It is a perplexing circ.u.mstance that there is a double set of indications about the footmark. The Ceylon traditions, quoted above from Hardy, call its length 3 inches less than a carpenter"s cubit. Modern observers estimate it at 5 feet or 5-1/2 feet. Hardy accounts for this by supposing that the original footmark was destroyed in the end of the sixteenth century. But Ibn Batuta, in the 14th, states it at 11 spans, or _more_ than the modern report. [Ibn Khordadhbeh at 70 cubits.--H.C.] Marignolli, on the other hand, says that he measured it and found it to be 2-1/2 palms, or about half a Prague ell, which corresponds in a general way with Hardy"s tradition. Valentyn calls it 1-1/2 ell in length; Knox says 2 feet; Herman Bree (De Bry ?), quoted by Fabricius, 8-1/2 spans; a Chinese account, quoted below, 8 feet. These discrepancies remind one of the ancient Buddhist belief regarding such footmarks, that they seemed greater or smaller in proportion to the faith of the visitor! (See _Koeppen_, I.
529, and _Beal"s Fah-hian_, p. 27.)
The chains, of which Ibn Batuta gives a particular account, exist still.
The highest was called (he says) the chain of the _Shahadat_, or Credo, because the fearful abyss below made pilgrims recite the profession of belief. Ashraf, a Persian poet of the 15th century, author of an Alexandriad, ascribes these chains to the great conqueror, who devised them, with the a.s.sistance of the philosopher _Bolinas_,[1] in order to scale the mountain, and reach _the sepulchre of Adam_. (See _Ouseley_, I.
54 seqq.) There are inscriptions on some of the chains, but I find no account of them. (_Skeen"s Adam"s Peak_, Ceylon, 1870, p. 226.)
NOTE 2.--The general correctness with which Marco has here related the legendary history of Sakya"s devotion to an ascetic life, as the preliminary to his becoming the Buddha or Divinely Perfect Being, shows what a strong impression the tale had made upon him. He is, of course, wrong in placing the scene of the history in Ceylon, though probably it was so told him, as the vulgar in all Buddhist countries do seem to localise the legends in regions known to them.
Sakya Sinha, Sakya Muni, or Gautama, originally called Siddharta, was the son of Suddhodhana, the Kshatriya prince of Kapilavastu, a small state north of the Ganges, near the borders of Oudh. His high destiny had been foretold, as well as the objects that would move him to adopt the ascetic life. To keep these from his knowledge, his father caused three palaces to be built, within the limits of which the prince should pa.s.s the three seasons of the year, whilst guards were posted to bar the approach of the dreaded objects. But these precautions were defeated by inevitable destiny and the power of the Devas.
When the prince was sixteen he was married to the beautiful Yasodhara, daughter of the King of Koli, and 40,000 other princesses also became the inmates of his harem.
"Whilst living in the midst of the full enjoyment of every kind of pleasure, Siddharta one day commanded his princ.i.p.al charioteer to prepare his festive chariot; and in obedience to his commands four lily-white horses were yoked. The prince leaped into the chariot, and proceeded towards a garden at a little distance from the palace, attended by a great retinue. On his way he saw a decrepit old man, with broken teeth, grey locks, and a form bending towards the ground, his trembling steps supported by a staff (a Deva had taken this form).... The prince enquired what strange figure it was that he saw; and he was informed that it was an old man. He then asked if the man was born so, and the charioteer answered that he was not, as he was once young like themselves. "Are there," said the prince, "many such beings in the world?" "Your highness," said the charioteer, "there are many." The prince again enquired, "Shall I become thus old and decrepit?" and he was told that it was a state at which all beings must arrive."
The prince returns home and informs his father of his intention to become an ascetic, seeing how undesirable is life tending to such decay. His father conjures him to put away such thoughts, and to enjoy himself with his princesses, and he strengthens the guards about the palaces. Four months later like circ.u.mstances recur, and the prince sees a leper, and after the same interval a dead body in corruption. Lastly, he sees a religious recluse, radiant with peace and tranquillity, and resolves to delay no longer. He leaves his palace at night, after a look at his wife Yasodhara and the boy just born to him, and betakes himself to the forests of Magadha, where he pa.s.ses seven years in extreme asceticism. At the end of that time he attains the Buddhahood. (See _Hardy"s Manual_ p. 151 seqq.) The latter part of the story told by Marco, about the body of the prince being brought to his father, etc., is erroneous. Sakya was 80 years of age when he died under the sal trees in Kusinara.
The strange parallel between Buddhistic ritual, discipline, and costume, and those which especially claim the name of CATHOLIC in the Christian Church, has been often noticed; and though the parallel has never been elaborated as it might be, some of the more salient facts are familiar to most readers. Still many may be unaware that Buddha himself, Siddharta the son of Suddodhana, has found his way into the Roman martyrology as a Saint of the Church.
In the first edition a mere allusion was made to this singular story, for it had recently been treated by Professor Max Muller, with characteristic learning and grace. (See _Contemporary Review_ for July, 1870, p. 588.) But the matter is so curious and still so little familiar that I now venture to give it at some length.
