sonal at­tend­ant and heard most of his ut­ter­ances, but you are not free from the de­lu­sion of pas­sion and your bonds of ha­bitual il­lu­sion have not yet been cut off.” Ān­anda was tongue-tied and de­par­ted. He went to a sol­it­ary place, de­sir­ing to gain the per­fect stage of hav­ing noth­ing more to leant. Al­though he worked hard he could not real­ize his am­bi­tion. Feel­ing tired, he went to take a nap and at the mo­ment just be­fore his head touched the pil­low he in­stantly at­tained ar­hat­ship. He re­turned to the as­sembly hall and knocked at the door to an­nounce his ar­rival. Kāśyapa in­quired, “Have you cleared off all your bonds? You should be able to util­ize your su­per­nat­ural powers and come in without open­ing the door.” Ac­cord­ingly, Ān­anda entered through the key­hole. After pay­ing homage to the monks he with­drew and re­sumed his seat. This event oc­curred on the first full-moon day of the sum­mer re­treat.

[0922c22] 於是迦葉揚言曰：「念哉諦聽！阿難聞持，如來稱讚，集素呾纜(舊曰修多羅，訛也)藏。優波釐持律明究，眾所知識，集毘奈耶(舊曰毘那耶，訛也)藏。我迦葉波集阿毘達磨藏。」兩三月盡，集三藏訖。以大迦葉僧中上座，因而謂之上座部焉。

Then Kāśyapa made a de­clar­a­tion, “Please listen to me at­tent­ively: Ān­anda was praised by the Tathāgata for his all-around know­ledge—let him col­lect the Sutra piṭaka. Up­āli is well known to all for his clear un­der­stand­ing of the mon­astic rules—let him col­lect the Vinaya piṭaka. And I, Kāśyapa, shall col­lect the Ab­hid­harma piṭaka.” When the three months of the rainy sea­son came to an end the col­lec­tion of the Tripiṭaka was com­pleted. Be­cause Mahākāśyapa was the elder among the monks and presided over the as­sembly, it be­came known as the As­sembly of the Elder.

[0922c28] 大迦葉波結集西北，有窣堵波，是阿難受僧訶責，不預結集，至此宴坐，證羅漢果。證果之後，方乃預焉。

To the north­w­est of the place where Mahākāśyapa col­lec­ted the Tripiṭaka is the spot where Ān­anda came and sat in med­it­a­tion and at­tained ar­hat­ship after he had been cri­ti­cized by the monks and not al­lowed to take part in the gath­er­ing. He was per­mit­ted to join in the work after real­iz­ing saint­hood.

[0923a02] 阿難證果西行二十餘里，有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，大眾部結集之處。諸學、無學數百千人，不預大迦葉結集之眾，而來至此，更相謂曰：「如來在世，同一師學，法王寂滅，簡異我曹。欲報佛恩，當集法藏。」於是凡、聖咸會，賢智畢萃，復集素呾纜藏、毘柰耶藏、阿毘達磨藏、雜集藏、禁呪藏，別為五藏。而此結集，凡、聖同會，因而謂之大眾部。

More than twenty li to the north­w­est of the spot where Ān­anda at­tained saint­hood is a stupa con­struc­ted by King Aśoka at the place where the great as­sembly of monks made their col­lec­tion of the Buddha’s teach­ings. Hun­dreds and thou­sands of ar­hats and or­din­ary monks, who were not ad­mit­ted to the as­sembly headed by Mahākāśyapa, gathered here. They said among them­selves, “When the Tathāgata was liv­ing in the world we all stud­ied un­der one teacher. Now that the King of the Dharma has entered nir­vana we have been dis­crim­in­ated against. In or­der to re­pay the Buddha’s kind­ness we should col­lect the Dharma piṭaka. ” So the or­din­ary and saintly monks gathered to­gether and sages and wise people joined the meet­ing. They col­lec­ted the Sutra piṭaka, the Vinaya piṭaka, the Ab­hid­harma piṭaka, the Mis­cel­laneous piṭaka, and the Dhāraṇī piṭaka as a sep­ar­ate five­fold piṭaka. Be­cause this col­lec­tion was done by both or­din­ary and saintly monks in the as­sembly, it is called the Col­lec­tion of the Great Con­greg­a­tion.

[0923a10] 竹林精舍北行二百餘步，至迦蘭陀池，如來在昔多此說法。水既清澄，具八功德，佛涅槃後，枯涸無餘。[0923a13] 迦蘭陀池西北行二三里，有窣堵波，無憂王所建也，高六十餘尺。傍有石柱，刻記立窣堵波事，高五十餘尺，上作象形。

Go­ing north for more than two hun­dred paces from Bam­boo Temple I reached Kalandaka Pool. Formerly the Tathāgata preached the Dharma at this place. The wa­ter was clear and clean and pos­sessed the eight vir­tues. After the Buddha’s nir­vana the pool dried up com­pletely. Two or three li to the north­w­est of Kalandaka Pool is a stupa built by King Aśoka, more than sixty feet high. Be­side it is a stone pil­lar carved with an in­scrip­tion nar­rat­ing the events of stupa’s con­struc­tion, which is more than fifty feet tall and has the fig­ure of an ele­phant on top.

[0923a16] 石柱東北不遠，至曷羅闍姞利呬城(唐言王舍)。外郭已壞，無復遺堵，內城雖毀，基址猶峻，周二十餘里，面有一門。

Not far to the north­east of the stone pil­lar is the city of Rā­jagṛha (known in Chinese as Wang­she, “Royal House”). The outer walls have been des­troyed and there is no trace of them left; the in­ner walls, though ruined, still have found­a­tions of some height. It is more than twenty li in cir­cuit with a gate on each side.

[0923a18] 初，頻毘娑羅王都在上宮城也，編戶之家頻遭火害。一家縱逸，四隣罹災，防火不暇，資產廢業，眾庶嗟怨，不安其居。王曰：「我以不德，下民罹患，修何德可以禳之？」群臣曰：「大王德化邕穆，政教明察，今茲細民不謹，致此火災，宜制嚴科，以清後犯，若有火起，窮究先發，罰其首惡，遷之寒林。寒林者，棄屍之所，俗謂不祥之地，人絕遊往之迹。今遷於彼，同夫棄屍。既恥陋居，當自謹護。」王曰：「善，宜遍宣告居。」

After King Bimbisāra made the city of Kuśā­grapura his cap­ital the re­gistered in­hab­it­ants fre­quently suffered the calam­ity of fire. If one fam­ily was care­less the neigh­bors on all four sides would also be in­volved in the dis­aster. The people were busily en­gaged in pre­vent­ing fires and had no leis­ure to man­age their prop­er­ties. So they har­bored a grudge about the situ­ation and lived un­eas­ily in their abodes. The king said, “It is due to my lack of vir­tue that my sub­jects suf­fer ad­versit­ies. What mer­it­ori­ous deeds should I do to avert their mis­for­tune?” His min­is­ters said, “O Great King! You rule over the coun­try with mild vir­tue and mag­nan­im­ity, and your gov­ernance and edu­ca­tion are bril­liant and dis­cern­ing. Be­cause the fires are caused by the im­prudence of the humble people, a strict law should be pro­claimed to pre­vent fu­ture ac­ci­dents. Whenever a fire oc­curs the one who has caused the ac­ci­dent should be thor­oughly in­vest­ig­ated and the chief of­fender should be pun­ished by ex­ile to a śītavana, a place in which corpses are dis­posed. Such places are re­garded by the people as in­aus­pi­cious so no one would wil­ingly visit them. After someone has been ban­ished to a śītavana he will be [like] noth­ing other than a dis­carded corpse. The people will be more cau­tious and pro­tect them­selves in or­der to avoid liv­ing in such a shame­ful spot.” The king said, “Good! Make an an­nounce­ment to no­tify all the in­hab­it­ants.”

頃之，王宮中先自失火。謂諸臣曰：「我其遷矣。」乃命太子監攝留事，欲清國憲，故遷居焉。時吠舍釐王聞頻毘娑羅王野處寒林，整集戎旅，欲襲不虞。邊候以聞，乃建城邑。以王先舍於此，故稱王舍城也。官屬、士、庶咸徙家焉。[0923b04] 或云：至未生怨王乃築此城，未生怨太子既嗣王位，因遂都之。逮無憂王遷都波吒釐城，以王舍城施婆羅門，故今城中無復凡民，唯婆羅門減千家耳。

Soon after the palace it­self caught fire and the king said to his min­is­ters, “I must move my lodgings.” He ordered the prince to act as re­gent to at­tend to state af­fairs and for the sake of up­hold­ing the im­par­ti­al­ity of the na­tional law he made up his mind to go live [in the cemetery]. At that time, hear­ing that King Bimbisāra was liv­ing in a cemetery in the wil­der­ness, the king of Vaiśālī mustered his troops and made ready to launch a sur­prise at­tack. Ac­cord­ing to in­form­a­tion sent back by his fron­tier guards, a city had been built [at the cemetery], called the City of the Royal House, and the king had moved there. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and com­mon people had also moved to live in the new city. It is also said that this city was built at the time of King Ajātaśatru. When Prince Ajātaśatru as­cen­ded the throne he made this city his cap­ital, but after King Aśoka moved the cap­ital to Pāṭali­putra he gave Rā­jagṛha to the brah­mans. Hence there are no or­din­ary in­hab­it­ants in this city, only less than a thou­sand brah­man fam­il­ies.

[0923b09] 宮城西南隅有二小伽藍，諸國客僧往來此止，是佛昔日說法之所。次此西北有窣堵波，珠底色迦(唐言星曆。舊曰樹提伽，訛也)長者本生故里。

At the south­w­est corner of the palace city there are two small mon­as­ter­ies where guest monks from dif­fer­ent coun­tries may make stay in the course of their travels. This was a place where the Buddha once preached the Dharma. Fur­ther to the north­w­est is a stupa built at the nat­ive place of Elder Jyotiṣka (known in Chinese as Xingli, “Heav­enly Body,” formerly mis­tran­scribed as Shutijia). On the left side of the road out­side the south gate of the city is a stupa at the spot where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma and or­dained Rāhula.

[0923b12] 城南門外，道左有窣堵波，如來於此說法及度羅怙羅。從此北行三十餘里，至那爛陀(唐言施無厭)僧伽藍。聞之耆舊曰：此伽藍南菴沒羅林中有池，其龍名那爛陀，傍建伽藍，因取為稱。從其實議，是如來在昔修菩薩行，為大國王，建都此地，悲愍眾生，好樂周給，時美其德，號施無厭，由是伽藍因以為稱。其地本菴沒羅園，五百商人以十億金錢買以施佛，佛於此處三月說法，諸商人等亦證聖果。[0923b21] 佛涅槃後未久，此國先王鑠迦羅阿逸多(唐言帝日)，敬重一乘，遵崇三寶，式占福地，建此伽藍。初興功也，穿傷龍身，時有善占尼乾外道，見而記曰：「斯勝地也，建立伽藍，當必昌盛，為五印度之軌則，逾千載而彌隆，後進學人易以成業，然多歐血，傷龍故也。」

From here go­ing north for more than thirty li, I reached Nālandā Mon­as­tery (known in Chinese as Shi­wuyan, “In­sa­ti­able in Alms­giv­ing”). I heard some old people say that in the mango grove to the south of the mon­as­tery there was a pond where a dragon named Nālandā lived, hence the name of the mon­as­tery built be­side the pond. In facts, when the Tathāgata was prac­ti­cing bod­hisat­tva deeds in a former life he was a great king who foun­ded his cap­ital at this place. Be­cause he had com­pas­sion for liv­ing be­ings and took de­light in alms­giv­ing, the people called him “In­sa­ti­able in Alms­giv­ing” in praise of his vir­tue, and this mon­as­tery was named after this ap­pel­la­tion. The land for build­ing the mon­as­tery was ori­gin­ally a mango grove; five hun­dred mer­chants pur­chased it with ten koṭis of gold coins and presen­ted it to the Buddha. The Buddha preached the Dharma at this place for three months and thereupon the mer­chants at­tained saint­hood. Not long after the Buddha’s nir­vana, Sakrāditya (known as Tiri, “Sun of In­dra,” in Chinese), a former king of this coun­try, who es­teemed the One Vehicle and honored the Triple Gem, se­lec­ted this pro­pi­tious spot by divin­a­tion and con­struc­ted the mon­as­tery here. When the con­struc­tion work began the dragon’s body was pierced, and a nir­grantha (na­ked Jain as­cetic) who was a good di­viner saw this and pre­dicted, “This is a pro­pi­tious site. The mon­as­tery built on it will cer­tainly be pros­per­ous and be­come the stand­ard for all the five parts of In­dia. It will con­tinue to thrive for more than a thou­sand years. Stu­dents of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions in this mon­as­tery will eas­ily gain achieve­ments in their stud­ies but most of them will spit blood, be­cause the dragon has been in­jured.”

