Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/42

40 to learn that the cult of the 'former Buddhas,' a subject imperfectly understood, was already well established in Asoka's days, but no one can tell how or when it originated.

The memory of the same pilgrimage was preserved also by literary tradition, as recorded in the Sanskrit romance called the Asokâvadâna. According to the story, which will be found in a later chapter, the king, under the guidance of his preceptor, a saint named Upagupta, visited in succession the Lumbini garden, Kapilavastu, the scene of Buddha's childhood, the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gayâ, Rishipattana, or Sârnâth, near Benares, Kusinagara, where Buddha died, the Jetavana monastery at Srâvastî, where he long resided, the stûpa of Vakkula, and the stûpa of Ânanda. The words graven on the Rummindeî pillar, 'Here the Venerable One was born,' are those ascribed by the tradition to Upagupta as spoken when he guided his royal master to the holy spot. Asoka bestowed great largess at every place except the stûpa of Vakkula, where he gave only a single copper coin, because that saint had met with few obstacles to surmount, and had consequently done little good to his fellow creatures. The explanation accords well with the severely practical character of Asoka's pietyRummindeî on the Tilâr river certainly is the site of the Lumbini garden (see Plate II). The Kapilavastu visited by Hiuen Tsang is represented by Tilaurâ Kôṭ (Mukherjî and V. A. Smith, Antiquities in the Tarâi, Nepâl; Archaeol. S. Rep. Imp. S., vol. xxvi, 1901). Bodh Gayâ, six miles south of Gayâ, is.