Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

232 THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN
^ariputtra, with all kinds of flowers and incense. All through
the night lamps are kept burning, and skilful musicians are employed
to perform.
When Sariputtra was a great Brahman, he went to Buddha,
and begged to be permitted to quit his family and become a
monk. The great Mugalan and the great Kasyapa also did
the same. The bhikshunis^ for the most part make their
offerings at the tope of Ananda, because it was he who re-
quested the World-honored one to allow females to quit their
families and become nuns. The Sramaneras'^ mostly make
their offerings to Rahula.^ The professors of the Abhidharma
make their offerings to it ; those of the Vinaya to it. Every
year there is one such offering, and each class has its own day
for it. Students of the mahayana present offerings to the
Prajiia-paramita, to Mafijusri, and to Kwan-she-yin. When
the monks have done receiving their annual tribute from the
harvests, the Heads of the Vaisyas and all the Brahmans bring
clothes and such other articles as the monks require for use,
and distribute among them. The monks, having received
them, also proceed to give portions to one another. From
the nirvana of Buddha, the forms of ceremony, laws, and rules,
practised by the sacred communities, have been handed down
from one generation to another without interruption.
From the place where the travellers crossed the Indus to
South India, and on to the Southern Sea, a distance of forty or
fifty thousand li, all is level plain. There are no large hills
with streams among them ; there are simply the waters of the
rivers.
•The bhikshunis are the female Yasodhara. Converted to Buddhism, he
monks or nuns, subject to the same followed his father as an attendant; and
rules as the bhikshus, and also to spec- after Buddha's death became the
ial ordinances of restraint. founder of a philosophical realistic
• The Sramaneras are the novices, school (vaibhashika). He is now
male or female, who have vowed to ob- revered as the patron saint of all
serve the Shikshapada, or ten com- novices, and is to be reborn as the eldest
mandments. son of every future Buddha.
* The eldest sob of Sakyamuni by