其子佛陀毱多王(唐言覺護)，繼體承統，聿遵勝業，次此之南，又建伽藍。呾他揭多毱多王(唐言如來)，篤修前緒，次此之東，又建伽藍。婆羅阿迭多(唐言幼日)王之嗣位也，次此東北，又建伽藍。功成事畢，福會稱慶，輸誠幽顯，延請凡聖。其會也，五印度僧萬里雲集，眾坐已定，二僧後至，引上第三重閣。或有問曰：「王將設會，先請凡聖，大德何方，最後而至？」曰：「我至那國也，和上嬰疹，飯已方行，受王遠請，故來赴會。」問者驚駭°，遽以白王。王心知聖也，躬往問焉，遲上重閣，莫知所去。王更深信，捨國出家。出家既已，位居僧末，心常怏怏，懷不自安：「我昔為王，尊居最上；今者出家，卑在眾末。」尋往白僧，自述情事。於是眾僧和合，令未受戒者以年齒為次，故此伽藍獨有斯制。

Sakrāditya’s son, King Buddhag­upta (known as Juehu, “Buddha-pro­tec­ted,” in Chinese), suc­ceeded to the throne to con­tinue the good works and built an­other mon­as­tery to the south of the ori­ginal one. King Tathāgatagupta (known as Rulai, “Thus-come,” in Chinese) earn­estly fol­lowed the ex­ample of his pre­de­cessors and built an­other mon­as­tery to the east. After as­cend­ing the throne, King Bālāditya (known as Youri, “Morn­ing Sun”) built a fourth one to the north­east. After the con­struc­tion work was com­pleted a fest­ive meet­ing was held to cel­eb­rate the oc­ca­sion, at which both prom­in­ent and ob­scure per­sons were en­ter­tained with sin­cer­ity and holy as well as or­din­ary monks were in­vited. Monks from the five parts of In­dia traveled long dis­tances to at­tend the meet­ing. Two monks ar­rived late, after all the par­ti­cipants had been seated, and they were led to the third story. Someone asked them, “When the king pre­pared the feast he first sent in­vit­a­tions to the holy and or­din­ary monks. Why have you two vir­tu­ous ones ar­rived so late, and where have you come from?” They said, “We come from China. Be­cause our teacher is ill we served him his meal be­fore we star­ted the jour­ney. But we were in­vited by the king and we have come to at­tend the meet­ing from a great dis­tance.” The in­quirer was sur­prised to hear this and promptly made a re­port to the king, who, know­ing that the two monks were saints, went in per­son to greet them. He ar­rived at the stor­ied pa­vil­ion too late, how­ever, and the two monks had already gone some­where un­known to the oth­ers. The king’s faith was deepened and he even­tu­ally re­lin­quished the mon­archy to be­come a home­less monk. After he be­came a monk he was the low­est in rank in the com­munity of monks and this made him un­happy and dis­con­ten­ted. He thought, “When I was a king I used to oc­cupy the up­per­most po­s­i­tion but now as a monk I am re­leg­ated to a humble po­s­i­tion be­hind all the other monks.” He went to tell the monks how he felt, and they then called a meet­ing and made a rule that those who were not yet fully or­dained could es­tab­lish their seni­or­ity ac­cord­ing to age, which be­came a tra­di­tion pe­cu­liar to this mon­as­tery.

其王之子代闍羅(唐言金剛)，嗣位之後，信心貞固，復於此西建立伽藍。其後中印度王此北復建大伽藍。於是周垣峻峙，同為一門，既歷代君王繼世興建，窮諸剞劂，誠壯觀也。[0923c17] 帝曰本大伽藍者，今置佛像，眾中日差四十僧就此而食，以報施主之恩。僧徒數千，並俊才高學也，德重當時，聲馳異域者，數百餘矣。戒行清白，律儀淳粹，僧有嚴制，眾咸貞素，印度諸國皆仰則焉。請益談玄，竭日不足，夙夜警誡，少長相成，其有不談三藏幽旨者，則形影自愧矣。故異域學人欲馳聲問，咸來稽疑，方流雅譽。是以竊名而遊，咸得禮重。殊方異域欲入談議，門者詰難，多屈而還；學深今古，乃得入焉。於是客遊後進，詳論藝能，其退飛者固十七八矣。二三博物，眾中次詰，莫不挫其銳、頹其名。若其高才博物，強識多能，明德哲人，聯暉繼軌。至如護法、護月，振芳塵於遺教；德慧、堅慧，流雅譽於當時；光友之清論；勝友之高談；智月則風鑒明敏；戒賢乃至德幽邃。若此上人，眾所知識，德隆先達，學貫舊章，述作論釋各十數部，並盛流通，見珍當世。

This king’s son, Vajra (known as Jingang, “Dia­mond,” in Chinese), was a man of firm faith. After his suc­ces­sion to the throne he built a mon­as­tery to the west. Later, a king of Cent­ral In­dia built an­other great mon­as­tery to the north and con­struc­ted a lofty en­clos­ure with one gate for all the mon­as­ter­ies. Be­cause the en­tire com­plex was con­struc­ted by kings of suc­cess­ive dyn­asties, the build­ings were erec­ted by the most ex­quis­itely skilled car­penters, em­ploy­ing such tools as bur­ins and curved chisels to make the ar­chi­tec­tural com­plex a really mag­ni­fi­cent sight. In the great mon­as­tery built by King Sakrāditya there is an im­age of the Buddha. Forty monks are as­signed to take their meal every day in this mon­as­tery in honor of the alms­givers’ kind­ness. There are sev­eral thou­sand monks, all of whom are bril­liant schol­ars of high learn­ing; those whose vir­tue is es­teemed by their con­tem­por­ar­ies and whose repu­ta­tion is known in for­eign lands num­ber in the sev­eral hun­dreds. They are pure in ob­serving the mon­astic reg­u­la­tions and fault­less in con­duct ac­cord­ing to the Vinaya rules. The monks have strict re­stric­tions and they are all chaste and spot­less, so that they are looked up to as ex­em­plars in the vari­ous coun­tries in In­dia. They al­ways ask for more in­struc­tions and de­lib­er­ate on the ab­struse the­or­ies in­cess­antly all day long. They ad­mon­ish each other day and night and ex­tend mu­tual help between old and young. Any­one who did not en­gage in dis­cus­sion of the pro­found teach­ings of the Tripiṭaka would be ashamed of them­selves. Thus for­eign schol­ars who wish to win fame come here to cla­rify the du­bi­ous points they found in their learn­ing be­fore they can join the ranks of the well-re­puted. Some travel about cit­ing the name of this mon­as­tery to fraud­u­lently gain honor and con­sid­er­a­tion. Most of the people from dif­fer­ent re­gions and coun­tries who de­sire to enter this mon­as­tery to hold dis­cus­sions are barred from en­ter­ing the es­tab­lish­ment after a pre­lim­in­ary in­ter­rog­a­tion by the gate­keeper. Only those who are well versed in both an­cient and con­tem­por­ary learn­ing can gain ad­mit­tance. The vis­it­ing stu­dents carry on de­bates with the res­id­ent monks but seven or eight out of ten flee in de­feat. The re­main­ing two or three learned schol­ars may also be de­flated of their ar­rog­ance since then repu­ta­tion can be dam­aged by ques­tions raised later by the res­id­ent monks. Highly tal­en­ted and ver­sat­ile sages en­dowed with re­tent­ive memory and good vir­tue main­tain the glory of the mon­as­tery and fol­low in the wake of their pre­de­cessors. Dharmapāla and Can­drag­upta, who won their fame in the scope of the be­queathed teach­ings of the Buddha; Guṇam­ati and Sthiram­ati, whose good re­pute is well known even today; Prab­hāmitra, skilled in the­or­et­ical dis­cus­sion; Viśeṣamitra, flu­ent in el­ev­ated con­ver­sa­tion; Jñān­acandra of el­eg­ant de­meanor and per­spic­a­cious dis­cern­ment; and Sīlabhadra of sub­lime vir­tue and pro­found in­sight—all were men of su­preme qual­ity, well known to all, whose vir­tu­ous deeds ex­celled those of their fore­run­ners. They are well versed in an­cient learn­ing, each hav­ing com­posed more than ten widely pop­u­lar treat­ises that are highly val­ued even today.

伽藍四周，聖迹百數，舉其二三，可略言矣。

The sac­red traces around the mon­as­tery are coun­ted by the hun­dreds, of which I shall cite just two or three as brief ex­amples.

[0924a08] 伽藍西不遠有精舍，在昔如來三月止此，為諸天、人廣說妙法。南百餘步小窣堵波，遠方比丘見佛處。昔有比丘自遠方來，至此遇見如來聖眾，內發敬心，五體投地，便即發願求輪王位。如來見已，告諸眾曰：「彼比丘者甚可愍惜。福德深遠，信心堅固，若求佛果，不久當證。今其發願求轉輪王，於當來世必受此報。身體投地下至金輪，其中所有微塵之數，一一塵是一輪王報也。既耽世樂，聖果斯遠。」

Not far to the west of the mon­as­tery is a temple where the Tathāgata once stayed for three months and spoke ex­tens­ively on the won­der­ful Dharma for vari­ous devas and people. More than a hun­dred paces to the south is a small stupa at the place where a bhikṣu com­ing from a dis­tance saw the Buddha. Once a bhikṣu ap­proached from a dis­tance and met the Tathāgata and the holy monks at this place. With a mind of ven­er­a­tion, the bhikṣu pros­trated him­self [be­fore the Tathāgata] and wished to be a uni­ver­sal mon­arch. See­ing him the Tathāgata told the as­sembly of monks, “This bhikṣu is very pi­ti­ful. He is a man of great bliss and deep vir­tue with a mind of firm faith, and he would have real­ized buddha­hood very soon if he had aimed at [that goal]. But he wishes only to be­come a uni­ver­sal mon­arch and he will surely get the re­ward in his fu­ture lives and be a uni­ver­sal mon­arch for as many life­times as [there are] atoms of dust from the place wher he now pros­trates down to the gold wheel be­neath the earth. Be­cause of his ad­dic­tion to worldly pleas­ure he is far re­moved from the real­iz­a­tion of saint­hood.”

