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

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THE TRAVELS OF FA-HIEN
cense. The Brahmans come and invite the Buddhas to enter
the city. These do so in order, and remain two nights in it.
All through the night they keep lamps burning, have skilful
music, and present offerings. This is the practice in all the
other kingdoms as well. The Heads of the Vaisya families in
them establish in the cities houses for dispensing charity and
medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans,
widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and
all who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with
every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They
get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are
made to feel at ease ; and when they are better, they go away
of themselves.
When king Asoka destroyed the seven topes, intending to
make eighty-four thousand, the first which he made was the
great tope, more than three li to the south of this city. In
front of this there is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihara has
been built. The door of it faces the north, and on the south
of it there is a stone pillar, fourteen or fifteen cubits in circum-
ference, and more than thirty cubits high, on which there is
an inscription, saying, " Asoka gave the Jambudvipa to the
general body of all the monks, and then redeemed it from them
with money. This he did three times." North from the tope
three hundred or four hundred paces, king Asoka built the city
of Ne-le. In it there is a stone pillar, which also is more than
thirty feet high, with a lion on the top of it. On the pillar there
is an inscription recording the things which led to the building
of Ne-le, with the number of the year, the day, and the month.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Rajagriha, New and Old—Legends Connected with It
The travellers went on from this to the southeast for nine
yojanas, and came to a small solitary rocky hill, at the head or
end of which was an apartment of stone, facing the south—the
place where Buddha sat, when Sakra, Ruler of Devas, brought
the deva-musician, Paiichasikha, to give pleasure to him by
playing on his lute. Sakra then asked Buddha about fortytwo
subjects, tracing the questions out with his finger one by