[Footnote 7:  This would seem to be absurd; but the writer evidently intended to convey the idea that there was something mysterious about the number of the topes.]

CHAPTER XVIII

Buddha’s Subjects of Discourse

Fa-Hien stayed at the Dragon vihara till after the summer retreat, [1] and then, travelling to the southeast for seven yojanas, he arrived at the city of Kanyakubja, lying along the Ganges.  There are two monasteries in it, the inmates of which are students of the hinayana.  At a distance from the city of six or seven li, on the west, on the northern bank of the Ganges, is a place where Buddha preached the Law to his disciples.  It has been handed down that his subjects of discourse were such as “The bitterness and vanity of life as impermanent and uncertain,” and that “The body is as a bubble or foam on the water.”  At this spot a tope was erected, and still exists.

Having crossed the Ganges, and gone south for three yojanas, the travellers arrived at a village named A-le, containing places where Buddha preached the Law, where he sat, and where he walked, at all of which topes have been built.

[Footnote 1:  This was, probably, in A.D. 405.]

CHAPTER XIX

Legend of Buddha’s Danta-kashtha

Going on from this to the southeast for three yojanas, they came to the great kingdom of Sha-che.  As you go out of the city of Sha-che by the southern gate, on the east of the road is the place where Buddha, after he had chewed his willow branch, stuck it in the ground, when it forthwith grew up seven cubits, at which height it remained, neither increasing nor diminishing.  The Brahmans, with their contrary doctrines, became angry and jealous.  Sometimes they cut the tree down, sometimes they plucked it up, and cast it to a distance, but it grew again on the same spot as at first.  Here also is the place where the four Buddhas walked and sat, and at which a tope was built that is still existing.

CHAPTER XX

The Jetavana Vihara—­Legends of Buddha

Going on from this to the south, for eight yojanas, the travellers came to the city of Sravasti in the kingdom of Kosala, in which the inhabitants were few and far between, amounting in all only to a few more than two hundred families; the city where king Prasenajit ruled, and the place of the old vihara of Maha-prajapati; [1] of the well and walls of the house of the Vaisya head Sudatta; [2] and where the Angulimalya [3] became an Arhat, and his body was afterwards burned on his attaining to pari-nirvana.  At all these places topes were subsequently erected, which are still existing in the city.  The Brahmans, with their contrary doctrine, became full of hatred and envy in their hearts, and wished to destroy them, but there came from the heavens such a storm of crashing thunder and flashing lightning that they were not able in the end to effect their purpose.