其南則有觀自在菩薩立像。或見執香爐往佛精舍，周旋°右繞。[0924a19] 觀自在菩薩像南窣堵波中，有如來三月之間剃剪髮、爪。有嬰疾病，旋°繞多愈。其西垣外池側窣堵波，是外道執雀於此問佛死生之事。次東南垣內五十餘步，有奇樹，高八九尺，其幹兩披，

To the south is a stand­ing statue of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. Some­times it has been seen pro­ceed­ing to the Buddha’s temple and cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing it to the right with a censer in its hand. In the stupa to the south of the statue of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva are kept hair and fin­ger­nail [relic]s of the Buddha, shaven and clipped over a three-month period. Sick people are of­ten cured of their ill­nesses by cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing the stupa. The stupa be­side the tank at the out­side of the west wall of the en­clos­ure was the place where a heretic, hold­ing a small bird in his hand, asked the Buddha about the prob­lem of life and death. More than fifty paces fur­ther to the south­east, in­side the en­clos­ure, is an ex­traordin­ary tree, eight or nine feet high with two branches.

在昔如來嚼楊枝棄地，因植根柢，歲月雖久，初無增減。次東大精舍，高二百餘尺，如來在昔於此四月說諸妙法。次北百餘步精舍中，有觀自在菩薩像，淨信之徒興供養者所見不同，莫定其所，或立門側，或出簷前，諸國法俗咸來供養。[0924a29] 觀自在菩薩精舍北有大精舍，高三百餘尺，婆羅阿迭多王之所建也，莊嚴度量及中佛像，同菩提樹下大精舍。其東北窣堵波，在昔如來於此七日演說妙法。西北則有過去四佛坐處。其南鍮石精舍，戒日王之所建立，功雖未畢，然其圖量十丈而後成之。次東二百餘步垣外，有銅立佛像，高八十餘尺，重閣六層，乃得彌覆，昔滿胄王之所作也。

The Tathāgata once chewed a piece of wil­low twig [to clean his teeth] and threw the used twig to the ground, where it took root and grew into this tree. Al­though a long time has passed the branches never in­crease or de­crease in num­ber. Next, to the east is a great temple more than two hun­dred feet in height. The Tathāgata once spoke on vari­ous won­der­ful Dharmas at this place for four months. More than one hun­dred paces fur­ther to the north is a temple in which is en­shrined an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. When pure de­votees come to make of­fer­ings they see it at vari­ous places, either stand­ing be­side the gate or un­der the eaves out­side the temple, as it has no fixed po­s­i­tion. Both monks and laypeo- ple from dif­fer­ent coun­tries come to make of­fer­ings to the im­age. To the north of the temple of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva is a great temple, more than three hun­dred feet high, built by King Bālāditya. Its size and or­na­ment­a­tion and the Buddha’s im­age within are sim­ilar to those of the great temple at the bodhi tree. The stupa to the north­east is the place where the Tathāgata once ex­pounded the won­der­ful Dharma for seven days, while to the north­w­est is a sit­ting place of the four past buddhas. To the south is Brass Temple, con­struc­ted by King Sīlāditya, though the work is un­fin­ished. Ac­cord­ing to the draw­ing of the build­ing when com­pleted it will be one hun­dred feet in height. Fur­ther to the east, more than two hun­dred paces out­side the en­clos­ure, is a cop­per im­age of the Buddha in the stand­ing pos­ture, over eighty feet tall and sheltered by a pa­vil­ion as high as six stor­ies. It was made by King Pūrṇav­ar­man in olden times.

[0924b09] 滿胄王銅佛像北二三里，甎精舍中，有多羅菩薩像。其量既高，其靈甚察。每歲元日，盛興供養，隣境國王、大臣、豪族，齎妙香花，持寶旛蓋，金石遞奏，絲竹相和，七日之中，建斯法會。其垣南門內有大井。昔在佛世，有大商侶，熱渴逼迫，來至佛所。世尊指其地，以可得水。商主乃以車軸築地，地既為陷，水遂泉涌。飲已聞法，皆悟聖果。

Two or three li north of the cop­per im­age of the Buddha made by King Pūrṇav­ar­man is a brick temple in which is en­shrined an im­age of Tārā Bod­hisat­tva, tall in size with an ob­vi­ous spir­itual mani­fest­a­tion. Pro­fuse of­fer­ings are made to the im­age every New Year’s Day and the kings, min­is­ters, and wealthy people of neigh­bor­ing re­gions, hold­ing fra­grant in­cense and flowers as well as pre­cious can­op­ies and para­sols, come to join the seven-day ce­re­mony per­formed amid the har­mo­ni­ous mu­sic of bells, stone chimes, and string and wind in­stru­ments. In­side the south gate of the en­clos­ure is a large well. Formerly when the Buddha was liv­ing in the world a group of mer­chants who were suf­fer­ing from heat and thirst came to this place and the World- honored One poin­ted at the earth and said that wa­ter might be ob­tained there. The lord of the mer­chants dug into the ground with the axle of a cart and wa­ter gushed out from the de­pres­sion in the earth. All those who drank the wa­ter and heard the Dharma be­came en­lightened and at­tained saint­hood.

[0924b17] 伽藍西南行八九里，至拘理迦邑，中有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也，是尊者沒特伽羅子本生故里。傍有窣堵波，尊者於此入無餘涅槃，其中則有遺身舍利。尊者，大婆羅門種，與舍利子少為親友。舍利子以才明見貴，尊者以精鑒延譽，才智相比，動止必俱，結要終始，契同去就，相與厭俗，共求捨家，遂師珊闍耶焉。舍利子遇馬勝阿羅漢，聞法悟聖，還為尊者重述，聞而悟法，遂證初果。與其徒二百五十人俱到佛所，世尊遙見，指告眾曰：「彼來者，我弟子中神足第一。」既至佛所，請入法中。世尊告曰：「善來，比丘，淨修梵行，得離苦際。」聞是語時，鬚髮落，俗裳變，戒品淨，威儀調順。經七日，結漏盡，證羅漢果，得神通力。

Go­ing south­w­est for eight or nine li from the mon­as­tery I reached the town of Ko­lika, in which there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. This was the birth­place of Ven­er­able Maudgalaputra. Be­side it is an­other stupa built at the spot where the ven­er­able monk entered fi­nal nir­vana; his relic bones were en­tombed in it. Maudgalaputra was born into a great brah­man fam­ily and was a close friend of Sāri­putra since their youth. Sāri­putra was noted for his bril­liant tal­ent, while Ven­er­able Maudgalaputra was re­puted for his fine dis­cern­ment. They were equals in genius and wis­dom and were al­ways to­gether, whether trav­el­ing or stay­ing at a place, hav­ing forged a lifelong friend­ship, and they vowed to take sim­ilar ac­tions in their activ­it­ies. Both of them grew dis­gus­ted with the world and re­nounced their homes to­gether, serving Sañ­jaya as their teacher. When Sāri­putra met with the ar­hat Aśvajit he heard the Dharma from the lat­ter and at­tained saint­hood. He im­me­di­ately re­peated what he had heard from the ar­hat to Ven­er­able Maudgalaputra, who upon hear­ing the Dharma be­came en­lightened and real­ized the first stage of saint­hood. Maudgalaputra came to the place of the Buddha with his two hun­dred and fifty dis­ciples. When the World-honored One saw him from a dis­tance he poin­ted at the new­comer and told the as­sembly of monks, “That per­son com­ing from over there will be­come the dis­ciple most not­able for his mi­ra­cu­lous powers.” After ar­riv­ing at the Buddha’s place Maudgalaputra re­ques­ted that he be ad­mit­ted into the broth­er­hood of the Dharma. The World-honored One replied to him, “Wel­come, bhikṣu! By liv­ing a pure life you will be free from the bond­age of suf­fer­ing.” At the sound of these words Maudgalaputra’s beard and hair fell off and his sec­u­lar gar­ments changed. He ob­served the dis­cip­lin­ary rules in a pure man­ner and be­haved in the proper way. After seven days he be­came free from the bond­age of re­birth, at­tained ar­hat­ship, and gained mi­ra­cu­lous powers.

[0924c03] 沒特伽羅子故里東行三四里，有窣堵波，頻毘娑羅王迎見佛處。如來初證佛果，知摩揭陀國人心渴仰，受頻毘娑羅王請，於晨朝時，著衣持鉢，與千比丘左右圍繞，皆是耆舊螺髻梵志，慕法染衣，前後羽從，入王舍城。時帝釋天王變為摩那婆，首冠螺髻，左手執金瓶，右手持寶杖，足蹈空虛，離地四指，在大眾中前導佛路。時摩揭陀國頻毘娑羅王與其國內諸婆羅門、長者、居士，百千萬眾，前後導從，出王舍城奉迎聖眾。

Three or four li to the east of the Maudgalaputra’s birth­place is a stupa at the spot where King Bimbisāra wel­comed the Buddha. After the Tathāgata first real­ized buddha­hood he sensed that the people of Magadha longed to meet him. At King Bimbisāra’s in­vit­a­tion he dressed him­self prop­erly, took up his alms­bowl one morn­ing, and went to the city of Rā­jagṛha ac­com­pan­ied by a thou­sand bhikṣus. These bhikṣus had formerly been brah­mans who wore their hair in the shape of a conch on the top of their heads but in ad­mir­a­tion of the Dharma they had donned the dyed robes to fol­low the Buddha. At that time In­dra trans­formed him­self into a māṇava (a young brah­man) wear­ing a top­knot in the shape of a conch; he held a golden vase in his left hand, car­ried a pre­cious staff in his right hand, and walked in the air four fin­gers’ [height] above the ground, lead­ing the way for the Buddha among the con­greg­a­tion. King Bimbisāra of the coun­try of Magadha, to­gether with the brah­mans, eld­ers, and laypeople of his coun­try, hun­dreds and thou­sands in num­ber, came out of the city of Rā­jagṛha to greet the group of holy monks.

頻毘娑羅王迎佛東南行二十餘里，至迦羅臂拏迦邑，中有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。是尊者舍利子本生故里，井今尚在。傍有窣堵波，尊者於此寂滅，其中則有遺身舍利。

Go­ing south­east for more than twenty li from the place where King Bimbisāra wel­comed the Buddha, I reached the town of Kālap­ināka, in which there is a stupa built by King Aśoka. This was the birth­place of Ven­er­able Sāri­putra. The well is still in ex­ist­enceand be­side it is a stupa built at the spot where the ven­er­able monk entered nir­vana;d his relic bones are pre­served in the stupa.

[0924c17] 尊者，大婆羅門種。其父高才博識，深鑒精微，凡諸典籍莫不究習。其妻感夢，具告夫曰：「吾昨宵寐，夢感異人，身被鎧甲，手執金剛，摧破諸山，退立一山之下。」夫曰：「夢甚善。汝當生男，達學貫世，摧諸論師，破其宗致，唯不如一人，為作弟子。」果而有娠，母忽聰明，高論劇談，言無屈滯。尊者年始八歲，名擅四方，其性淳質，其心慈悲，朽壞結縛，成就智慧。與沒特伽羅子少而相友，深厭塵俗，未有所歸，於是與沒特伽羅子於珊闍耶外道所而修習焉。乃相謂曰：「斯非究竟之理，未能窮苦際也。各求明導，先嘗甘露，必同其味。」

Ven­er­able Sāri­putra was born in a great brah­man’s fam­ily. His father was a highly tal­en­ted scholar of ex­tens­ive know­ledge, with deep in­sight into what was subtle and ab­struse and well read in vari­ous texts. His wife once had a dream and told it to her hus­band, say­ing, “Last night I had a dream in which I saw a strange man clad in ar­mor hold­ing a dia­mond club in his hand. He de­mol­ished all the moun­tains, ex­cept the one by which he calmly stood.” Her hus­band said, “It is a good dream. You will give birth to a son who will be a learned scholar in the world and de­feat all śāstra mas­ters and re­fute their the­or­ies. He will be in­ferior to only one per­son and will be­come that per­son’s dis­ciple.” In the course of her preg­nancy the wo­man sud­denly be­came wise and in­tel­li­gent and could carry on a dis­cus­sion elo­quently without fal­ter­ing in her speech. When Ven­er­able Sāri­putra was eight years old his name spread far to the four quar­ters. He was hon­est and guile­less by nature and had a mind of com­pas­sion. He des­troyed the bond­age of re­birth and achieved wis­dom. He was Maudgalaputra’s friend since their youth. They de­tested the world but did not know where to take refuge. So they went to the place of the heretic Sañ­jaya for spir­itual prac­tice and cul­tiv­a­tion, but they told each other, “What we are learn­ing here is not the ul­ti­mate truth; it can­not free us from the scope of suf­fer­ing. We should each go by a [dif­fer­ent] route to seek a bril­liant teacher. Whichever of us tastes the sweet dew first must tell the other so that he may also en­joy it.”

