Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Sūtrālaṅkāra – 166
From the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims who visited India we
learn of the miracles performed by the Buddha in the countries
beyond the Indus. These are recorded in the Vinaya or the
disciplinary code of the Mūla Sarvāstivādis [195] in the section
devoted to medicinal herbs. The Divyāvadāna, one of the important
Sanskrit Buddhist texts, twice refers to them in the episodes
belonging to the cycle of Aśoka, first in the classic story of
Paṁśupradāna, and secondly, in the still more celebrated account
which has much more of history than legend of Prince Kunāla. In
Chinese we have several versions and they reproduce faithfully the
catalogue of the miraculous conversions. One of these, which dates
from 281-306, fixes also the locality of the occurrence:
“The Bhagavat subjugated and converted the Nāga Apalala in
Udyana; the head of the Brahmacāris in Kipin; Caṇḍāla in Kien-towei
(which we are unable to trace to the Sanskrit original); and
Gopāla in Gandhāra.”
In fact, we know from the accounts of the Chinese Voyagers that the
Dragon Apalala lived near the source of the Svat and that the cavern
of the shadow of the Buddha, which was a witness to the victory of
the Buddha over Gopāla, was in the neighbourhood of Nagarahāra
near modern Jalalabad, to the west of the confluence of the Svat and
the Kabul-rud. The third stage, therefore, has to be looked for in the
continuation of the same direction, that is in the country of Kapiṣa.
According to Hiuen-tsiang by the side of the shadow cavern there
was a stūpa enclosing the hair and nails of the Tathāgata, a frequent
appellation of the Buddha. The Kunālāvadāna mentions mount
Revataka alongside of Mahāvana which is skirted by the Indus on its
right bank below Attok.