Notes

(1) Karanda Venuvana; a park presented to Buddha by king Bimbisara, who also built a vihâra in it. See the account of the transaction in M. B., p. 194. The place was called Karanda, from a creature so named, which awoke the king just as a snake was about to bite him, and thus saved his life. In Hardy the creature appears as a squirrel, but Eitel says that the Karanda is a bird of sweet voice, resembling a magpie, but herding in flocks; the cuculus melanoleucus. See “Buddhist Birth Stories,” p. 118.

(2) The language here is rather contemptuous, as if our author had no sympathy with any other mode of disposing of the dead, but by his own Buddhistic method of cremation.

(3) The Chinese characters used for the name of this cavern serve also to name the pippala (peepul) tree, the ficus religiosa. They make us think that there was such a tree overshadowing the cave; but Fâ-Hien would hardly have neglected to mention such a circumstance.

(4) A very great place in the annals of Buddhism. The Council in the Srataparna cave did not come together fortuitously, but appears to have been convoked by the older members to settle the rules and doctrines of the order. The cave was prepared for the occasion by king Ajatasatru. From the expression about the “bringing forth of the King,” it would seem that the Sûtras or some of them had been already committed to writing. May not the meaning of King {.} here be extended to the Vinaya rules, as well as the Sûtras, and mean “the standards” of the system generally? See Davids’ Manual, chapter ix, and Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, pp. 370–385.

(5) So in the text, evidently for pari-nirvâna.

(6) Instead of “high” seats, the Chinese texts have “vacant.” The character for “prepared” denotes “spread;”—they were carpeted; perhaps, both cushioned and carpeted, being rugs spread on the ground, raised higher than the other places for seats.

(7) Did they not contrive to let him in, with some cachinnation, even in so august an assembly, that so important a member should have been shut out?

(8) “The life of this body” would, I think, fairly express the idea of the bhikshu.

(9) See the account of Buddha’s preaching in chapter xviii.

(10) The sentiment of this clause is not easily caught.

(11) See E. M., p. 152:—“Buddha made a law forbidding the monks to commit suicide. He prohibited any one from discoursing on the miseries of life in such a manner as to cause desperation.” See also M. B., pp. 464, 465.

(12) Beal says:—“Evil desire; hatred; ignorance.”

(13) See chap. xx, note 10.

(14) The Anagamin belong to the third degree of Buddhistic saintship, the third class of Aryas, who are no more liable to be reborn as men, but are to be born once more as devas, when they will forthwith become Arhats, and attain to nirvâna. E. H., pp. 8, 9.

(15) Our author expresses no opinion of his own on the act of this bhikshu. Must it not have been a good act, when it was attended, in the very act of performance, by such blessed consequences? But if Buddhism had not something better to show than what appears here, it would not attract the interest which it now does. The bhikshu was evidently rather out of his mind; and the verdict of a coroner’s inquest of this nineteenth century would have pronounced that he killed himself “in a fit of insanity.”