Indian Antiquary Vol 35

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 47

FEBRUARY, 1906.]
THE SOK AND KANISKA.
41
The remarkable thing is, that Kanisks, the Buddhist hero and the alleged founder of
a powerful Indo-Asiatic kingdom, is to the Chinese historians an entirely P. 80Buddhist stories of unknown person and nowhere explicitly mentioned by them. This is Kaninka
astonishing in view of the facts that Kaniska had actually a son of the emperor of China at his court as a hostage, and that he must have been known to them as a formidable neighbour and rival in the establishment of their power. But, as mentioned above, the year 124 A. D. was the last in which occasion occurred for exact kaowledge of events in the west.
The Buddhist records, however, are less reticent. First Hüan tsang tells us, in writing of the monasteries of Kia-pi-shi (modern Kafiristan), that, according to old chroniclers, "a great king Kaniska lived in the kingdom of Gandhāra. His power spread to neighbouring states and his ennobling influence pressed into distant countries. He treated his hostages with especial distinction. They had separate residences for Winter, for Summer, and for Spring and Autumn, and at each place they built monasteries, and, even after returning home, never neglected to send their gifts." P. 81.
Statements to the same effect are found in the description of the land
of Cinapati. The pilgrim further relates that the king Kanişka took the throne in the 400th year after the Nirvāņa of Tathagata (fulfilling a prophecy of Buddha) and ruled the territory of Jambudvipa. He believed peither in priniehment nor in benediction, he despised the law of Buddha and trampled it down." In a wonderful way he was converted by a boy who tended the cows, so that "he professed the law of Buddha and revered his law from his in most soul."
This legend is told 200 years before Hüan tsang by Fa hien, who, however, dates the accession to the throne at 300 years after the Nirvana. Other legends are interpreted in the light of Buddhist extravagance and tell us nothing of any significance. We must bere note that Hüan tsang begins his chapter on Kaniska with the words, "The following is told there by the earlier annalists." This puts even the Chinese evidence on a lower footing than the early anpals as regards reliability, i. e., the cautious Chinese will not vouch for the correctness of his history: he is willing only * relata referre." The monastery given to the hostages as a summer residence is called Jen-kia-lan by Hüan
tsang, but otherwise She-lo-kia, which Beal and Marquart take to P. 83.
be Sanskrit Saraka = Serica = China," i. e., a Chinese monastery. Moreover, it happens that the pictures of the hostages on the monastery walls represented the inhabitants of "East Hia." Now, both Hüan tsang's translators understand East His to mean China. Let us now test these statements by the Chinese texts. The Si yu chi, a work issued in 666 by imperial command, states that there was in the capital of Ki-pin (= Kapiša) a monastery called Han seě, i. e., monastery of the Han or Chinese, and that in earlier times a pagoda was erected by an ambassador from Han (China). I tsing, the Buddhist biographer, makes a similar statement about one of the fallen "Monasteries of China," which seems to have been situated on the Ganges.. This monastery, according to a local tradition, was built more than 500 years before his time
(about 680 A. D.), that is, abont 150 A. D., for the Chinese pilgrims. P. 84 f.
This tradition seems to be entirely without foundation. Hüan tsang says nothing explicitly about Chinese hostages. "The races in the province westward from the stream," he says, "sent hostages." He found representations of them on the walls in the monastery of
Marquart pats another interpretation on the name, seeing a word Säraka (not authenticated), i. e., a Sanekrit form of the name Barak for Kashgar, in Chinese Sha-lek or Sha-lok. This interpretation be then connects with an episode from the history of Shu-16(k) translated by Specht, and concludes that Kaniska must have occupied the throne at that time, s, &, during the reign of the Emperor Nganti (107–125). The proof, however, does not require that to support it: in the Chinese text, the subject is not the prince who was sent as hostage to the Yuë-chi, nor is there any reference therein to the king Kaniska.