時大阿羅漢馬勝執持應器，入城乞食。舍利子見其威儀閑雅，即而問曰：「汝師是誰？」曰：「釋種太子厭世出家，成等正覺。是我師也。」舍利子曰：「所說何法，可得聞乎？」曰：「我初受教，未達深義。」舍利子曰：「願說所聞。」馬勝乃隨宜演說，舍利子聞已，即證初果。遂與其徒二百五十人往詣佛所，世尊遙見，指告眾曰：「我弟子中智慧第一。」至已頂禮，願從佛法。世尊告曰：「善來，比丘。」聞是語時，戒品具足。過半月後，聞佛為長爪梵志說法，聞餘論而感悟，遂證羅漢之果。

At that time the ar­hat Aśvajit, alms­bowl in hand, was go­ing to the city on alms­round. See­ing that he was peace­ful and el­eg­ant in de­meanor, Śāri­putra asked him, “Who is your teacher?” [Aśvajit replied,] “The prince of the Śākya clan who, weary of the world, re­nounced his home and achieved full en­light­en­ment, is my teacher.” Śāri­putra said, “What Dharma did he preach? Can I hear of it?” [Aśvajit said,] “I have just star­ted re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tions and I have not yet mastered the pro­found teach­ings.” Śāri­putra said, “Please tell me just as much as you have heard.” Aśvajit then ex­pounded the Dharma as was suit­able for the oc­ca­sion. On hear­ing the Dharma Śāri­putra at­tained the first stage of saint­hood and, to­gether with his two hun­dred and fifty dis­ciples, he came to the place of the Buddha. When the World-honored One saw him from a dis­tance he poin­ted at him and told the as­sembly of monks, “[That per­son] will be the fore­most in wis­dom among all my dis­ciples.” Śāri­putra sa­luted the Buddha and wished to fol­low the buddha-dharma. The World-honored One said to him, “Wel­come, bhikṣu!” Hear­ing these words, Śāri­putra be­came a fully or­dained monk and half a month later, when he heard the Buddha preach­ing the Dharma to the long-nailed brah­man, he be­came en­lightened and real­ized ar­hat­ship.

其後阿難承佛告寂滅期，展轉相語，各懷悲感，舍利子深增戀仰，不忍見佛入般涅槃，遂請世尊，先入寂滅。世尊告曰：「宜知是時。」告謝門人，至本生里，侍者沙彌遍告城邑。未生怨王及其國人莫不風馳，皆悉雲會。舍利子廣為說法，聞已而去。於後夜分，正意繫心，入滅盡定，從定起已而寂滅焉。

Later, when Ān­anda heard about the time of the Buddha’s [ap­proach­ing] nir­vana, he spread the news to many people, who were ag­grieved and saddened. Śāri­putra too was deeply saddened by the news. He could not bear the idea of the Buddha en­ter­ing nir­vana so he asked per­mis­sion of the World-honored One to al­low him to die first. The World-honored One told him, “You should know that this is the right time for you to do so.” [Śāri­putra] then de­par­ted from his dis­ciples and re­turned to his nat­ive place. His at­tend­ant śrāmaṇera in­formed the in­hab­it­ants in the city and the towns of Śāri­putra’s in­ten­tion. King Ajātaśatru and the people of his coun­try came in a great hurry and as­sembled to­gether like clouds. Śāri­putra ex­pounded the Dharma ex­tens­ively for them and, after hear­ing the Dharma, the audi­ence dis­persed. Late in the night he con­cen­trated his mind and entered the samādhi of com­plete ces­sa­tion of sen­sa­tion and per­cep­tion. When he came out of the samādhi he passed into nir­vana.

[0925a19] 迦羅臂挐迦邑東南四五里，有窣堵波，是尊者舍利子門人入涅槃處。或曰：迦葉波佛在世時，有三拘胝(拘胝者，唐言億)大阿羅漢同於此地無餘寂滅。

Four or five li to the south­east of the town of Kālap­ināka is a stupa at the place where the dis­ciples of Ven­er­able Śāri­putra entered nir­vana. It is also said that at the time of Kāśyapa Buddha the great ar­hat Trikoṭi (koṭi mean­ing “one hun­dred mil­lion” in Chinese) entered fi­nal nir­vana at this same place.

[0925a23] 舍利子門人窣堵波東行三十餘里，至因陀羅勢羅窶訶山(唐言帝釋窟)。其山巖谷杳冥，花林蓊欝，嶺有兩峯，岌然特起。西峯南巖間有大石室，廣而不高，昔如來嘗於中止。時時天帝釋以四十二疑事畫石請問，佛為演釋，其迹猶在。今作此像，擬昔聖儀，入中禮敬者，莫不肅然驚懼。山巖上有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。東峯上有伽藍，聞諸土俗曰：其中僧眾，或於夜分，望見西峯石室佛像前每有燈炬，常為照燭。

Go­ing to the east for more than thirty li from the stupa of Śāri­putra’s dis­ciples, I reached In­draśail­aguhā Moun­tain (known as Dishiku, “In­dra’s Cave,” in Chinese). The moun­tain val­leys are deep and quiet, with ex­uber­ant flowers and trees. There are two prom­in­ent peaks on the moun­tain’s sum­mit. On the south cliff of the west peak is a large cave, wide but not high, where formerly the Tathāgata of­ten stayed. In those days In­dra carved marks on the rock con­cern­ing forty-two du­bi­ous points about which he in­quired of the Buddham, who gave him ex­plan­a­tions. The marks are still there. The present im­age [in the cave] was made in im­it­a­tion of the pos­ture of the Buddha as he was on that oc­ca­sion. All of those who entered the cave to wor­ship the im­age was in­spired with a feel­ing of awe and ven­er­a­tion. On the crag of the moun­tain are sites where the four past buddhas sat and walked back and forth. On the east peak is a mon­as­tery. The local people say that at night the monks of this mon­as­tery of­ten see lamps and candles burn­ing brightly be­fore the im­age in the cave on the east peak.

[0925b04] 因陀羅勢羅窶訶山東峯伽藍前有窣堵波，謂亘(許贈反)娑(唐言雁)。昔此伽藍習翫小乘，小乘漸教也，故開三淨之食，而此伽藍遵而不墜。其後三淨求不時獲。有比丘經行，忽見群雁飛翔，戲言曰：「今日眾僧中食不充，摩訶薩埵宜知是時。」言聲未絕，一雁退飛，當其僧前，投身自殞。比丘見已，具白眾僧，聞者悲感，咸相謂曰：「如來設法，導誘隨機；我等守愚，遵行漸教。大乘者，正理也，宜改先執，務從聖旨。此雁垂誡，誠為明導，宜旌厚德，傳記終古。」於是建窣堵波，式昭遺烈，以彼死雁瘞其下焉。

In front of the mon­as­tery on the east peak of In­draśail­aguhā Moun­tain is a stupa named Hamsa (“Wild Goose”). The monks of this mon­as­tery once prac­ticed the Hinay­ana teach­ings. Be­cause these are gradual teach­ings, the monks were al­lowed to eat the three kinds of pure meat and this habit per­sisted Later, after the three kinds of pure meat had be­come un­ob­tain­able, a bhikṣu, while tak­ing a walk, saw a flock of wild geese fly­ing over­head. He said in jest, “Today the monks are run­ning short of food for theft mid­day meal. The Mahāsat­tva should know that this is the right time [to make a sac­ri­fice]!” Be­fore he had fin­ished speak­ing one of the wild geese flew back and dropped dead on the ground in front of the monk. See­ing this in­cid­ent, the bhikṣu re­lated it to all the monks, who were sad to hear it and said among them­selves, “The Tathāgata preached the Dharma ac­cord­ing to the fac­ulty of un­der­stand­ing of those in the audi­ence, in or­der to guide and in­duce them to en­light­en­ment. We have been stu­pidly fol­low­ing the gradual teach­ings. The Ma­hay­ana ten­ets are the right prin­ciples and we should cor­rect our former be­ha­vior and fol­low the holy teach­ings. This wild goose is our clever guide and it came to ad­mon­ish us. Its great vir­tue should be glor­i­fied and the event trans­mit­ted to pos­ter­ity.” Thus a stupa was built in memory of its spirit of sac­ri­fice, and the dead goose was bur­ied un­der it.

[0925b16] 因陀羅勢羅窶訶山東北行百五六十里，至迦布德迦(唐言鴿)伽藍，僧徒二百餘人，學說一切有部。伽藍東有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。昔佛於此為諸大眾一宿說法。時有羅者於此林中網捕羽族，一日不獲，遂作是言：「我惟薄福，恒為弊事。」來至佛所，揚言唱曰：「今日如來於此說法，令我網捕都無所得，妻孥飢餓，其計安出？」如來告曰：「汝應蘊火，當與汝食。」如來是時化作大鴿，投火而死，羅者持歸，妻孥共食。其後重往佛所，如來方便攝化，羅者聞法，悔過自新，捨家修學，便證聖果。因名所建為鴿伽藍。

Go­ing north­east for one hun­dred and fifty or sixty li from In­draśail­aguhā Moun­tain, I reached Ka­po­taka (“Pi­geon”) Mon­as­tery where more than two hun­dred monks lived; they study the teach­ings of the Sar­vāstivāda school. To the east of the mon­as­tery is a stupa built by King Aśoka. The Buddha once preached the Dharma to the monks at this place for an en­tire night. Mean­while a bird catcher was catch­ing some of the feathered tribe with a net in the wood but he failed to get any birds for a whole day. He said, “I lack good for­tune and whatever I do is al­ways ad­verse for me.” He came to the place of the Buddha and de­clared, “Today the Tathāgata is preach­ing the Dharma here and I am un­able to catch any birds with my net. What should I do to feed my starving wife and chil­dren?” The Tathāgata told him, “Build a fire! I shall give you food.” The Tathāgata then took the form of a pi­geon and burned him­self to death in the fire. The bird catcher took the dead pi­geon home and ate it with his wife and chil­dren. Later, he re­turned to the place of tile Buddha, who con­ver­ted him in an ap­pro­pri­ate way. On hear­ing the Dharma the bird catcher re­pen­ted of his mis­deeds, made a fresh start in life by re­lin­quish­ing his home for spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion, and real­ized saint­hood. Thus the mon­as­tery con­struc­ted at this place was named Pi­geon Mon­as­tery.

[0925b29] 迦布德迦伽藍南二三里，至孤山。其山崇峻，樹林欝茂，名花清流，被崖緣壑。上多精舍靈廟，頗極剞劂之工。正中精舍有觀自在菩薩像，軀量雖小，威神感肅，手執蓮花，頂戴佛像。常有數人，斷食要心，求見菩薩，七日、二七日、乃至一月，其有感者，見觀自在菩薩，妙相莊嚴，威光赫奕，從像中出，慰喻其人。

Two or three li to the south of Ka­po­taka Mon­as­tery is an isol­ated hill that is tall and pre­cip­it­ous, covered by splen­did flowers, with lux­uri­ant trees and clear streams. On the hill there are many beau­ti­fully con­struc­ted temples and shrines with most ex­quis­ite carvings and en­grav­ings. In the cent­ral temple an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva is en­shrined; it is small in size but au­gust and mys­tical in spir­itual mani­fest­a­tion. The fig­ure holds a lo­tus flower in one hand and has a small statuette on its fore­head. Some people once fas­ted and prayed earn­estly for seven days, a fort­night, or even one month here, wish­ing to see the bod­hisat­tva in per­son. Someone who had gained spir­itual in­flu­ence saw [Avalokiteśvara] Bod­hisat­tva, a majestic and stately fig­ure with a bright ra­di­ance, come out of the im­age to give him com­fort and ad­vice.

