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INTRODUCTION.
xvii
now lost. If so, the book can have differed in no material point from the common legendary account of Buddha's early career. In § 8 the Pen-hing is quoted in reference to the selection of Buddha's birth-place; in § 11 the dream of Mâyâ at the conception of the child is referred to. In § 23 there is the history of Asita and his horoscope. In § 27 the trial in athletic sports. In § 29 the enjoyment of the prince in his palace for ten years. In § 31 the account of the excursion beyond the walls and the sights of suffering. In § 33 the interview with his father before his flight from the palace. In § 38 the act of cutting his hair with his sword and the intervention of Sakra. In § 39 his exchange of garments with the hunter. In § 40 his visit to the Rishis in the snowy mountains. In $ 41 the account of his six years' fast at Gayà. In § 44 there is allusion to the Nâgas Kalika and Mukilinda. In $ 46 the rice milk given by the two daughters of Sugåta. Here the quotations from the Pen-hing come to an end. We can scarcely doubt therefore that this work ended with the account of the supreme enlightenment of Buddha. It is said that the Fo-pen-hing was in five kiouen; it could not therefore have been a short abstract, but must have been a complete history of Buddha from his birth to the period of his victory over Mára. It would thus correspond with what is termed the 'intermediate epoch,' in the Southern records. We may conclude therefore that such a life of Buddha was in circulation in India in a written form at or before the beginning of our era. It was brought thence by Ku-fa-lan, and translated into Chinese A. D. 67–70. M. Stanislas Julien, in the well-known communication found on p. xvii n. of the translation of the Lalita Vistara from Tibetan by M. Foucaux, speaks of this work as the first version of the Lalita Vistara into Chinese.
We have next to consider a work translated into Chinese by two Sramanas from India in the year A. D. 194, and named (2) Siu-hing-pen-k'i-king.
修行本起經 [19]
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