Text of Confucianism Part 02

SR No.: 007676
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Legge
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1882
Total Pages: 2405
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 43 MB

Page 1668

III, 1o. BIMBASARA RAGA INVITES THE PRINCE. III
KIOUEN III.
VARGA 10. BIMBASARA RAGA INVITES THE PRINCE.
The royal prince departing from the court-master (i. e. the Purohita) and the great minister, Saddharma', keeping along the stream, then crossing the Ganges, he took the road towards the Vulture Peak3, 777
1 Saddharma may be the name of the minister, or it may be rendered 'the great minister of the true law,' i. e. of religion.
For the symbol I have substituted 'to go towards.' The whole line may be translated 'following the turbulent (streams) he crossed the Ganges,' in this case would be for. But the sentence is obscure, as 'lang tsai' may be a proper name.
The distance from the place of the interview with the ministers to the Vulture Peak would be in a straight line about 150 miles. In the Southern books (Nidâna-kathâ; Buddhist Birth Stories, by Mr. Rhys Davids, pp. 85 and 87 n.) it is said that from Kapilavastu to the River Anomâ, near which the interview took place, is thirty yoganas; this is greatly in excess of the real distance, which is about thirty-three miles, or five yoganas. Then again from the Anomâ River, or the village of Maneya (Mhaniya), where the Bodhisattva halted (see Romantic Legend of Buddha, p. 140, and compare vol. xii, plate viii, Archæological Survey of India), to Râgagriha by way of Vaisâli would not be more than 180 miles, so that the whole distance from Kapilavastu (assuming Bhuila to represent this old town) would be about 215 miles, or about thirty yoganas. Hence we assume that the thirty yoganas of the Southern account is intended to represent the entire distance from Kapilavastu, and not from the River Anoma. Mr. Rhys Davids supposes the distance from Kapilavastu to Râgagriha (viâ Vaisalî) to be sixty yoganas (loc. cit. Birth Stories). In the Southern account the journey from the Anomâ to Râgagriha is described as having been accomplished in one day.
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