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MARCH, 1875.]
of the characteristics of the Pali work bearing the same name. As an instance of the dissimilarity, the Chinese version speaks of the origin of the name Brahmajála as connected with the curtain (net, jála) that surrounds the domain of Brahma or Indra, and compares the gems" that adorn that net to the countless worlds of space, over all which Vairojana is supreme. Whereas the title is explained in the South as "a net in which Buddha caught the Brâhmans."
BUDDHIST WORKS IN CHINESE.
The Chinese translation is only a portion of the entire work, and recounts the rules which bind the Bodhisatwa, in the same way as the Pratimoksha deals with the rules of the Bhik shus. All this is so foreign to the drift and object of the Southern Sûtra, that it is plain there is but little connection between the two, except in the name, which was borrowed probably to give popularity and authority to the expanded work.
3. The library possesses a Chinese copy of the Abhinishkramana Sútra, under the name of Fo-pen-hing-tsi-king. The chief interest attaching to this book is the number of episodes (Avadánas) and Játakas contained in it. Some of these will be found to explain the temple sculptures at Sânchi and Amravati and Boro Bodor. I am inclined also to think that
many of the newly discovered sculptures found by the Archæological Surveyor of India at Bharahut will be explained to some extent in this work. It seems probable that the book under review is only the expansion of the Fo-penhing-king, the earliest known translation of the life of Buddha. (This work was preduced in China about 75 A.D.) My reason for this opinion is (1) the similarity of name; the addition of the symbol " tsi" to Fo-pen-hing would indicate that the new work was founded upon the more ancient one. (2) I find from the Buddhist Encyclopædia Fa-yuen-chu-lin, that passages quoted from the Fo-pen-hing really occur in the Fo-pen-hing-tsi-king. If my opinion is correct, it will tend to a settlement of the question of the date of the legends and stories, which are mixed up in such a remarkable manner, in the history of the founder of Bud
dhism.
4. Perhaps the most interesting result of the examination of these books is derived from a
The expression aindrajala is a well-known one to signify "jugglery." If the net of Indra be the "curtain of stars'
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work entitled King-tsang-yo-shwo. In this book there are fifty Sûtras, translated at different dates and by various scholars, all of them from Sanskrit or Pali. The dates extend from A.D. 70 to A.D. 600. Among these Sûtras is one called the Chen-tseu-king; this I found to be a translation of the Sama Jataka, which is in fact a part of the story of Dasaratha and Rama. This Jataka has been briefly translated from the Singalese by Spence Hardy (Eastern Monachism, p. 275), and I have identified it with the Sânchi sculpture found in Plate xxxii., fig. 1, of Tree and Serpent Worship. The Chinese version of this Jataka is full and complete, and I hope soon to be able to publish it. A singular circumstance connected with the title of this Sûtra or Jataka is this:-In the history of Fa-hi an's travels (p. 157) it is stated that when in Ceylon, he witnessed on one occasion a religious festival during which pictures of Buddha's previous births were exhibited and hung up on each side of the road. Among others he speaks of the "birth as a flash of light" (the Chinese word is 'chen'). Rémuṣat and his annotators having adopted this rendering in their version of Fa-hian, I was led to do the same in my own translation, although I had grave doubts at the time, and tried to explain the character of this birth by the history of the Fracolin given by Julien (II. 336). I now find that the Jataka alluded to by Fahian was the Sáma Játaka, of which the book under review gives an account. It is interesting to know that this Jataka was so familiar to the Buddhists in Ceylon at the time of Fa-hian's visit (circa A.D. 410), as it was undoubtedly to the builders and sculptors at Sànchi, some centuries (perhaps) before.
A third Sûtra in this work deserving notice is the Ta-shing-sse-fa-king, which is the same as the Arya Chatushka Nirahara Nama Mahayana Sútra, a translation of which has been made by M. Léon Feer (Etudes Buddhiques, p. 131). On comparing the Chinese with this version, I find the two agree in the main. There are one or two passages, however, much more distinctly given in the Chinese translation. For example, at the opening of the Sûtra, as translated by M. Léon Feer, there is an obscure passage which he renders "n'ayant tous pour vêtement
that enclose the atmosphere (as it were), we do not wonder that the idea of jugglery should be associated with it.