The religious romance called the History of BARLAAM and JOSAPHAT was for several centuries one of the most popular works in Christendom. It was translated into all the chief European languages, including Scandinavian and Sclavonic tongues. An Icelandic version dates from the year 1204; one in the Tagal language of the Philippines was printed at Manilla in 1712.[2]
The episodes and apologues with which the story abounds have furnished materials to poets and story-tellers in various ages and of very diverse characters; e.g. to Giovanni Boccaccio, John Gower, and to the compiler of the _Gesta Romanorum_, to Shakspere, and to the late W. Adams, author of the _Kings Messengers_. The basis of this romance is the story of Siddharta.
The story of Barlaam and Josaphat first appears among the works (in Greek) of St. John of Damascus, a theologian of the early part of the 8th century, who, before he devoted himself to divinity had held high office at the Court of the Khalif Abu Jafar Almansur. The outline of the story is as follows:--
St. Thomas had converted the people of India to the truth; and after the eremitic life originated in Egypt many in India adopted it. But a potent pagan King arose, by name ABENNER, who persecuted the Christians and especially the ascetics. After this King had long been childless, a son, greatly desired, is born to him, a boy of matchless beauty. The King greatly rejoices, gives the child the name of JOSAPHAT, and summons the astrologers to predict his destiny. They foretell for the prince glory and prosperity beyond all his predecessors in the kingdom. One sage, most learned of all, a.s.sents to this, but declares that the scene of these glories will not be the paternal realm, and that the child will adopt the faith that his father persecutes.
This prediction greatly troubled King Abenner. In a secluded city he caused a splendid palace to be erected, within which his son was to abide, attended only by tutors and servants in the flower of youth and health. No one from without was to have access to the prince; and he was to witness none of the afflictions of humanity, poverty, disease, old age, or death, but only what was pleasant, so that he should have no inducement to think of the future life; nor was he ever to hear a word of CHRIST or His religion. And, hearing that some monks still survived in India, the King in his wrath ordered that any such, who should be found after three days, should be burnt alive.
The Prince grows up in seclusion, acquires all manner of learning, and exhibits singular endowments of wisdom and acuteness. At last he urges his father to allow him to pa.s.s the limits of the palace, and this the King reluctantly permits, after taking all precautions to arrange diverting spectacles, and to keep all painful objects at a distance. Or let us proceed in the Old English of the Golden Legend.[3] "Whan his fader herde this he was full of sorowe, and anone he let do make redy horses and joyfull felawshyp to accompany him, in suche wyse that nothynge dyshonest sholde happen to hym. And on a tyme thus as the Kynges sone wente he mette a mesell and a blynde man, and wh he sawe them he was aba.s.shed and enquyred what them eyled. And his seruautes sayd: These ben pa.s.sions that comen to men. And he demaunded yf the pa.s.syons came to all men. And they sayd nay. Th sayd he, ben they knowen whiche men shall suffre.... And they answered, Who is he that may knowe ye aduentures of men. And he began to be moche anguysshous for ye incustomable thynge hereof. And another tyme he found a man moche aged, whiche had his chere frouced, his tethe fallen, and he was all croked for age.... And th he demaunded what sholde be ye ende. And they sayd deth.... And this yonge man remembered ofte in his herte these thynges, and was in grete dyscforte, but he shewed hy moche glad tofore his fader, and he desyred moche to be enformed and taught in these thyges." [Fol. ccc. lii.]
At this time BARLAAM, a monk of great sanct.i.ty and knowledge in divine things, who dwelt in the wilderness of Sennaritis, having received a divine warning, travels to India in the disguise of a merchant, and gains access to Prince Josaphat, to whom he unfolds the Christian doctrine and the blessedness of the monastic life. Suspicion is raised against Barlaam, and he departs. But all efforts to shake the Prince"s convictions are vain. As a last resource the King sends for a magician called Theudas, who removes the Prince"s attendants and subst.i.tutes seductive girls, but all their blandishments are resisted through prayer. The King abandons these attempts and a.s.sociates his son with himself in the government. The Prince uses his power to promote religion, and everything prospers in his hand.
Finally King Abenner is drawn to the truth, and after some years of penitence dies. Josaphat then surrenders the kingdom to a friend called Barachias, and proceeds into the wilderness, where he wanders for two years seeking Barlaam, and much buffeted by the demons. "And whan Balaam had accomplysshed his dayes, he rested in peas about ye yere of Our Lorde.
cccc. &. Ix.x.x. Josaphat lefte his realme the xxv. yere of his age, and ledde the lyfe of an heremyte x.x.xv. yere, and than rested in peas full of vertues, and was buryed by the body of Balaam." [Fol. ccc. lvi.] The King Barachias afterwards arrives and transfers the bodies solemnly to India.
This is but the skeleton of the story, but the episodes and apologues which round its dimensions, and give it its mediaeval popularity, do not concern our subject. In this skeleton the story of Siddharta, _mutatis mutandis_ is obvious.
