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.

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    of this city there is a Tsioh-li Feou-tlion1 (a pagoda called Tsioh-li). [The record of To-Yung says : a Four li to tlie east of the city.’’] Investigating the origin of this tower, we find that wlien Tathagata was in the world lie was passing once througli this country with his dis- ciples on his mission of instruction; on which occasion， when delivering a discourse on the east side of the city, he said, a Three hundred years after my ISTirvana, there will be a king of this country called Ka-ni-si-ka (Ka- nishka). On this spot tie will raise a pagoda (Feou- thou). Accordingly, 300 years after that event, there was a king of this country, so called. On one occasion, when going out to the east of the city, lie saw four children engaged in making a Buddhist tower out of dung; they had raised it about three feet high, when suddenly they disappeared. [The record states，“ One of the children, raising himself in the air and turning towards the king, repeated a verse (Gatha).] The king surprised at this miraculous event, immediately erected a tower for the purpose of enclosing (the small pagoda), but gradually the small tower grew higher and higher, and at last went outside and removed itself 400 feet off, and there stationed itself. Then the king proceeded to widen the foundation of the great tower 300 paces and more.2 [The record of To-Yung says 390 paces.] To crown all, lie placed a roof-pole upright and even. 1 Tsioh-li means a sparrow―possibly it may be a corruption of She-li (Saiiras), alluding to the relics contained in this celebrated pagoda. 2 Hiouen Thsang says it was a li and a half in circumference.