________________
OCTOBER, 1903.)
NOTES ON THE INDO-SOYTHIANS.
885
with China was through Khoten which they called Chandana and it is very probable that they subsequently extended that designation to China." Unfortunately, Sarat Chandra Das does not give his authorities. But the fact seems to me very probable. And I had been personally led, in an independent manner, to form that hypothesis, but with a modification. Chandana seems to me to be a form restored in Tibetan out of the Chinese Tchen.t'an = China-sthāna. The original Tchen-t'an or Chin-thān would be Kashgaria; and Tchen-t'an Kanishka would be Kanishka, king of Khoten. I cannot avoid believing that the cradle of the power of the Tukhāra-Turushkas is to be found in that region.
M. Léri points out [455, note) that a verse of some stanzas uttered by T'ien-fa at the end of the story is almost identical with the 5th verse in "One hundred and fifty stanzas in honour of the Buddha" by Mätřichota, preserved in the Chinese translation of I-tsing. Now, according to Tāranātha (p. 89), the acharya Matrichëta, foretold by the Buddha to be a glorious author of hymns, was the same person as Ašvaghosha, Sūra, Durdharsha, Dharmika-Subhūti; all these names designate one individual, a contemporary of Kanika. It has also been observed that Indian poets, in spite of their indifference to literary proprietorship, liked to insert an identical stanza in their different works, as if to mark their common authorship. Thus the repetition of the same verse in the Sūtrāla kāra and the Sārdh aśataka seems to confirm Taranatha. The analogy of procedure in the Sūtrālaukāra and the Jätakamālā is equally striking: in both, the story is developed like a sermon, and a text from the sacred books is taken as theme : in both, prose and verse are intermingled with taste; and, even through the medium of the Chinese version, an eqnal happiness of style is apparent. If the Jätakamālä was not by Aśraghosha, it probably came from his school.
Sūträlamkāra (ch. 6). [457] This story begins : "In the race of Kiu-cha (Kushana) there was a king named Tchen-tan “Kia-ni-tch'a (dēvaputra Kanishka). He conquered Toung Tien-tchon (Eastern India) and pacified
the country. His power spread fear; his good fortune was complete. He set out to return to his “ kingdom. The route passed through a broad, flat land. At that time the king's heart was pleased "only with the religion of the Buddha; he made it his necklace. Now, in the place where he stopped, "he (458) saw afar off a stūpa which he took for a stupa of the Buddha. With a snite of one “thousand men he went to visit it. When he got near the stūpa, be got off his horse, and advanced " on foot. The imperial cap set with precious stones adorned his head."
The king, after reciting some stanzas, bowed his head and adored. At that very moment the stūpa broke into little pieces. The king was troubled and affrighted. He thought the destruction must be due to magic. [459] In the past be had adored a hundred thousand stūpas, and never one was the least damaged. He feared some impending calamities. [460) At last a man of a neighbouring village approached and explained that the stūpa was not one of the Buddha, but of the Ni-kion (Nirgranthas), who are very stupid"; moreover, there were no relics in it. The king was filled with joy. Among the stanzas be then utters, we bave: -
[461] "He is not pure, the son of Ni-kien (Nirgruntha-putra)."
"At the moment when the stūpa tumbled down, a great noise came from it, which denounced it as a stupa of Jou-to-tzeu (Ināta-putra).
"The Buddha formerly having gone where Kia-che (Kasyapa) was, Kia che adored the fect "of the Buddha : - It is I, O Bhagavat; it is I, O Buddha Lākajyēshtha!'”
As to the Ni-kien, "their knowledge is not omniscience." “Nanoa po-kis-po (Namo Bhagavatë), it is he whom all adore as the master of deliverance."
[469] "All heretion together are not worth a straw. How much less then the master of the Ni-kien, Pou-lan-na K he (Purana Kabyapa)! "
