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 Had
Become So In An Earlier State Of Existence, And The Hatred Continued
In Every Successive Birth, Through Which They Reappeared In The World.
See The Accounts Of Him, And Of His Various Devices Against Buddha,
And His Own Destruction At The Last, In M. B., Pp.
315-321, 326-330;
and still better, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol.
Xx, Vinaya
Texts, pp. 233-265. For the particular attempt referred to in the
text, see "The Life of the Buddha," p. 107. When he was engulphed, and
the flames were around him, he cried out to Buddha to save him, and we
are told that he is expected yet to appear as a Buddha under the name
of Devaraja, in a universe called Deva-soppana. E. H., p. 39.
[18] "A devalaya ({.} {.} or {.} {.}), a place in which a deva is
worshipped, - a general name for all Brahmanical temples" (Eitel, p.
30). We read in the Khang-hsi dictionary under {.}, that when Kasyapa
Matanga came to the Western Regions, with his Classics or Sutras, he
was lodged in the Court of State-Ceremonial, and that afterwards there
was built for him "The Court of the White-horse" ({.} {.} {.}), and in
consequence the name of Sze {.} came to be given to all Buddhistic
temples. Fa-hien, however, applies this term only to Brahmanical
temples.
[19] Their speech was somewhat unconnected, but natural enough in the
circumstances. Compare the whole account with the narrative in I
Samuel v. about the Ark and Dagon, that "twice-battered god of
Palestine."
[20] "Entered the doctrine or path." Three stages in the Buddhistic
life are indicated by Fa-hien: - "entering it," as here, by becoming
monks ({.} {.}); "getting it," by becoming Arhats ({.} {.}); and
"completing it," by becoming Buddha ({.} {.}).
[21] It is not quite clear whether the author had in mind here Central
India as a whole, which I think he had, or only Kosala, the part of it
where he then was. In the older teaching, there were only thirty-two
sects, but there may have been three subdivisions of each. See Rhys
Davids' "Buddhism," pp. 98, 99.
[22] This mention of "the future world" is an important difference
between the Corean and Chinese texts. The want of it in the latter has
been a stumbling-block in the way of all previous translators. Remusat
says in a note that "the heretics limited themselves to speak of the
duties of man in his actual life without connecting it by the notion
that the metempsychosis with the anterior periods of existence through
which he had passed." But this is just the opposite of what Fa-hien's
meaning was, according to our Corean text. The notion of "the
metempsychosis" was just that in which all the ninety-six erroneous
systems agreed among themselves and with Buddhism. If he had wished to
say what the French sinologue thinks he does say, moreover, he would
probably have written {.} {.} {.} {.} {.}. Let me add, however, that
the connexion which Buddhism holds between the past world (including
the present) and the future is not that of a metempsychosis, or
transmigration of souls, for it does not appear to admit any separate
existence of the soul.
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