Lives of Alcyone

and hesitated long with regard to this matter; he loved his work and
his books in Kanyakubja, and he could not but feel that he was of
use to the many who came thither to consult him. But at the same
time the temple in the hills represented the work of his great friend
and teacher Aryasanga, and to help that also seemed a duty. After
long consultation with the chief abbot, who had always remained his
firmest friend, he decided to accede to the summons. The old abbot
blessed him sorely, but yet that he thought on the whole that it was
his duty to go.
So once more he entered the wonderful hill country, and dwelt
for ten years in that lonely monastery, directing the work, keeping
alive the organisation of Aryasanga, and guiding and stimulating the
faith of a great mountain district. All this time, however, one of his
chief objects was to train the Nepalese monks to manage their own
monastery; from the first he selected Phoenix, the man whom he
thought most suitable, and prepared him to take his own place and
to set him free to return to India as soon as might be. There was
much work, however, to be done, and it was not until 677 that at last
he turned his face southward again. Even then it was only upon
receipt of an urgent message from Aldebran, his own chief abbot at
Kanyakubja, who was by this time ninety years of age, and wrote
that he found himself no longer able to administer the complicated
affairs of that great monastery, and that there was no one into
whose hands he could so confidently deliver his charge as those of
his dearly loved pupil.
So Alcyone solemnly installed as abbot of the Napalese
monastery the successor whom he had been so carefully training,
and giving them all a final and solemn benediction, he turned his
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