The country of Kapilavastu is a great scene of empty desolation.  The inhabitants are few and far between.  On the roads people have to be on their guard against white elephants [4] and lions, and should not travel incautiously.

[Footnote 1:  The Lichchhavis of Vaisali had sent to the young prince a very fine elephant; but when it was near Kapilavastu, Deva-datta, out of envy, killed it with a blow of his fist.  Nanda (not Ananda, but a half-brother of Siddhartha), coming that way, saw the carcass lying on the road, and pulled it on one side; but the Bodhisattva, seeing it there, took it by the tail, and tossed it over seven fences and ditches, when the force of its fall made a great ditch.]

[Footnote 2:  They did this, probably, to show their humility, for Upali was only a Sudra by birth, and had been a barber; so from the first did Buddhism assert its superiority to the conditions of rank and caste.  Upali was distinguished by his knowledge of the rules of discipline, and praised on that account by Buddha.  He was one of the three leaders of the first synod, and the principal compiler of the original Vinaya books.]

[Footnote 3:  The Srotapannas are the first class of saints, who are not to be reborn in a lower sphere, but attain to nirvana after having been reborn seven times consecutively as men or devas.  The Chinese editions state there were one thousand of the Sakya seed.  The general account is that they were five hundred, all maidens, who refused to take their place in king Vaidurya’s harem, and were in consequence taken to a pond, and had their hands and feet cut off.  There Buddha came to them, had their wounds dressed, and preached to them the Law.  They died in the faith, and were reborn in the region of the four Great Kings.  Thence they came back and visited Buddha at Jetavana in the night, and there they obtained the reward of Srotapanna.]

[Footnote 4:  Fa-hien does not say that he himself saw any of these white elephants, nor does he speak of the lions as of any particular color.  We shall find by and by, in a note further on, that, to make them appear more terrible, they are spoken of as “black.”]

CHAPTER XXIII

Legends of Rama and its Tope

East from Buddha’s birthplace, and at a distance of five yojanas, there is a kingdom called Rama.  The king of this country, having obtained one portion of the relics of Buddha’s body, returned with it and built over it a tope, named the Rama tope.  By the side of it there was a pool, and in the pool a dragon, which constantly kept watch over the tope, and presented offerings at it day and night.  When king Asoka came forth into the world, he wished to destroy the eight topes over the relics, and to build instead of them eighty-four thousand topes. [1] After he had thrown down the seven others, he wished next to destroy this tope.  But then the dragon showed itself, and took the king into its palace; when he had seen all the things provided for offerings, it said to him, “If you are able with your offerings to exceed these, you can destroy the tope, and take it all away.  I will not contend with you.”  The king, however, knew that such appliances for offerings were not to be had anywhere in the world, and thereupon returned without carrying out his purpose.