It was by the side of the “Weapons-laid-down” tope that Buddha, having given up the idea of living longer, said to Ananda, “In three months from this I will attain to pavi-nirvana;” and king Mara(9) had so fascinated and stupefied Ananda, that he was not able to ask Buddha to remain longer in this world.

Three or four le east from this place there is a tope (commemorating the following occurrence):—­A hundred years after the pari-nirvana of Buddha, some Bhikshus of Vaisali went wrong in the matter of the disciplinary rules in ten particulars, and appealed for their justification to what they said were the words of Buddha.  Hereupon the Arhats and Bhikshus observant of the rules, to the number in all of 700 monks, examined afresh and collated the collection of disciplinary books.(10) Subsequently men built at this place the tope (in question), which is still existing.

   NOTES

   (1) It is difficult to tell what was the peculiar form of this vihara
   from which it gets its name; something about the construction of its
   door, or cupboards, or galleries.

   (2) See the explanation of this in the next chapter.

(3) Ambapali, Amrapali, or Amradarika, “the guardian of the Amra (probably the mango) tree,” is famous in Buddhist annals.  See the account of her in M. B., pp. 456-8.  She was a courtesan.  She had been in many narakas or hells, was 100,000 times a female beggar, and 10,000 times a prostitute; but maintaining perfect continence during the period of Kasyapa Buddha, Sakyamuni’s predecessor, she had been born a devi, and finally appeared in earth under an Amra tree in Vaisali.  There again she fell into her old ways, and had a son by king Bimbisara; but she was won over by Buddha to virtue and chastity, renounced the world, and attained to the state of an Arhat.  See the earliest account of Ambapali’s presentation of the garden in “Buddhist Suttas,” pp. 30-33, and the note there from Bishop Bigandet on pp. 33, 34.

(4) Beal gives, “In this place I have performed the last religious act of my earthly career;” Giles, “This is the last place I shall visit;” Remusat, “C’est un lieu ou je reviendrai bien longtemps apres ceci.”  Perhaps the “walk” to which Buddha referred had been for meditation.

(5) See the account of this legend in the note in M. B., pp. 235, 236, different, but not less absurd.  The first part of Fa-hien’s narrative will have sent the thoughts of some of my readers to the exposure of the infant Moses, as related in Exodus. (Certainly did.—­JB.)

   (6) See chap. xiii, note 14.