昔南海僧伽羅國王清旦以鏡照面，不見其身，乃覩贍部洲°摩揭陀國多羅林中小山上有此菩薩像，王深感慶，圖以營求。既至此山，寔唯肖似，因建精舍，興諸供養。自後諸王尚想遺風，遂於其側建立精舍靈廟，香花伎樂供養不絕。

In former times, the king of the coun­try of Siṃhala in the South Sea looked in Iris mir­ror one morn­ing but he did not see his own re­flec­tion, and in­stead saw the im­age of this bod­hisat­tva in a wood of tala trees on a small hill in the coun­try of Magadha in Jam­bud­vīpa. Deeply de­lighted, the king set out to seek the im­age. When he came to this hill he found that the im­age here was sim­ilar to the one he had seen in his mir­ror, so he built the temple and made vari­ous of­fer­ings to the im­age. The kings of later times fol­lowed his ex­ample and built more temples and shrines be­side it; of­fer­ings of in­cense, flowers, and mu­sic were made in­cess­antly.

[0925c12] 孤山觀自在菩薩像東南行四十餘里，至一伽藍，僧徒五十餘人，並學小乘法教。伽藍前有大窣堵波，多有靈異，佛昔於此為梵天王等七日說法。其側則有過去三佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

Go­ing south­east for more than forty li from the im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva on the isol­ated hill, I reached a mon­as­tery with more than fifty monks, all of whom stud­ied the Hinay­ana teach­ings. In front of the mon­as­tery is a great stupa that re­vealed mi­ra­cu­lous signs many times. Formerly the Buddha preached the Dharma to Brahmā and oth­ers at this place for seven days. Be­side it are ru­ins where the three past buddhas sat and walked back and forth.

[0925c17] 伽藍東北行七十餘里，殑伽河南，至大聚落，人民殷盛，有數天祠，並窮彫飾。東南不遠有大窣堵波，佛昔於此一宿說法。

Go­ing north­east for more than sev­enty li from the mon­as­tery I reached a big vil­lage south of the Ganges River, with a dense pop­u­la­tion of pros­per­ous vil­la­gers. There are sev­eral deva temples, all beau­ti­fully ad­orned with en­grav­ings. Not far to the south­east is a great stupa at the place where the Buddha once preached the Dharma for one night.

[0925c19] 從此東入山林中，行百餘里，至落般膩羅聚落。伽藍前有大窣堵波，無憂王之所建，佛昔於此三月說法。此北二三里有大池，周三十餘里，四色蓮花四時開發。

Go­ing east from here through moun­tains and forests for over one hun­dred li, I reached Lāvaṇīla Vil­lage. The great stupa in front of the mon­as­tery here was built by King Aśoka. The Buddha once preached the Dharma here for three months. Two or three li to the north of this place is a large lake more than thirty li in cir­cuit with lo­tus flowers in four col­ors bloom­ing all four sea­sons of the year.

從此東入大山林中，行二百餘里，至伊爛拏鉢伐多國(中印度境)。

Go­ing east from here through great moun­tains and forests for more than two hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Īraṇa­par­vata (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

大唐西域記卷第九

End of Fas­cicle IX of The Great Tang Dyn­asty Re­cord of the West­ern Re­gions

++

大唐西域記卷第十(十七國)

Fas­cicle X: Sev­en­teen Coun­tries, from Īraṇa­par­vata to Malakūṭa

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

大總持寺沙門辯機撰

伊爛拏鉢伐多國

1. The Coun­try of Īraṇa­par­vata

瞻波國

2. The Coun­try of Campā

羯朱嗢祇羅國

3. The Coun­try of Ka­jaṅgala

奔那伐彈那國

4. The Coun­try of Puṇdrav­ard­hana

迦摩縷波國

5. The Coun­try of Kā­marūpa

三摩呾吒國

6. The Coun­try of Samataṭa

耽摩栗底國

7. The Coun­try of Tām­raliptī

羯羅拏蘇伐剌那國

8. The Coun­try of Karṇas­uvarṇa

烏荼國

9. The Coun­try of Uda

恭御陀國

10. The Coun­try of Koṅ­goda

羯[飢‒几+夌](力甑反)伽國

11. The Coun­try of Kaliṅga

憍薩羅國

12. The Coun­try of Kos­ala

案達羅國

13. The Coun­try of Andhra

馱那羯磔迦國

14. The Coun­try of Dhānakaṭaka

珠利耶國

15. The Coun­try of Cola

達羅毘荼國

16. The Coun­try of Dravida

秣羅矩吒國

17. The Coun­try of Malakūṭa

[0926a15] 伊爛拏鉢伐多國，周三千餘里。國大都城北臨殑伽河，周二十餘里。稼穡滋植，花菓具繁。氣序和暢，風俗淳質。伽藍十餘所，僧徒四千餘人，多學小乘正量部法。天祠二十餘所，異道雜居。近有隣王廢其國君，以大都城持施眾僧。於此城中建二伽藍，各減千僧，並學小乘教說一切有部。

The coun­try of Īraṇa­par­vata is more than three thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is more than twenty li in cir­cuit. Ag­ri­cul­ture is pros­per­ous, and both flowers and fruit thrive. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over four thou­sand monks, most of whom study the Dharma of the Hinay­ana Saṃmitīya school. There are more than twenty deva temples and heretics live to­gether. Re­cently the king of a neigh­bor­ing coun­try de­posed the ruler of this coun­try and presen­ted the cap­ital city as a gift to the monks. Two mon­as­ter­ies have been built in this city, with less than a thou­sand monks liv­ing in each; they study the Hinay­ana teach­ings of the Sar­vāstivāda school.

[0926a22] 大城側，臨殑伽河，有伊爛拏山，含吐烟霞，蔽虧日月，古今仙聖繼踵棲神，今有天祠尚遵遺則。在昔如來亦嘗居此，為諸天、人廣說妙法。大城南有窣堵波，如來於此三月說法。其傍則有過去三佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

Be­side the cap­ital city and near the Ganges River is Īraṇa Moun­tain, en­shrouded in mist and clouds, cast­ing the sun and moon into shade. Both an­cient and con­tem­por­ary an­chor­ites and holy per­sons come here one after an­other to prac­tice med­it­a­tion. Now there is a deva temple that still fol­lows the rules handed down from past gen­er­a­tions. The Tathāgata once also lived at this place and widely spoke on the won­der­ful Dharma for vari­ous devas and people. To the south of the cap­ital city is a stupa where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma for three months. Be­side the stupa are ru­ins where the three past buddhas sat and walked up and down.

[0926a28] 三佛經行西不遠，有窣堵波，是室縷多頻設底拘胝(唐言聞二百億。舊譯曰億耳，謬也)苾芻生處。昔此城有長者，豪貴巨富，晚有繼嗣，時有報者，輒賜金錢二百億，因名其子聞二百億。洎乎成立，未曾履地，故其足跖毛長尺餘，光潤細軟，色若黃金。珍愛此兒，備諸玩好，自其居家以至雪山，亭傳連隅，僮僕交路，凡須妙藥，遞相告語，轉而以授，曾不踰時，其豪富如此。

Not far to the west of the mins where the three buddhas walked up and down is a stupa built at the place where the bhikṣu Srutavimśatikoṭi (“Hear­ing Two Hun­dred [and Twenty?] Koṭi,” formerly mis­trans­lated as “Koṭi Ears”) was born. In the old days in this city there was an elder who was enorm­ously wealthy and power­ful. In his old age a son was born to him and when someone brought him the news he gave the mes­sen­ger two hun­dred koṭis of gold coins as a re­ward, so his son was named Two Hun­dred Koṭis on Hear­ing [the News]. When the child was grow­ing up his feet never touched the earth and thus hair grew out of his soles to a length of about one foot, soft, lus­trous, and golden in color. The child was dearly be­loved and all kinds of toys were provided for him. From his res­id­ence up to the Snow Moun­tains posts were set up in a chain, with pages and ser­vants sta­tioned all along the way. Whenever any good medi­cine was needed a mes­sage was passed on by the ser­vants to get the re­quired ma­ter­ial, which was then re­layed back through the posts in good time. Such was the wealth of this fam­ily.

世尊知其善根將發，也命沒特伽羅子而往化焉。既至門下，莫由自通。長者家祠日天，每晨朝時東向以拜。是時尊者以神通力，從日輪中降立於前。長者子疑日天也，因施香飯而歸，其飯香氣遍王舍城。時頻毘娑羅王駭其異馥，命使歷問，乃竹林精舍沒特伽羅子自長者家持來，因知長者子有此奇異，乃使召焉。長者承命，思何安步？泛舟鼓棹，有風°波°之危；乘車馭象°，懼蹶躓之患。於是自其居家，至王舍城，鑿渠通漕，流滿芥子，御舟安止，長縆以引。至王舍城，先禮世尊。世尊告曰：「頻毘娑羅王命使召汝，無過欲見足下毛耳。王欲觀者，宜結跏坐。伸脚向王，國法當死。」長者子受誨而往，引入廷謁。王欲視毛，乃跏趺坐，王善其有禮，特深珍愛。亦既得歸，還至佛所。如來是時說法誨喻，聞而感悟，遂即出家。於是精勤修習，思求果證，經行不捨，足遂流血。世尊告曰：「汝善男子，在家之時知鼓琴耶？」曰：「知。」「若然者，以此為喻。絃急則聲不合韻，絃緩則調不和雅，非急非緩，其聲乃和。夫修行者亦然。急則身疲心怠，緩則情舒志逸。」承佛指教，奉以周旋，如是不久，便獲果證。

The Tathāgata, know­ing that the good roots of the young man were about to sprout, in­st­mc­ted Maudgalaputra to con­vert him. But on ar­riv­ing at the gate of the elder’s house he had no pre­text for mak­ing an an­nounce­ment. Tthe mem­bers of the elder’s fam­ily were sun-wor­shipers and paid homage to­ward the east in the morn­ing every day. At that mo­ment, the ven­er­able monk, em­ploy­ing his su­per­nat­ural powers, des­cen­ded from the disk of the sun and stood be­fore them. As­sum­ing that [Maudgalaputra] was the sun god, the elder’s son offered him some fra­grant rice. The monk took the rice back home and its fra­grance per­meated the city of Rā­jagṛha. King Bimbisāra, sur­prised by the strange scent, ordered a mes­sen­ger to find out the cause, and it was dis­covered that it came from the rice brought back from the elder’s house by Maudgalaputra of Bam­boo Grove Temple. The king thus came to know that the elder’s son had such a mar­velous food­stuff and summoned him. On re­ceiv­ing the king’s or­der, the elder con­sidered what was the safe way for his son to go. There might be the danger of a storm if he sailed in a boat, and if he went in a cart or rid­ing an ele­phant the cart might be over­turned or the ele­phant might stumble. So the elder had a canal cut, lead­ing from his house up to the city of Rā­jagṛha, which was filled with mus­tard seeds and a boat was placed in the canal and towed by a long rope. [In this man­ner] the elder’s son reached the city of Rā­jagṛha. He first went to pay homage to the World-honored One, who told him, “King Bimbisāra summoned you be­cause he wished to see the hair grow­ing from the soles of your feet. When you sit you should cross your legs to al­low the king see the hair. Stretch­ing out one’s legs to­ward a king would in­cur the death pen­alty ac­cord­ing to the law of the coun­try.” With this in­struc­tion, the elder’s son left and when the king wished to see the hair [the young man] was ushered into his pres­ence. The young man sat down with crossed legs. The king was pleased by his proper etiquette and be­came deeply fond of him. On his way back home the young man went to the Buddha’s place again. The Tathāgata was preach­ing the Dharma for the edi­fic­a­tion of the listen­ers. Hear­ing the Dharma, the elder’s son was awakened and be­came a monk on the spot. He worked strenu­ously for spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion in or­der to achieve saint­hood. He walked up and down in med­it­a­tion so much that his feet bled. The World-honored One told him, “Good man, when you were a lay­man at home did you know how to play the zither?” “Yes,” he replied. “If that is so, I shall cite it in a par­able. When the strings [of a zither] are too tight the sound will not har­mon­ize well, but if they are too loose the sound will be in­har­mo­ni­ous and un­grace­ful. Only when the strings are neither too tight nor too loose can one pro­duce me­lodi­ous mu­sic. It is the same with spir­itual cul­tiv­a­tion. When you are too strenu­ous [in your prac­tice] you will be­come fa­tigued and dis­pir­ited, but if you are too re­laxed you will be­come slug­gish in dis­pos­i­tion and for­get your am­bi­tion.” [The young man] ac­cep­ted the Buddha’s ad­vice and wor­shiped him by cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ing him. Be­fore long he gained saint­hood.

