The Kingdom of Vaisâlî
East from this city ten yojanas, the travellers came to the kingdom of Vaisâlî. North of the city so named is a large forest, having in it the double-galleried vihâra where Buddha dwelt, and the tope over half the body of Ânanda. Inside the city the woman Âmbapâlî [1] built a vihâra in honor of Buddha, which is now standing as it was at first. Three li south of the city, on the west of the road, is the garden which the same Âmbapâlî presented to Buddha, in which he might reside. When Buddha was about to attain to his pari-nirvâna, as he was quitting the city by the west gate, he turned round, and, beholding the city on his right, said to them, "Here I have taken my last walk." Men subsequently built a tope at this spot.
Three li northwest of the city there is a tope called, "Bows and weapons laid down." The reason why it got that name was this: The inferior wife of a king, whose country lay along the river Ganges, brought forth from her womb a ball of flesh. The superior wife, jealous of the other, said, "You have brought forth a thing of evil omen," and immediately it was put into a box of wood and thrown into the river. Farther down the stream another king was walking and looking about, when he saw the wooden box floating in the water. He had it brought to him, opened it, and found a thousand little boys, upright and complete, and each one different from the others. He took them and had them brought up. They grew tall and large, and very daring and strong, crushing all opposition in every expedition which they undertook. By and by they attacked the kingdom of their real father, who became in consequence greatly distressed and sad. His inferior wife asked what it was that made him so, and he replied, "That king has a thousand sons, daring and strong beyond compare, and he wishes with them to attack my kingdom; this is what makes me sad." The wife said, "You need not be sad and sorrowful. Only make a high gallery on the wall of the city on the east; and when the thieves come, I shall be able to make them retire." The king did as she said; and when the enemies came, she said to them from the tower, "You are my sons; why are you acting so unnaturally and rebelliously?" They replied, "Who are you that say you are our mother?" "If you do not believe me," she said, "look, all of you, towards me, and open your mouths." She then pressed her breasts with her two hands, and each sent forth five hundred jets of milk, which fell into the mouths of the thousand sons. The thieves thus knew that she was their mother, and laid down their bows and weapons. The two kings, the fathers, hereupon fell into reflection, and both got to be Pratyeka Buddhas. The tope of the two Pratyeka Buddhas is still existing.
In a subsequent age, when the World-honored one had attained to perfect Wisdom and become Buddha, he said to his disciples, "This is the place where I in a former age laid down my bow and weapons." [2] It was thus that subsequently men got to know the fact, and raised the tope on this spot, which in this way received its name. The thousand little boys were the thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra-kalpa. [3]
It was by the side of the "Weapons-laid-down" tope that Buddha, having given up the idea of living longer, said to Ânanda, "In three months from this I will attain to pari-nirvâna"; and king Mâra [4] had so fascinated and stupefied Ânanda, that he was not able to ask Buddha to remain longer in this world.
Three or four li east from this place there is a tope commemorating the following occurrence: A hundred years after the pari-nirvâna of Buddha, some Bhikshus of Vaisâlî went wrong in the matter of the disciplinary rules in ten particulars, and appealed for their justification to what they said were the words of Buddha. Hereupon the Arhats and Bhikshus observant of the rules, to the number in all of seven hundred monks, examined afresh and collated the collection of disciplinary books [5]. Subsequently men built at this place the tope in question, which is still existing.
[Footnote 1: Âmbapâlî, Âmrapâlî, or Âmradarikâ, "the guardian of the Âmra (probably the mango) tree," is famous in Buddhist annals. She was a courtesan. She had been in many nârakas or hells, was one hundred thousand times a female beggar, and ten thousand times a prostitute; but maintaining perfect continence during the period of Kâsyana Buddha, Sakyamuni's predecessor, she had been born a devî, and finally appeared in earth under an Âmra tree in Vaisâlî. There again she fell into her old ways, and had a son by king Bimbisâra; but she was won over by Buddha to virtue and chastity, renounced the world, and attained to the state of an Arhat.]
[Footnote 2: Thus Sâkyamuni had been one of the thousand little boys who floated in the box in the Ganges. How long back the former age was we cannot tell. I suppose the tope of the two fathers who became Pratyeka Buddhas had been built like the one commemorating the laying down of weapons after Buddha had told his disciples of the strange events in the past.]
[Footnote 3: Bhadra-kalpa, "the Kalpa of worthies or sages." "This," says Eitel, "is a designation for a Kalpa of stability, so-called because one thousand Buddhas appear in the course of it. Our present period is a Bhadra-kalpa, and four Buddhas have already appeared. It is to last two hundred and thirty-six millions of years, but over one hundred and fifty-one millions have already elapsed."]
[Footnote 4: "The king of demons." The name Mara is explained by "the murderer," "the destroyer of virtue," and similar appellations. "He is," says Eitel, "the personification of lust, the god of love, sin, and death, the arch-enemy of goodness, residing in the heaven Paranirmita Vasavartin on the top of the Kamadhatu. He assumes different forms, especially monstrous ones, to tempt or frighten the saints, or sends his daughters, or inspires wicked men like Devadatta or the Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100 arms, and riding on an elephant."]
[Footnote 5: Or the Vinaya-pitaka. The meeting referred to was an important one, and is generally spoken of as the second Great Council of the Buddhist Church. The first Council was that held at Râjagriha, shortly after Buddha's death, under the presidency of Kâsyapasay about B.C. 410. The second was that spoken of heresay about B.C. 300.]