108; H. Tsang,
II. 31, 80, 263.)
[Illustration: Teeth of Budda.
1. At Kandy, after Tennent. 2. At Fu-Chau from Fortune.]
NOTE 7. - Fa-hian writes of the alms-pot at Peshawar, that poor people
could fill it with a few flowers, whilst a rich man should not be able to
do so with 100, nay, with 1000 or 10,000 bushels of rice; a parable
doubtless originally carrying a lesson, like Our Lord's remark on the
widow's mite, but which hardened eventually into some foolish story like
that in the text.
The modern Mussulman story at Kandahar is that the alms-pot will contain
any quantity of liquor without overflowing.
This Patra is the Holy Grail of Buddhism. Mystical powers of nourishment
are ascribed also to the Grail in the European legends. German scholars
have traced in the romances of the Grail remarkable indications of
Oriental origin. It is not impossible that the alms-pot of Buddha was the
prime source of them. Read the prophetic history of the Patra as Fa-hian
heard it in India (p. 161); its mysterious wanderings over Asia till it is
taken up into the heaven Tushita where Maitreya the Future Buddha
dwells. When it has disappeared from earth the Law gradually perishes, and
violence and wickedness more and more prevail:
- "What is it?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?
* * * * * If a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills.