[0926c02] 國西界殑伽河南，至小孤山，重巘嶜崟，昔佛於此三月安居，降薄句羅藥叉。山東南巖下大石上，有佛坐跡，入石寸餘，長五尺二寸，廣二尺一寸，其上則建窣堵波焉。次南石上則有佛置捃稚迦(即澡瓶也。舊曰軍持，訛略也)跡，深寸餘，作八出花文。佛坐跡東南不遠，有薄句羅藥叉脚跡，長尺五六寸，廣七八寸，深減二寸。藥叉跡後有石佛坐像，高六七尺。次西不遠有佛經行之處。其山頂上有藥叉故室。次北有佛足跡，長尺有八寸，廣餘六寸，深可半寸，其跡上有窣堵波。如來昔日降伏藥叉，令不殺人食肉，敬受佛戒，後得生天。此西有溫泉六七所，其水極熱。國南界大山林中多諸野象，其形偉大。

To the west side of the coun­try is the Ganges River. Pro­ceed­ing to the south from here, I reached a small isol­ated hill with lofty peaks. The Buddha once stayed here three months dur­ing the rainy sea­son and sub­jug­ated the yakṣa Bak­ula. On a big rock be­low the cliff south­east of the hill is the trace where the Buddha once sat. It is in­cised into the rock about one inch deep, and is five feet two inches long and two feet one inch wide. A stupa was built there. On a rock fur­ther to the south is the trace where the Buddha placed his kun­dikā (bathing wa­ter­pot). The trace is about one inch deep, in the pat­tern of an eight-petaled flower. Not far to the south­east of the trace of the Buddha’s seat is a foot­print of the yakṣa Bak­ula, one foot five or six inches long, seven or eight inches wide, and less than two inches deep. Be­hind the foot­print is a stone im­age of the seated Buddha, six or seven feet in height. Next, not far to the west is a place where the Buddha once walked up and down. At the top of the hill is the old cham­ber where the yakṣa once lived. Next, to the south is a foot­print of the Buddha, one foot eight inches long, more than six inches wide, and about half an inch deep. There is a stupa built over the foot­print. Formerly the Tathāgata sub­jug­ated the yakṣa and bade him not to kill people to eat their flesh. [The yakṣa] re­spect­fully ac­cep­ted the Buddha’s ad­mon­i­tion and was later re­born in heaven. West of here there are six or seven hot springs, the wa­ter of which is ex­tremely hot. In the moun­tains and forests in the south­ern part of the coun­try there are many wild ele­phants with enorm­ous bod­ies.

從此順殑伽河南岸東行三百餘里，至瞻波國(中印度境)。[0926c18] 瞻波國，周四千餘里。國大都城北背殑伽河，周四十餘里。土地墊濕，稼穡滋盛。氣序溫暑，風俗淳質。伽藍數十所，多有傾毀，僧徒二百餘人，習小乘教。天祠二十餘所，異道雜居。都城壘甎，其高數丈，基址崇峻，却敵高險。

From here go­ing east for more than three hun­dred li along the south­ern bank of the Ganges, I reached the coun­try of Campā (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia). The coun­try of Campā is over four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city, with the Ganges River flow­ing at its back in the north, is more than forty li in cir­cuit. The land is low and hu­mid and pro­duces rich crops. The cli­mate is mod­er­ately warm and the people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom. There are sev­eral score of mon­as­ter­ies, most of which are dilap­id­ated, and the monks, num­ber­ing over two hun­dred, study the Hinay­ana teach­ings. There are more than twenty deva temples and the heretics live to­gether. The city wall of the cap­ital was built with bricks to the height of sev­eral tens of feet. The found­a­tion of the wall is raised above the ground and de­fend­ers can re­pulse an en­emy from high and per­il­ous po­s­i­tions.

在昔劫初，人物伊始，野居穴處，未知宮室。後有天女，降迹人中，遊殑伽河，濯流自媚，感靈有娠，生四子焉。分贍部洲，各擅區宇，建都築邑，封畺畫界，此則一子之國都，贍部洲諸城之始也。

When hu­man be­ings first ap­peared in the world at the be­gin­ning of the kalpa, they lived in the wil­der­ness or in caves, as they did not know how to build palaces or houses. Later an apsara (fe­male heav­enly be­ing) des­cen­ded from the heav­ens and dwelled among hu­man­kind and, after bathing in the Ganges River with self-ad­mir­a­tion, she be­came preg­nant through spir­itual in­flu­ence and gave birth to four sons. They di­vided Jam­bud­vīpa, each oc­cupy­ing a dis­trict, built cap­ital cit­ies and es­tab­lished towns, and drew de­marc­a­tions over their ter­rit­or­ies. The city [of Campā] was the cap­ital of one of the four sons and it was the first city ever built in Jam­bud­vīpa.

城東百四五十里，殑伽河南，水環孤嶼，崖巘崇峻，上有天祠，神多靈感。鑿崖為室，引流成沼，花林奇樹，巨石危峯，仁智所居，觀者忘返。國南境山林中，野象猛獸群遊千數。

One hun­dred forty or fifty li to the east of the city is a sol­it­ary is­let with lofty peaks in the south­ern part of the Ganges. On top of a peak is a deva temple, where a deity of­ten gives spir­itual re­sponses to pray­ers. Caves are ex­cav­ated in the cliffs and wa­ter flows into ponds. There are flowery woods and exotic trees. With its huge rocks and per­il­ous peaks this is­let is the abode of wise and be­nign dwell­ers. It is so at­tract­ive that vis­it­ors some­times for­get to go home. There are thou­sands of wild ele­phants and other fierce an­im­als roam­ing about in packs in the moun­tains and jungles in the south­ern re­gion of the coun­try.

自此東行四百餘里，至羯朱嗢祇羅國(彼俗或謂羯蠅揭羅國。中印度境)。

From here go­ing east for more than four hun­dred li. I reached the coun­try of Ka­jaṅgala (the local name be­ing Kay­aṅgala, in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

[0927a04] 羯朱嗢祇羅國，周二千餘里。土地泉濕，稼穡豐盛，氣序溫，風俗順。敦尚高才，崇貴學藝。伽藍六七所，僧徒三百餘人。天祠十所，異道雜居。自數百年，王族絕嗣，役屬隣國，所以城郭丘墟，多居村邑。故戒日王遊東印度，於此築宮，理諸國務，至則葺茅為宇，去則縱火焚燒。國南境多野象。北境去殑伽河不遠，有大高臺，積壘甎石，而以建焉，基址廣峙，刻雕奇製，周其°方面鏤眾聖像，佛及天形區別而作。

The coun­try of Ka­jaṅgala is more than two thou­sand li in cir­cuit. The land, ir­rig­ated by sub­ter­ranean wa­ter, pro­duces rich crops. The cli­mate is hu­mid and the so­cial cus­toms are agree­able. Bril­liant tal­ent is highly val­ued and learn­ing is greatly es­teemed. There are six or seven mon­as­ter­ies with more than three hun­dred monks. There are ten deva temples and the heretics live to­gether. A few hun­dred years ago the royal clan died out and the coun­try fell un­der the con­trol of a neigh­bor­ing state. Thus the cap­ital city has been ly­ing in mins and most of the in­hab­it­ants live in vil­lages and towns. This is why when King Śīlāditya traveled to East In­dia, on his ar­rival he built a palace out of thatch for the man­age­ment of state af­fairs, and when he left the place he set a fire to burn down the thatched house. In the south­ern re­gion of the coun­try there are many wild ele­phants. In the north­ern re­gion, not far from the Ganges River, is a great high ter­race built out of bricks and stone. The found­a­tion of the ter­race is broad and tall and is ad­orned with ex­quis­ite en­grav­ings. All around the ter­race are carved statues of vari­ous holy per­sons, and the buddha im­ages are dif­fer­ent from the fig­ures of heav­enly be­ings.

自此東渡殑伽河，行六百餘里，至奔那伐彈那國(中印度境)。

From here cross­ing the Ganges to the east and after trav­el­ing for six hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Puṇdrav­ard­hana (in the do­main of Cent­ral In­dia).

[0927a15] 奔那伐彈那國，周四千餘里。國大都城周三十餘里。居人殷盛，池館花林往往相間。土地卑濕，稼穡滋茂。般核娑菓既多且貴，其菓大如冬瓜，熟則黃赤，剖之中有數十小菓，大如鶴卵，又更破之，其汁黃赤，其味甘美。或在樹枝，如眾菓之結實，或在樹根，若伏苓之在土。氣序調暢，風俗好學。伽藍二十餘所，僧徒三千餘人，大小二乘，兼功綜習。天祠百所，異道雜居，露形尼乾寔繁其黨。

The coun­try of Puṇdrav­ard­hana is more than four thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over thirty li in cir­cuit. The nu­mer­ous in­hab­it­ants are wealthy. Wa­ter tanks, gues­t­houses, and flowery woods are in­ter­spersed. The land is low and moist and crops are abund­ant. Bread­fruit is plen­ti­ful but nev­er­the­less ex­pens­ive. This fruit is as large as a white gourd and is yel­low­ish-red in color when ripe. When it is cut open one can see sev­eral tens of smal­ler fruits in­side, each as large as a crane’s egg. When cut the fruit oozes yel­low­ish-red juice with a sweet and de­li­cious taste. The fruit is borne on branches, just like other kinds of fruit, and it also grows on the roots of the tree, just as filling (Poria co­cos) does. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the people are fond of learn­ing by cus­tom. There are over twenty mon­as­ter­ies with more than three thou­sand monks, who study both the Ma­hay­ana and Hinay­ana teach­ings. Deva temples are one hun­dred in num­ber and the heretics live to­gether. There are nu­mer­ous na­ked nir­granthas.

