South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great hill fronting the southwest; and here it was that Buddha left his shadow.  Looking at it from a distance of more than ten paces, you seem to see Buddha’s real form, with his complexion of gold, and his characteristic marks in their nicety, clearly and brightly displayed.  The nearer you approach, however, the fainter it becomes, as if it were only in your fancy.  When the kings from the regions all around have sent skilful artists to take a copy, none of them have been able to do so.  Among the people of the country there is a saying current that “the thousand Buddhas must all leave their shadows here.”

Rather more than four hundred paces west from the shadow, when Buddha was at the spot, he shaved off his hair and clipped his nails, and proceeded, along with his disciples, to build a tope seventy or eighty cubits high, to be a model for all future topes; and it is still existing.  By the side of it there is a monastery, with more than seven hundred monks in it.  At this place there are as many as a thousand topes of Arhans and Pratyeka Buddhas.

[Footnote 1:  Now in India, Fa-hien used the Indian measure of distance; but it is not possible to determine exactly what its length then was.  The estimates of it are very different, and vary from four and a half or five miles to seven, and sometimes more.]

[Footnote 2:  The present Hidda, west of Peshawur, and five miles south of Jellalabad.]

[Footnote 3:  “The vihara,” says Hardy, “is the residence of a recluse or priest;” and so Davids—­“the clean little hut where the mendicant lives.”]

[Footnote 4:  The Vaisyas, or the bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are described here as “resident scholars.”]

[Footnote 5:  Or Sanghati, the double or composite robe, part of a monk’s attire, reaching from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round the waist.]

CHAPTER XIV

Crossing the Indus to the East

Having stayed there till the third month of winter, Fa-hien and the two others, proceeding southwards, crossed the Little Snowy mountains.  On them the snow lies accumulated both winter and summer.  On the north side of the mountains, in the shade, they suddenly encountered a cold wind which made them shiver and become unable to speak.  Hwuy-king could not go any farther.  A white froth came from his mouth, and he said to Fa-hien, “I cannot live any longer.  Do you immediately go away, that we do not all die here”; and with these words he died.  Fa-hien stroked the corpse, and cried out piteously, “Our original plan has failed; it is fate.  What can we do?” He then again exerted himself, and they succeeded in crossing to the south of the range, and arrived in the kingdom of Lo-e, [1] where there were nearly three thousand monks, students of both the mahayana and hinayana.  Here they stayed for the summer retreat, [2] and when that was over, they went on to the south, and ten days’ journey brought them to the kingdom of Poh-na, where there are also more than three thousand monks, all students of the hinayana.  Proceeding from this place for three days, they again crossed the Indus, where the country on each side was low and level.