The country, being among the hills and cold, does not produce the other cereals, and only the wheat gets ripe.  After the monks have received their annual portion of this, the mornings suddenly show the hoar-frost, and on this account the king always begs the monks to make the wheat ripen [1] before they receive their portion.  There is in the country a spittoon which belonged to Buddha, made of stone, and in color like his alms-bowl.  There is also a tooth of Buddha, for which the people have reared a tope, connected with which there are more than a thousand monks and their disciples, all students of the hinayana.  To the east of these hills the dress of the common people is of coarse materials, as in our country of Ts’in, but here also there were among them the differences of fine woollen cloth and of serge or haircloth.  The rules observed by the Sramans are remarkable, and too numerous to be mentioned in detail.  The country is in the midst of the Onion range.  As you go forward from these mountains, the plants, trees, and fruits are all different from those of the land of Han, excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate, and sugarcane.

[Footnote 1:  Watters calls attention to this as showing that the monks of K’eeh-ch’a had the credit of possessing weather-controlling powers.]

CHAPTER VI

North India—­Image of Maitreya Bodhisattva

From this the travellers went westward towards North India, and after being on the way for a month, they succeeded in getting across and through the range of the Onion mountains.  The snow rests on them both winter and summer.  There are also among them venomous dragons, which, when provoked, spit forth poisonous winds, and cause showers of snow and storms of sand and gravel.  Not one in ten thousand of those who encounter these dangers escapes with his life.  The people of the country call the range by the name of “The Snow mountains.”  When the travellers had got through them, they were in North India, and immediately on entering its borders, found themselves in a small kingdom called T’oleih, where also there were many monks, all students of the hinayana.

In this kingdom there was formerly an Arhan, [1] who by his supernatural power took a clever artificer up to the Tushita [2] heaven, to see the height, complexion, and appearance of Maitreya Bodhisattva, [3] and then return and make an image of him in wood.  First and last, this was done three times, and then the image was completed, eighty cubits in height, and eight cubits at the base from knee to knee of the crossed legs.  On fast-days it emits an effulgent light.  The kings of the surrounding countries vie with one another in presenting offerings to it.  Here it is—­to be seen now as of old.

[Footnote 1:  Lo-han, Arhat, Arahat are all designations of the perfected Arya, the disciple who has passed the different stages of the Noble Path, or eightfold excellent way, who has conquered all passions, and is not to be reborn again.  Arhatship implies possession of certain supernatural powers, and is not to be succeeded by Buddhaship, but implies the fact of the saint having already attained Nirvana.]