[0927a25] 城西二十餘里有跋始婆僧伽藍。庭宇顯敞，臺閣崇高。僧徒七百餘人，並學大乘教法，東印度境碩學名僧多在於此。其側不遠有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。昔者如來三月在此為諸天、人說法之處，或至齋日，時燭光明。其側則有四佛坐及經行遺跡之所。去此不遠復有精舍，中作觀自在菩薩像，神鑒無隱，靈應有徵，遠近之人，絕粒祈請。

More than twenty li to the west of the cap­ital city is Vāśibhā Mon­as­tery, con­sist­ing of spa­cious court­yards and halls and lofty ter­races and pa­vil­ions. There are more than seven hun­dred monks, all of whom study the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. Most of the great schol­ars and renowned monks of East In­dia reside here. Not far from it is a stupa built by King Aśoka. In olden times the Tathāgata once preached the Dharma at this place to heav­enly and hu­man be­ings for three months and the stupa of­ten emits a bril­liant light on fast days. Be­side the stupa are traces where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down. Not far from here is a temple in which is en­shrined an im­age of Avalokiteśvara Bod­hisat­tva. Its di­vine in­flu­ence ex­tends to all without omis­sion and its spir­itual re­sponse is evid­ent. People come here from far and near to fast and say pray­ers.

自此東行九百餘里，渡大河，至迦摩縷波國(東印度境)。[0927b06] 迦°摩縷波國，周萬餘里。國大都城周三十餘里。土地泉濕，稼穡時播。般核娑菓、那羅雞羅菓，其樹雖多，彌復珍貴。河流湖陂，交帶城邑。氣序和暢，風俗淳質。人形卑小，容貌釐黑。語言少異中印度。性甚獷暴，志存強學。宗事天神，不信佛法。故自佛興以迄于今，尚未建立伽藍，招集僧侶。其有淨信之徒，但竊念而已。天祠數百，異道數萬。

From here go­ing east for more than nine hun­dred li, I crossed a large river and reached the coun­try of Kā­marūpa (in the do­main of East In­dia). The coun­try of Kā­marūpa is more than ten thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over thirty li in cir­cuit. The land is ir­rig­ated by sub­ter­ranean wa­ter and the seeds of crops are sown in the proper sea­sons. Bread­fruit and coconut are plen­ti­ful but they are nev­er­the­less ex­pens­ive. The towns and vil­lages are libnked by rivers and lakes. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the people are simple and hon­est by so­cial cus­tom. They are short in stature with dark com­plex­ions and their lan­guage dif­fers slightly from that of Cent­ral In­dia. They are very hot-tempered but rig­or­ous and di­li­gent in study. They wor­ship gods and do not be­lieve in the buddha-dharma. There­fore, since the rise of Buddhism up to the present day, no mon­as­tery has been built to host Buddhist monks and those who fol­low the pure faith do so in private. There are sev­eral hun­dred deva temples and sev­eral myri­ads of heretics.

[0927b14] 今王本那羅延天之祚胤，婆羅門之種也，字婆塞羯羅伐摩(唐言日胄)，號拘摩羅(唐言童子)。自據畺土，奕葉君臨，逮於今王，歷千世矣。君上好學，眾庶從化，遠方高才，慕義客遊，雖不淳信佛法，然敬高學沙門。初，聞有至那國沙門在摩揭陀那爛陀僧伽藍，自遠方來，學佛深法，殷勤往復者再三，未從來命。時尸羅跋陀羅論師曰：「欲報佛恩，當弘正法，子其行矣，勿憚遠涉。拘摩羅王世宗外道，今請沙門，斯善事也，因茲改轍，福利弘遠。子昔起廣大心，發弘誓，願孤遊異域，遺身求法，普濟含靈，豈徒鄉國？宜忘得喪，勿拘榮辱，宣揚聖教，開導群迷，先物後身，忘名弘法。」於是辭不獲免，遂與使偕行，而會見焉。

The reign­ing king, the off­spring of Nārāy­aṇa, is a brah­man by caste. He is named Bhās­kara­v­ar­man (‘‘Sun Ar­mor”), with the title of Kumāra (“Youth”). The royal fam­ily has oc­cu­pied the ter­rit­ory and ruled this coun­try from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Bhās­kara­v­ar­man is the one-thou­sandth mon­arch. He is fond of learn­ing and his sub­jects fol­low his ex­ample. People of high tal­ent, in ad­mir­a­tion of the king’s right­eous­ness, come from dis­tant places to visit him as guests. Al­though he does not earn­estly be­lieve in the buddha-dharma he treats learned monks with re­spect. The king, hav­ing heard that a Chinese monk had come from a great dis­tance to Nālandā Mon­as­tery in Magadha to study the pro­found Dharma of the Buddha, re­peatedly sent mes­sen­gers cor­di­ally to in­vite the Chinese monk but the monk did not ac­cept the in­vit­a­tion. At that time, the śāstra mas­ter Sīlabhadra said to him, “If you wish to re­pay the kind­ness of the Buddha you should dis­sem­in­ate the right Dharma. You should go to the king; do not fear the long jour­ney. King Kumāra pro­fesses the heretical re­li­gion by fam­ily tra­di­tion and it is good of him to in­vite a Buddhist monk. If he were to change his faith on ac­count of your visit it would be a great be­ne­fit with far-reach­ing in­flu­ence. You cher­ished a great mind and made a sol­emn vow to come to a for­eign land, all by your­self and at the risk of your own life, to seek the Dharma for the sal­va­tion of all liv­ing be­ings. Do you now think only of your home coun­try? For­get about gain and loss and do not care about honor or dis­grace when spread­ing the holy teach­ings and en­light­en­ing those who have gone astray. Con­sider oth­ers’ ad­vant­age be­fore you think of your­self, and for­get about your own fame in propagat­ing the right Dharma.” I was then ob­liged to go with the mes­sen­gers to meet the king.

拘摩羅王曰：「雖則不才，常慕高學，聞名雅尚，敢事延請。」曰：「寡能褊智，猥蒙流聽。」拘摩羅王曰：「善哉！慕法好學，顧身若浮，踰越重險，遠遊異域。斯則王化所由，國風尚學。今印度諸國多有歌頌摩訶至那國《秦王破陣樂》者，聞之久矣，豈大德之鄉國耶？」曰：「然，此歌者，美我君之德也。」拘摩羅王曰：「不意大德是此國人，常慕°風化，東望已久，山川道阻，無由自致。」曰：「我大君聖德遠洽，仁化遐被，殊俗異域拜闕稱臣者眾矣。」拘摩羅王曰：「覆載若斯，心冀朝貢。今戒日王在羯朱嗢祇羅國，將設大施，崇樹福慧，五印度沙門、婆羅門有學業者，莫不召集。今遣使來請，願與同行。」於是遂往焉。

King Kumāra said, “Al­though I am not a per­son of tal­ent,I al­ways pay re­spect to those who are learned. Hear­ing of your fame as a per­son of learn­ing and noble char­ac­ter, I ven­tured to ex­tend an in­vit­a­tion to you.” I said, “I am a per­son of little abil­ity and lack wis­dom. It is a great honor to me that my humble name has reached your ears.” King Kumāra said, “Ex­cel­lent! You ad­mired the Dharma and were fond of learn­ing, and you re­garded your body as noth­ing more than a float­ing cloud, trav­el­ing through dan­ger­ous places to a dis­tant for­eign coun­try. This was due to the edi­fic­a­tion of your king and the res­ult of the gen­eral mood of ad­voc­at­ing learn­ing in your coun­try. Now, in the vari­ous states of In­dia most people eu­lo­gize the Song of Tri­umph of the Prince of Qin in Mahācīna. I heard about this coun­try long ago; is it your home­land?” I said, “Yes. That song praises the vir­tues of our mon­arch [when he was the Prince of Qin].” King Ku­mara said, “I did not know that you were from that coun­try. I al­ways ad­mired the mor­als and man­ners of your coun­try and have looked to­ward the East for a long time but, as the way is blocked by moun­tains and rivers I have had no means by which to pay my re­spects.” I said, “The vir­tues of our great lord spread far and his be­ne­vol­ence ex­tends widely. Many people of dif­fer­ent re­gions with di­verse cus­toms and habits come to the im­per­ial palace to ac­know­ledge his su­zer­ainty.” King Kumāra said, “Since such is the case with many coun­tries in the world, I also wish to of­fer my trib­u­tary gifts. Now King Śīlāditya is go­ing to con­duct a great alms­giv­ing con­voc­a­tion in the coun­try of Kajuṅghira to achieve bliss and wis­dom. All Buddhist monks, brah­mans, and learned schol­ars from the five parts of In­dia are in­vited to take part in the meet­ing. A mes­sen­ger has come to in­vite me and I hope we can go to­gether.” Thus I went with him.

此國東山阜連接，無大國都，境接西南夷，故其人類蠻獠矣。詳問土俗，可兩月行，入蜀西南之境，然山川險阻，嶂氣氛沴，毒蛇毒草，為害滋甚。國之東南野象群暴，故此國中象軍特盛。

In the east­ern part of the coun­try [of Kā­marūpa] there is a chain of moun­tains and hills without a big city. It bor­ders on the ter­rit­ory of the Yi tribe in south­w­est [China]; the in­hab­it­ants are akin to the Man and Lao minor­it­ies. I made a de­tailed in­quiry to the local people, who told me that a jour­ney of about two months would take one into the south­w­est re­gion of the state of Shu [in China], but that the moun­tains and rivers were dif­fi­cult to pass, a mi­as­mal va­por per­meates the air, and pois­on­ous snakes and nox­ious plants would cause drastic harm. In the south­east part of the coun­try wild ele­phants trample about in herds, so the ele­phant-moun­ted troops of this counry are par­tic­u­larly strong.

從此南行千二三百里，至三摩呾吒國(東印度境)。[0927c20] 三摩呾吒國，周三千餘里。濱近大海，地遂卑濕。國大都城周二十餘里。稼穡滋植，花菓繁茂。氣序和，風俗順。人性剛烈，形卑色黑，好學勤勵，邪正兼信。伽藍三十餘所，僧徒二千餘人，並皆遵習上座部學。天祠百所，異道雜居，露形尼乾，其徒甚盛。去城不遠有窣堵波，無憂王之所建也。昔者如來為諸天、人於此七日說深妙法。傍有四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。去此不遠，伽藍中有青玉佛像，其高八尺，相好圓備，靈應時効。

Go­ing south from here for one thou­sand two hun­dred or three hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Samataṭa (in the do­main of East In­dia). The coun­try of Samataṭa is more than three thou­sand li in cir­cuit and be­cause it bor­ders on the sea the land is low and hu­mid. The cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. Crops grow pro­fusely and flowers and fruit are abund­ant. The cli­mate is pleas­ant and the so­cial cus­toms are agree­able. The people are up­right and un­yield­ing by nature. They are short in stature with dark com­plex­ions. They are fond of learn­ing and are di­li­gent of their own ac­cord. They be­lieve in both het­ero­dox faiths and the right re­li­gion. There are more than thirty mon­as­ter­ies with over two thou­sand monks, all of whom study the teach­ings of the Sthavira school. Deva temples are one hun­dred in num­ber and the heretics live to­gether. Na­ked nir­granthas are very nu­mer­ous. Not far from the cap­ital city is a stupa con­struc­ted by King Aśoka at the spot where the Tathāgata once preached the deep and won­der­ful Dharma to vari­ous hu­man and heav­enly be­ings for seven days. Be­side it are traces where the four past buddhas sat and walked back and forth. In a mon­as­tery not far from here is a green jade im­age of the Buddha, eight feet high, with all the per­fect fea­tures and which shows timely spir­itual re­sponses.

從此東北大海濱山谷中，有室利差呾羅國。次東南大海隅有迦摩浪迦國。次東有墮羅鉢底國。次東有伊賞那補羅國。次東有摩訶瞻波國，即此云林邑是也。次西南有閻摩那洲國。凡此六國，山川道阻，不入其境，然風俗壤，界聲聞可知。自三摩呾吒國西行九百餘里，至耽摩栗底國(東印度境)。

To the north­east, in the val­leys be­side the great sea, is the coun­try of Srikṣetra; farther to the south­east at the edge of the great sea is the coun­try of Kāmalaṅka; farther east is the coun­try of Dvārapatī; farther east is the coun­try of īśānapura; farther east is the coun­try of Mahācampā, which in our coun­try is known as Linyi; and farther to the south­w­est is the coun­try of Yaman­ad­vīpa. The routes to these six coun­tries are ob­struc­ted by moun­tains and rivers so I did not go into these ter­rit­or­ies, but I col­lec­ted in­form­a­tion about the peoples’ cus­toms and habits and the de­marc­a­tions of their lands.

