Page:On Yuan Chwang's travels in India, 629-645 A.D..djvu/222

202 The Buddha's bowl. of the Buddhist Masters in India who since old times had written śāstras (lun 論) there were Nārāyaṇa-deva, Wu-cho (Asanga) P'usa, Shih-ch'in (Vasubandhu) P'usa, Dharmatāra, Manoratha(?), and Pārśva the Venerable who were natives of this district.

Julien translates this passage as follows—"Depuis l'antiquité, ce pays a donné le jour à un grand nombre de docteurs indiens qui ont composé des Traités (Çastras); par exemple à Nārāyaṇa Deva, Asañga, Vasoubandhu, Dharmatrāta, Manorhita, Ārya Parçvika, &c. &c." There is nothing in the text, however, corresponding to the grand nombre, the par exemple, or the ''&c. &c.'' of this rendering. Instead of the word pu (不), which is in Julien's Chinese text, there should be yu (有), the reading of the A and D texts. Of the writers of śāstras or disquisitions mentioned here only three are known as authors of Buddhist books which have come down to us, viz. Asanga, Vasubandhu, and Dharmatāra. The Nārāyaṇa-deva appears again in this treatise as a deva or god, and it is perhaps the incarnation of Vishnu so named that is represented here as a philosophical Buddhist writer, or Yuan-chuang may have heard that the "Dharma-śāstra" which bears the name of Vishnu was written by the god. But we must remember that Nārāyaṇa is a name common to several ancient philosophers of India. The other śāstra-writers of Gandhāra will meet us again as we proceed.

There were above 1000 Buddhist monasteries in the country but they were utterly dilapidated and untenanted. Many of the topes also were in ruins. There were above 100 Deva-temples, and the various sects lived pell-mell. In the north-east part of the capital were the remains of the building which once contained the Buddha's Alms-bowl. After the Buddha's decease the Bowl had wandered to this country, and after having been treated with reverence here for some centuries, it had gone on to several other countries, and was now in P'o-la-ssŭ (Persia).

The Buddha's Bowl was seen by Fa-hsien in a monastery in Purusha, where it was in the care of the Buddhist Brethren. Kumārajiva saw it in Sha-le or Kashgar, and