Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist pilgrims : from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) / translated from Chinese by Samuel Beal.

  • Faxian
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist pilgrims : from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) / translated from Chinese by Samuel Beal. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    118/304 (page 32)
    From this spot, going eastward seven days, there is a country called Tcliu-slia-si-lo1 (Taksliasila). This word, being interpreted, signifies, “ the severed head.” Buddha, when he was Bodhisatwa, in this place gave his head in charity; men, therefore, have given this name to the country. Still going to the eastward two days’ journey, you come to the place where lie gave his body to feed a starving tiger.3 In these two places they have raised great towers, adorned with all tlie 1 Takshasila is the Taxila of the Greeks (ets TV☆入a dcpUero 入tj/ fxeyaXT]v kcu eiidaifxoua.) (Arrian, Lib. Y.) This town stood near the site of the present Hassan-Abdal. Cunningham places it near Shah-deri, twelve miles south-easfc of Hassan-Abdal, one mile north-east of Kala-ka- Sara, seventy-four miles east of Hashtnagar. Pliny, however, says that Taxila was only sixty miles east of Peukelaotis (Hashtnagar), which would place the site near Hassan-Abdal. 2 This is an error of Fah-Hian, as the name seems to be derived from the root Taksa, to build, (or, figuratively, to cut to pieces), and Sila, a rock (instead of Sira, a head). Our author's mistake, however, is easily ac- counted for, by considering1 the legend which, follows in the text, and which is also related by Hiouen Thsang. 3 The tower erected on this spot has been identified as the Great Tope at Manikyala, explored by General Court, close to the Huta-Murta Yihara, or the body-oblation Yihara, referring to Buddha’s sacrifice of his body to feed some starving tiger cubs. (C. p. 65.) It was, probably, erected by Kanishka. (For the legend of Buddha feeding the tigress and her cubs, vide M.B. 92.