[0928a08] 耽摩栗底國，周千四五百里。國大都城周十餘里。濱近海垂，土地卑濕。稼穡時播，花菓茂盛。氣序溫暑，風俗躁烈。人性剛勇，邪正兼信。伽藍十餘所，僧眾千餘人。天祠五十餘所，異道雜居。國濱海隅，水陸交會，奇珍異寶，多聚此國，故其國人大抵殷富。城側窣堵波，無憂王所建也。其傍則有過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。

From the coun­try of Samataṭa go­ing west for more than nine hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Tām­raliptī (in the do­main of East In­dia). The coun­try of Tām­raliptī is one thou­sand and four or five hun­dred li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over ten li in cir­cuit. Be­cause it is situ­ated near the sea the land is low and moist. Crops are planted in the proper sea­sons and flowers and fruit are plen­ti­ful. The cli­mate is mild and warm. The people are hot-tempered by cus­tom and bold and cour­ageous by nature. They be­lieve in both het­ero­dox re­li­gions and the cor­rect one. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over one thou­sand monks. Deva temples are over fifty in num­ber and heretics live to­gether. The coun­try bor­ders on a bay and is a cen­ter of com­merce by land and wa­ter. Rare and pre­cious goods are col­lec­ted here so the in­hab­it­ants are gen­er­ally wealthy and pros­per­ous. The stupa be­side the city was built by King Aśoka. Next to it are traces where the four past buddhas sat and walked back and forth.

自此西北行七百餘里，至羯羅拏蘇伐剌那國(東印度境)。[0928a17] 羯羅拏蘇伐剌那國，周四千四五百里。國大都城周二十餘里。居人殷盛，家室富饒。土地下濕，稼穡時播，眾花滋茂，珍菓繁植。氣序調暢，風俗淳和。好尚學藝，邪正兼信。伽藍十餘所，僧徒二千餘人，習學小乘正量部法。天祠五十餘所，異道寔多。別有三伽藍，不食乳酪，遵提婆達多遺訓也。

From here go­ing north­w­est for more than seven hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Karṇas­uvarṇa (in the do­main of East In­dia). The coun­try of Karṇa- suvarṇa is four thou­sand four hun­dred or five hun­dred li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The in­hab­it­ants are wealthy and their fam­il­ies are wealthy and pros­per­ous. The land is low and moist and crops are planted in the proper sea­sons. Dif­fer­ent kinds of flowers are abund­ant and there is a mul­ti­tude of pre­cious fruit. The cli­mate is mild and pleas­ant and the cus­toms are hon­est and peace­ful. The people are fond of learn­ing and crafts­man­ship and they be­lieve in het­ero­dox re­li­gions as well as the cor­rect one. There are more than ten mon­as­ter­ies with over two thou­sand monks, who study the Hinay­ana teach­ings of the Sarn­mitīya school. Deva temples are over fifty in num­ber and the heretics are quite nu­mer­ous. In three other mon­as­ter­ies milk curd is not taken as food, in ac­cord­ance with the teach­ing of Devad­atta.

[0928a24] 大城側有絡多未知僧伽藍(唐言赤泥)。庭宇顯敞，臺閣崇峻。國中高才達學、聰敏有聞者，咸集其中，警誡相成，琢磨道德。初，此國未信佛法時，南印度有一外道，腹錮銅鍱，首戴明炬，杖策高步，來入此城，振擊論鼓，求欲談議。或者問曰：「首腹何異？」曰：「吾學藝多能，恐腹拆裂；悲諸愚闇，所以持照。」時經旬日，人無問者，詢訪髦彥，莫有異人。王曰：「合境之內，豈無明哲？客難不酬，為國深恥。宜更營求，訪諸幽隱。」或曰：「大林中有異人，其自稱曰沙門，強學是務，今屏居幽寂，久矣于茲，非夫體法合德，何能若此者乎？」王聞之，躬往請焉。沙門對曰：「我，南印度人也，客遊止此，學業膚淺，恐黜所聞。敢承來旨，不復固辭。論議無負，請建伽藍，招集僧徒，光讚佛法。」王曰：「敬聞，不敢忘德。」

Be­side the cap­ital city is Rak­tamṛt­tikā (“Red Clay”) Mon­as­tery, whose spa­cious court­yards and houses are note­worthy, with lofty and sub­lime ter­races and pa­vil­ions. All the tal­en­ted and learned schol­ars and in­tel­li­gent and well- in­formed people have as­sembled here in this mon­as­tery to help each other in the cul­tiv­a­tion of mor­al­ity. At first, be­fore the buddha-dharma was pro­fessed in this coun­try, a heretic of South In­dia, wear­ing a cop­per belt around his waist, with a lamp on his head, and hold­ing a staff in his hand, walked proudly into the city, beat­ing the drum of con­ten­tion and de­mand­ing a de­bate. Someone asked him, “Why do your head and torso look so strange?” The heretic said, “Be­cause my belly is so full of know­ledge I fear it may burst at any mo­ment! Out of pity for those who are in the dark­ness of ig­nor­ance I wear a lamp for their il­lu­min­a­tion.” After ten days had passsed no one had ac­cep­ted the chal­lenge, and there was no suit­able per­son even among the most tal­en­ted schol­ars. The king said, “How is it pos­sible that there is no bril­liant scholar to be found in the whole coun­try? It will be a deep shame upon the na­tion if the guest’s ques­tions are not answered. We should seek a com­pet­ent scholar among the her­mits liv­ing in se­clu­sion.” Someone said, “In the great forest there is a strange man, claim­ing to be a śramaṇa, who has earn­estly en­gaged him­self in study in se­clu­sion for a long time. If he has not been prac­ti­cing the right Dharma in ac­cord­ance with mor­al­ity, how could he live in such a man­ner?” Hear­ing this, the king went in per­son to in­vite the śramaṇa. The śramaṇa said, “I am a nat­ive of South In­dia and in the course of my travels I have come to stay in this place. Be­ing a per­son of shal­low learn­ing I fear that I am not as good as you have heard. I am honored by your in­vit­a­tion, how­ever, sp I will not in­sist­ently de­cline it. If I am not de­feated in the de­bate I re­quest that you build a mon­as­tery and sum­mon monks to glor­ify the buddha-dharma.” The king said, “I have heard your words with re­spect and I will not for­get your vir­tue.”

沙門受請，往赴論場。外道於是誦其宗致，三萬餘言。其義遠，其文約，苞含名相，網羅視聽。沙門一聞究覽，辭義無謬，以數百言，辯而釋之，因問宗致。外道辭窮理屈，杜口不酬。既折其名，負恥而退。王深敬德，建此伽藍，自時厥後，方弘法教。

At the king’s in­vit­a­tion the śramaṇa went to the place of dis­cus­sion, where the heretic pro­claimed his the­or­ies in thirty thou­sand words with deep mean­ings ex­pounded in a con­cise man­ner, in­clud­ing all the names and sub­stances of vis­ible and aud­ible ob­jects in the world. Hav­ing heard the ex­pos­i­tion only once, the śramaṇa grasped the es­sence of the state­ments without mis­un­der­stand­ing and re­futed them in a few hun­dred words. Then he pro­posed his own the­or­ies and the heretic, dumb­foun­ded, was at his wits’ end and could not ut­ter a word in reply. Frus­trated, the heretic re­tired in shame. With deep re­spect for the śramaṇa, the king built this mon­as­tery and after that the buddha-dharma began to be spread in this coun­try.

[0928b17] 伽藍側不遠有窣堵波，無憂王所建也，在昔如來於此七日說法開導。其側精舍，過去四佛坐及經行遺迹之所。有數窣堵波，並是如來說法之處，無憂王之所建也。

Not far from the mon­as­tery is a stupa built by King Aśoka. The Tathāgata once preached the Dharma at this spot for seven days to en­lighten the audi­ence. Be­side it is a temple and there are traces where the four past buddhas sat and walked up and down, as well as some more stu­pas, all built by King Aśoka to mark spots where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma.

從此西南行七百餘里，至烏荼國(東印度境)。[0928b22] 烏荼國，周七千餘里。國大都城周二十餘里。土地膏腴，穀稼茂盛，凡諸菓實，頗大諸國，異草名花，難以稱述。氣序溫暑，風俗獷烈。人貌魁梧，容色釐黮。言辭風調，異中印度。好學不倦，多信佛法，伽藍百餘所，僧徒萬餘人，並皆習學大乘法教。天祠五十所，異道雜居。諸窣堵波凡十餘所，並是如來說法之處，無憂王之所建也。

Go­ing south­w­est from here for more than seven hun­dred li, I reached the coun­try of Uda (in the do­main of East In­dia). The coun­try of Uda is more than seven thou­sand li in cir­cuit and its cap­ital city is over twenty li in cir­cuit. The land is fer­tile and the crops are abund­ant, with all kinds of fruit that is big­ger in size than that of other coun­tries. Mar­velous plants and fam­ous flowers are so rich in vari­ety that I can­not give a full de­scrip­tion. The cli­mate is tem­per­ate and the cus­toms are tough and in­trepid. The people are stal­wart in stature with dark com­plex­ions. Their lan­guage and man­ners dif­fer from those in Cent­ral In­dia. They are tire­lessly fond of learn­ing and most of them be­lieve in the buddha-dharma. There are more than a hun­dred mon­as­ter­ies with over ten thou­sand monks, all of whom study the Ma­hay­ana teach­ings. Deva temples are fifty in num­ber and the heretics live to­gether. There are over ten stu­pas built by King Aśoka at dif­fer­ent places to mark the spots where the Tathāgata preached the Dharma.

[0928c01] 國西南境大山中，有補澁波祇釐僧伽藍，其石窣堵波極多靈異，或至齋日，時燭光明。故諸淨信，遠近咸會，持妙花蓋，競修供養。承露盤下，覆鉢勢上，以花蓋笴，置之便住，若礠石之吸針也。此西北山伽藍中有窣堵波，所異同前。此二窣堵波者，神鬼所建，靈奇若斯。

Among the big moun­tains in the south­w­est part of the coun­try is Puṣpa­giri Mon­as­tery. The stone stupa of this mon­as­tery shows many spir­itual signs and on fast days it of­ten emits a bril­liant light. Pure be­liev­ers come here from far and near to of­fer gar­lands of flowers in com­pet­i­tion with each other. If the handle of a can­opy is placed un­der the dew basin or on the main struc­ture of the stupa to re­semble the shape of an in­ver­ted alms­bowl, the can­opy will stick to the stupa, just as a needle is at­trac­ted by a mag­net. The stupa in an­other mon­as­tery in the moun­tains to the north­w­est of this one shows the same strange phe­nomenon. It is be­cause these two stu­pas were built by deit­ies and spir­its that they pos­sess such won­der­ful mani­fest­a­tions.

[0928c08] 國東南境臨大海濱，有折利呾羅城(唐言發行)。周二十餘里，入海商人、遠方旅客，往來中止之路也。其城堅峻，多諸奇寶。城外鱗次有五伽藍，臺閣崇高，尊像工麗。南去僧伽羅國二萬餘里，靜夜遙望，見彼國佛牙窣堵波上寶珠光明。離然如明炬之懸燭也。

In the south­east part of this coun­try is the city of Car­itra (“Jour­ney-start­ing”) by the sea­side. Over twenty li in cir­cuit, it is a pas­sage­way and stop­ping place for seago­ing mer­chants and trav­el­ers. The city wall