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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1903.
authorities. The Rajatarangini puts the Turushka or Yue-tchi dynasty just after Nagarjuna. The Buddha's prophecy quoted by Hiouen-tsang announces Kanishka's accession in the year 400 of the Nirvana. Finally, the Samyukta-ratna-pitaka, which puts Kanishka and the arhat Ki-ye to together, makes the arhat appear 700 years after the Nirvana.
The mention of Charaka is the first positive indication obtained as to the date of the learned practitioner, who disputes with Suśruta the glory of having founded medical science in India. The Greek influences thought to be found in Charaka's teaching are easily explained, if he lived at the time, and at the court, of the Indo-Scythians, when Hellenism seemed to be conquering the old brahmanical civilisation.
The appearance of Jains in the legend of Kanishka is not surprising. The Kankali Tila inscriptions, at Mathura, have recently revealed the prosperity of Jainism under Kanishka and his successors. Buddhism doubtless had much to fear from this rival, for Asvaghosha pursued it [452] with implacable fury: it appears often in his stories, and always in odious or ridiculous colours. One of his sūtras, preserved only in the Corean edition, and reprinted in the new Japanese one, shews Ni-kien-tzen (Nirgrantha-putra) reduced to the part of hearer, and being instructed on the sense of the "Not-I" (Ou-ngo, Anatma) (Ni-kien-tzeu-ouenn-ou-ngo-i-king, Japanese edition, boîte xxiv, fasc. 9).
So far, M. Lévi's introductory remarks. We now come to the stories transcribed by him. Space does not permit of their being quoted in full; it must suffice to give only such particulars as bring out the traditional facts about Kanishka, to which M. Lévi has alluded, and also some brief quotations showing the Chinese versions of Sanskrit names and terms.
Sutralamkara (ch. 8).
[452] This describes how the king Tchen-t'an Ki-ni-tch'a (devaputra Kanishka) met 500 mendicants while he was on the way to visit the town of Ki-ni-tch'a (Kanishkopura). Presumably the journey was made on horseback, for when [453] the minister T'ien-fa (Devadharma) is mentioned, it is said that he got off his horse to speak to the king. The king explains to his minister the request made by the mendicants, and the lesson to be drawn from it, and [454 to 457] the minister replies.
On the question of identification of tchen-t'an
Chinasthana [raja] and devaputra t'ien-tzeu (son of Heaven), M. Lévi has referred us [452, note] to Mélanges Charles de Harlez, Deux peuples méconnus, p. 182; and he has observed that the transcription Ki-ni-tch'a suggests the pronunciation Kaniksha along with the ordinary form Kanishka, and that this alternation is confirmed epigraphically: Huviksha in Epigr. Ind. I., 371-393, Mathura inscription No. 9; Huksha, ibid. II., 196-212, No. 26. On the first of these points, he has now added some remarks, as follows:- Tchen-t'an suggests still another explanation, in addition to devaputra. Sarat Chandra Das, in the Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, 1886 (Vol. LV., Part I.), p. 193, said, on the strength of Tibetan texts: "In ancient times when Buddha Kashyapa appeared in this world, Li-yul" [the country of Khoten]"was called the country of Chandana; " to which he added, in a note: "The earliest intercourse of the Indians
M. Lévi has here added a note, as follows:- The dates assigned by Buddhist traditions to Asvaghosha are, equally, so discordant that, from the end of the fourth century, the Hindu monks distinguished six personages of the same name who had appeared (1) in the time of Buddha, (2) after the Nirvana, (3) in the year 100, (4) in the year 108, (5) in the year 300, and (8) in the year 600, of the Nirvana. I may be content, at present, to refer to the Introduction of the Mabayanaáraddbotpada, translated from the Chinese by M. Teitaro Suzuki: "Aávaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana; " Chicago, 1900.
M. Lévi has here added a note, as follows:- In fact, I have since found another version of this sutra, in the edition of the Tripitaka of the Mings; it is that which is entered in Nanjio's Catalogue under No. 818 (Japanese edition, vi., 1, 27); it is there erroneously designated as a tradition of the Sali-sambhavasutra, with which it has nothing in common. The sutra does not there bear the name of its author; the translator is the Indian monk Fa-t'ien (978-981 A. D.).
