Indian Antiquary Vol 32

SR No.: 032524
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 550
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 405

OCTOBER, 1903.)
NOTES ON THE INDO-SOYTHIANS.
383
the next world on account of the blood he had spilt, the monks in a convent rang the bell continuously for seven days, and this practice was kept up for many years after Kanishka's death, and till the time of the narrator. Lastly, a town in India bore the name of this prince: Kanishkapura.
If wo comparo the stories with other documents we find some of these data confirmed: we are therefore led to think favourably of the rest. Kanishka, by the inscriptions, was certainly
Kashana, and had the title of dēvaputra ; the Rájatarangiņi mentions the foufidation of Kanishkepura [440] by him. Hionen-tsang knew of Kanishka's conquests west of China, and speaks several times of the Chinese princes detained us hostages at his court; he oven expressly names the Tsoung-ling mountains as the castern limit of his dominions. The relations between Kavishka and Ašvaghosha were an embarrassment to Taranitha ; his chronological system obliged him to separate the two persons, and he had to invent a king Kanika, contemporary with Ašvaghosha, one "whom we must consider as a different person from Kanishka." According to Tāranátha, the king Kanika sent a messenger to the country of Magadha to fetch Ašvaghosha, who excused himself on account of old age, but sent the king
letter of instruction by bis disciple Jñanapriya.2 The Chinese biography of Asvaghusha (Ma-ming pou-sa-tchoen; Nanjio, 1460), abridged by Wassilieff (Buddhismus, 211), relates that the king of the Yue-tchi invaded Magadha to demand the Buddha's bowl and Asvaghosha," . but it does not give the invader's name.. Wassilieff (Notes sur Tārunātha, trans. Schiefner, 299)
thinks Kanishka's son is meant. This would be the king of the Yne-tchi, Jen-kao-tchin, son of Kieou-tsieu-kio, called the conqueror of India in the annals of the second Han dynasty.
[450) When we have so many testimonies, and even their differences bear witness to the original agreement of the traditions, we may legitimately admit Kanishka and Abvaghosha to be coutemporaries. The date of one ought to fix the date of the other. The current opinion, based on Fergasson and Oldenberg's theories, [451] takes Kanishka's coronation as the starting point of the Saka era in 78 A. D. M. Lévi had previously expressed his doubt on this point; and returns to it afterwards, as will be seen in Part II. Meanwhile he observes that Western Indologists can excuse the disagreement of their chronologies by the contradictions of the Indian
The letter is preserved in the Tibetan Canon, Tandjour, Mdo. xxxiii: Royal-po Kanishka-la erits ra' phrine yig. The work belongs no doubt to the same literary class as the Suhrillēkha of Nagarjuna and the Sishyaloklu of Chandragomin, Türanatha's rocount in reproduced in King Kuniahka and some historical facts ... translated from Sumpahi O'hoijang : Journal of the Buddhist Texts Society of Iulia, I. 18-22. - [For the Tibetan toxt. and a translation by Mr. Thomas, of the Maharajakanikalēkha, the letter of Matrichita-(Asvaghaha) to king Kapika, see page 345 ff. above. - W.R. P.)
M. Lévi has here added a note, as follows: -- We may observe that in the time of Hionen-tsang and (arabr-Siladitya, in the course of the seventh century, Kumāra, the king of Kamarūpa, threatened both to invade the territory of Nalanda at the bead of an army and to annihilate the convent, if the obief of the monks, Bilabhadra, delayed to send to him the Chinese pilgrim who had installed himself for purposes of study at that great Buddhist university.
• Buoh synchronisms should not be despised. As they become more numerous they control oach other, and fix the floating lines of history. The famous inscription on the Lion-Pillar at Mathura (J. R. A. 8., 1894, 525-510) mentions, together with the satraps, two Buddhist teachers who can be identified with sufficient probability.
Inscription K. is out in honour of the acharya Buddhadova. A personage of this name, styled as mahābhadanta, is reokoned among the four kreat acharyas of the Vaibhashika school, with Dharmaträta Ghoshaka (who has the
e Tukbara ; cf. inf. 2nd art.) and Vasuinitra (Terunatba, P. 67). Gboobaka and Yasumitra taught in the time of Kanishka and his successor (ibid. 61); Buddhadēra belonged to the generation immediately after these two teaobers, just before Nagarjuna (ibid. 69). The traditional list of the patriarchs (Nanjio, 1844), O the other hand, pots the interval of a generation between Asvagkotha (Kanishka's contemporary according to our stories) and Nagarjuna, contemporary of Satavahana. Budchadēva is mentioned by Vasubandhu in the Abhidharmakosa (comm. on stanza 35), and by Yafomitra in the commentary on the same work (MS. Burnout, p. 475b).
Inscription N. contains the praises of the bhikshu Budhila, native of Nagars, of the Eartāstivādin school, who illustrated (or edited) the Prajis of the Mabasamghikas. He no doubt is the same as Fo-t'i-lo (in Chine K'io-ts'iu, K'io = bodhi), master of the bastras, who composed the treatine Tsi-tchin-lun (Samyukta-tattva-bastra?) for the use of the Mabisanghika school. in a convent of the same. 140 or 150 li (Hioven-tsang, Mem. I. 183). Bodhila's (or Budhila's) work explained metaphysics, the Prajia of the Mahasanghita,