The kingdom is on a large island, extending from east to west fifty yojanas, and from north to south thirty.  Left and right from it there are as many as one hundred small islands, distant from one another ten, twenty, or even two hundred li; but all subject to the large island.  Most of them produce pearls and precious stones of various kinds; there is one which produces the pure and brilliant pearl—­an island which would form a square of about ten li.  The king employs men to watch and protect it, and requires three out of every ten pearls which the collectors find.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

At Ceylon—­Feats of Buddha—­His Statue in Jade

The country originally had no human inhabitants, but was occupied only by spirits and nagas, with which merchants of various countries carried on a trade.  When the trafficking was taking place, the spirits did not show themselves.  They simply set forth their precious commodities, with labels of the price attached to them; while the merchants made their purchases according to the price; and took the things away.

Through the coming and going of the merchants in this way, when they went away, the people of their various countries heard how pleasant the land was, and flocked to it in numbers till it became a great nation.  The climate is temperate and attractive, without any difference of summer and winter.  The vegetation is always luxuriant.  Cultivation proceeds whenever men think fit:  there are no fixed seasons for it.

When Buddha came to this country, wishing to transform the wicked nagas by his supernatural power, he planted one foot at the north of the royal city, and the other on the top of a mountain, [1] the two being fifteen yojanas apart.  Over the footprint at the north of the city the king built a large tope, four hundred cubits high, grandly adorned with gold and silver, and finished with a combination of all the precious substances.  By the side of the tope he further built a monastery, called the Abhayagiri, where there are now five thousand monks.  There is in it a hall of Buddha, adorned with carved and inlaid work of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious substances, in which there is an image of Buddha in green jade, more than twenty cubits in height, glittering all over with those substances, and having an appearance of solemn dignity which words cannot express.  In the palm of the right hand there is a priceless pearl.  Several years had now elapsed since Fa-hien left the land of Han; the men with whom he had been in intercourse had all been of regions strange to him; his eyes had not rested on an old and familiar hill or river, plant or tree:  his fellow-travellers, moreover, had been separated from him, some by death, and others flowing off in different directions; no face or shadow was now with him but his own, and a constant sadness was in his heart.  Suddenly one day, when by the side of this image of jade, he saw a merchant presenting as his offering a fan of white silk; [2] and the tears of sorrow involuntarily filled his eyes and fell down.