A Record Of Buddhistic Kingdoms - Being An Account By The Chinese Monk Fa-hien Of His Travels In India And Ceylon (a.d. 399-414) By James Legge
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He Has Lived For More
Than Forty Years In An Apartment Of Stone, Constantly Showing Such
Gentleness Of Heart, That He Has Brought Snakes And Rats To Stop
Together In The Same Room, Without Doing One Another Any Harm.
NOTES
[1] It is desirable to translate {.} {.}, for which "inhabitants" or
"people" is elsewhere sufficient, here by "human inhabitants."
According to other accounts Singhala was originally occupied by
Rakshasas or Rakshas, "demons who devour men," and "beings to be
feared," monstrous cannibals or anthropophagi, the terror of the
shipwrecked mariner.
Our author's "spirits" {.} {.} were of a gentler
type. His dragons or nagas have come before us again and again.
[2] That Sakyamuni ever visited Ceylon is to me more than doubtful.
Hardy, in M. B., pp. 207-213, has brought together the legends of
three visits, - in the first, fifth, and eighth years of his
Buddhaship. It is plain, however, from Fa-hien's narrative, that in
the beginning of our fifth century, Buddhism prevailed throughout the
island. Davids in the last chapter of his "Buddhism" ascribes its
introduction to one of Asoka's missions, after the Council of Patna,
under his son Mahinda, when Tissa, "the delight of the gods," was king
(B.C. 250-230).
[3] This would be what is known as "Adam's peak," having, according to
Hardy (pp. 211, 212, notes), the three names of Selesumano,
Samastakuta, and Samanila. "There is an indentation on the top of it,"
a superficial hollow, 5 feet 3 3/4 inches long, and about 2 1/2 feet
wide.
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