Notes

(1) Here is an instance of {.} used, as was pointed out in chap. ix, note 3, for a former age; and not merely a former time. Perhaps “a former birth” is the best translation. The Corean reading of Kasyapa Buddha is certainly preferable to the Chinese “Sakya Buddha.”

(2) See chap. xvii, note 8.

(3) I prefer to retain the Sanskrit term here, instead of translating the Chinese text by “Earth’s prison {.} {.},” or “a prison in the earth;” the name for which has been adopted generally by Christian missionaries in China for gehenna and hell.

(4) Eitel (p. 173) says:—“Yama was originally the Aryan god of the dead, living in a heaven above the world, the regent of the south; but Brahmanism transferred his abode to hell. Both views have been retained by Buddhism.” The Yama of the text is the “regent of the narakas, residing south of Jambudvipa, outside the Chakravalas (the double circuit of mountains above), in a palace built of brass and iron. He has a sister who controls all the female culprits, as he exclusively deals with the male sex. Three times, however, in every twenty-four hours, a demon pours boiling copper into Yama’s mouth, and squeezes it down his throat, causing him unspeakable pain.” Such, however, is the wonderful “transrotation of births,” that when Yama’s sins have been expiated, he is to be reborn as Buddha, under the name of “The Universal King.”

(5) Or, “was loosed;” from the bonds, I suppose, of his various illusions.

(6) I have not met with this particular numerical category.