________________ 408 Homage to Vaigali The sfour joinings" mentioned by Fa-Hjan refer to the story of the kings of the four quarters-Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera-having each offered a bowl to Buddha, when he, wishing not to disappoint one of them, accepted all four bowls and miraculously joined them into one in which the four joinings were distincty visible. The whole story about Buddha's bowl having been originally enshrined at Vaisali had been quite lost before the time of Hwen Thsang's visit, and as Fa-Hian says nothing about its position when describing the holy places at Vaisali it would seem as if the site had been forgotten. Apparently Fa-Hian knew nothing about it until he heard of it accidentally in Ceylon. Even when he saw the Alms-bowl in Gandhara, he is quite silent as to its original position in Vaisali. This silence is, I think, a presumptive proof that a very long time must have passed since the removal of the bowl to Gandhara, and that the date of the first half of the 2nd century A. D., which I have deduced from Taradath's statement, is most probably correct. If the removal had been recent, Fa-Hian would almost certainly have heard of it in both places. Mention is made of the bowl of Buddha at a much later date, in A. D., 665, when the Chinese pilgrim Yuan-Chan saw it in the Nava Vihara (or new monastery) when on his way from Balkh to Sintu (or India).. The notice is confined to the remark that in company with a Lokayatika, he "paid reverence to the water-pitcher of Buddha and other relics."
