royal. I have seen him day by day commanding and taking

[1] Eitel says "an ancient kingdom, corresponding to the region about Dheri and Banjour." But see note 5.

[2] Dharma-vivardhana is the name in Sanskrit, represented by the Fa Yi { .} { .} of the text.

[3] Asoka is here mentioned for the first time;--the Constantine of the Buddhist society, and famous for the number of viharas and topes which he erected. He was the grandson of Chandragupta (i.q. Sandracottus), a rude adventurer, who at one time was a refugee in the camp of Alexander the Great; and within about twenty years afterwards drove the Greeks out of India, having defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler of the Indus provinces. He had by that time made himself king of Magadha. His grandson was converted to Buddhism by the bold and patient demeanour of an Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried alive, and became a most zealous supporter of the new faith. Dr. Rhys Davids (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xi, p. xlvi) says that "Asoka's coronation can be fixed with absolute certainty within a year or two either way of 267 B.C."

[4] This also is a Jataka story; but Eitel thinks it may be a myth, constructed from the story of the blinding of Dharma-vivardhana.

TAKSHASILA. LEGENDS. THE FOUR GREAT TOPES.

Seven days' journey from this to the east brought the travellers to the kingdom of Takshasila,[1] which means "the severed head" in the language of China. Here, when Buddha was a Bodhisattva, he gave away his head to a man;[2] and from this circumstance the kingdom got its name.

Going on further for two days to the east, they came to the place where the Bodhisattva threw down his body to feed a starving tigress.[2] In these two places also large topes have been built, both adorned with layers of all the precious substances. The kings, ministers, and peoples of the kingdoms around vie with one another in making offerings at them. The trains of those who come to scatter flowers and light lamps at them never cease. The nations of those quarters all those (and the other two mentioned before) "the four great topes."

[1] See Julien's "Methode pour dechiffrer et transcrire les Nomes Sanscrits," p. 206. Eitel says, "The Taxila of the Greeks, the region near Hoosun Abdaul in lat. 35d 48s N., lon. 72d 44s E. But this identification, I am satisfied, is wrong. Cunningham, indeed, takes credit ("Ancient Geography of India," pp. 108, 109) for determining this to be the site of Arrian's Taxila,--in the upper Punjab, still existing in the ruins of Shahdheri, between the Indus and Hydaspes (the modern Jhelum). So far he may be correct; but the Takshasila of Fa-hien was on the other, or western side of the Indus; and between the river and Gandhara. It took him, indeed, seven days travelling eastwards to reach it; but we do not know what stoppages he may have made on the way. We must be wary in reckoning distances from his specifications of days.

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