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No. 35.]
KASYAPA IMAGE INSCRIPTION FROM SILAO.
331
It may at once be recognised that Kapiläni and Bhaddakāpiläni of the Jātakas and the Authakathās, and Kāpileye of the present inscription are but variants of one and the same name and refer likewise to one and the same person, namely Kasyapa's wife.
It may parenthetically be pointed out that according to the Athakathas it was, as noted above, somewhere between Rajagriha and Nalanda that Kasyapa's first meeting with the Lord took place. That position almost corresponds to the modern village of Silao. May we then suppose that the statue of Kasyapa was set up there in order to sanctify the spot and thereby to commemorate the first meeting? In that case, the find-spot of the inscribed pedestal under discussion, as has already been hinted, must be Silao.
Now if we compare the above descriptions with the account given in our inscription, we shall find that most of the details do agree. There are, however, certain points which it has not been possible for me to corroborate by literary references. In the first place, Kasyapa is stated to have acted as Indra for seven terms on end. He must have attained such a distinction as a reward for highly meritorious deeds on his part; but I have not been able to find any mention of this fact in literature. We are told that Gautama Buddha himself was Sakra in twenty of his antecedent births, that there is a Sakra in every chakravāla and that the office of Sakra, which is in fact the sovereignty of the Tavatimsa angels, is held only for a limited period by the same individual. It is said of Kasyapa that he bestowed his favours only on the poor', which sentiment is echoed in din-änath-änugata-manasaḥ of our inscription, 1. 2.
We further learn from the inscription that the Buddha, while entering nirvana, gave away his samghați and other things to Kasyapa. I could not find this event related in any of the Buddhist canonical works. All that we know in this connection is this, as we have noticed above, that the Lord and Kasyapa exchanged their samghatis shortly after their first meeting. However, the information from the Chinese sources in this regard is in perfect agreement with the account of our inscription. According to that, Tahtagata, on the point of attaining nirvana, addressed Kasyapa and said inter alia: "The golden-tissued Kashaya robe given me by my foster-mother I bid you keep and deliver to Maitreya when he has completed the condition of Buddha."
Finally we come to the nirvana of Kasyapa himself, which is stated to have taken place on the mount Gurupāda. Here, too, the Chinese record is in full concord. In the Divyavadanamālā, the name of the mountain is given as Gurupadaka, while elsewhere it is also called Kukkuṭapada. The identification of this hill had long been a subject of keen controversy among such eminent scholars as Cunningham, Beal and Stein until at last the late Mr. R. D. Banerji brought the issue to a successful close by offering a thoroughly satisfactory solution. Cunningham contended that three bare and rugged hills in the vicinity of Kurkihar, 16 miles to the east of Gaya, represent the Kukkuṭapädagiri, taking the name Kurkihär to be a contraction of Kukkuta-vihara or Kukkutapada-vihara and, at the same time, presuming a connection between this last and the Kukkuṭapada-giri. Beal had his objections to this identification, for, to him
See R. C. Childers' Dictionary of the Pali Language under the word SAKKO (Sakra), p. 419. G. P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Päli Proper Names, Vol. II, p. 481.
S. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki (Buddhist Records of the Western World), Vol. II, 143. The Tibetan version records that Mahäkäsyapa' changed the garments which enshrouded the Blessed one for others from his store". W. W. Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 144.
Ibid., p. 242.
Cowell's edition, p. 61; and Rajendraläla Mitra, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, p. 308.
Beal, op. cit. p. 142; Beal, Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, p. 132; H. Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 89; Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 161.
"Reports A. S. I., Vol. I, pp. 14-16, Vol. XV, pp. 4-6.