The story was first popular in the Greek Church, and was embodied in the lives of the saints, as recooked by Simeon the Metaphrast, an author whose period is disputed, but was in any case not later than 1150. A Cretan monk called Agapios made selections from the work of Simeon which were published in Romaic at Venice in 1541 under the name of the _Paradise_, and in which the first section consists of the story of Barlaam and Josaphat. This has been frequently reprinted as a popular book of devotion. A copy before me is printed at Venice in 1865.[4]
From the Greek Church the history of the two saints pa.s.sed to the Latin, and they found a place in the Roman martyrology under the 27th November.
When this first happened I have not been able to ascertain. Their history occupies a large s.p.a.ce in the _Speculum Historiale_ of Vincent of Beauvais, written in the 13th century, and is set forth, as we have seen, in the Golden Legend of nearly the same age. They are recognised by Baronius, and are to be found at p. 348 of "The Roman Martyrology set forth by command of Pope Gregory XIII., and revised by the authority of Pope Urban VIII., translated out of Latin into English by G.K. of the Society of Jesus.... and now re-edited ... by W.N. Skelly, Esq. London, T. Richardson & Son." (Printed at Derby, 1847.) Here in Palermo is a church bearing the dedication _Divo Iosaphat_.
Professor Muller attributes the first recognition of the ident.i.ty of the two stories to M. Laboulaye in 1859. But in fact I find that the historian de Couto had made the discovery long before.[5] He says, speaking of _Budo_ (Buddha), and after relating his history:
"To this name the Gentiles throughout all India have dedicated great and superb paG.o.das. With reference to this story we have been diligent in enquiring if the ancient Gentiles of those parts had in their writings any knowledge of St. Josaphat who was converted by Barlam, who in his Legend is represented as the son of a great King of India, and who had just the same up-bringing, with all the same particulars, that we have recounted of the life of the Budo.... And as a thing seems much to the purpose, which was told us by a very old man of the Salsette territory in Bacaim, about Josaphat, I think it well to cite it: As I was travelling in the Isle of Salsette, and went to see that rare and admirable PaG.o.da (which we call the Canara PaG.o.da[6]) made in a mountain, with many halls cut out of one solid rock ... and enquiring from this old man about the work, and what he thought as to who had made it, he told us that without doubt the work was made by order of the father of St. Josaphat to bring him up therein in seclusion, as the story tells. And as it informs us that he was the son of a great King in India, it may well be, as we have just said, that _he_ was the Budo, of whom they relate such marvels." (Dec. V. liv. vi. cap. 2.)
Dominie Valentyn, not being well read in the Golden Legend, remarks on the subject of Buddha: "There be some who hold this Budhum for a fugitive Syrian Jew, or for an Israelite, others who hold him for a Disciple of the Apostle Thomas; but how in that case he could have been born 622 years before Christ I leave them to explain. Diego de Couto stands by the belief that he was certainly _Joshua_, which is still more absurd!" (V. deel, p.
374.)
[Since the days of Couto, who considered the Buddhist legend but an imitation of the Christian legend, the ident.i.ty of the stories was recognised (as mentioned supra) by M. Edouard Laboulaye, in the _Journal des Debats_ of the 26th of July, 1859. About the same time, Professor F.
Liebrecht of Liege, in _Ebert"s Jahrbuch fur Romanische und Englische Literatur_, II. p. 314 seqq., comparing the Book of Barlaam and Joasaph with the work of Barthelemy St. Hilaire on Buddha, arrived at the same conclusion.
In 1880, Professor T.W. Rhys Davids has devoted some pages (x.x.xvi.-xli.) in his _Buddhist Birth Stories; or, Jataka Tales_, to _The Barlaam and Josaphat Literature_, and we note from them that: "Pope Sixtus the Fifth (1585-1590) authorised a particular Martyrologium, drawn up by Cardinal Baronius, to be used throughout the Western Church.". In that work are included not only the saints first canonised at Rome, but all those who, having been already canonised elsewhere, were then acknowledged by the Pope and the College of Rites to be saints of the Catholic Church of Christ. Among such, under the date of the 27th of November, are included "The holy Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, of India, on the borders of Persia, whose wonderful acts Saint John of Damascus has described. Where and when they were first canonised, I have been unable, in spite of much investigation, to ascertain. Petrus de Natalibus, who was Bishop of Equilium, the modern Jesolo, near Venice, from 1370 to 1400, wrote a Martyrology called _Catalogus Sanctorum_; and in it, among the "Saints,"
he inserts both Barlaam and Josaphat, giving also a short account of them derived from the old Latin translation of St. John of Damascus. It is from this work that Baronius, the compiler of the authorised Martyrology now in use, took over the names of these two saints, Barlaam and Josaphat. But, so far as I have been able to ascertain, they do not occur in any martyrologies or lists of saints of the Western Church older than that of Petrus de Natalibus. In the corresponding manual of worship still used in the Greek Church, however, we find, under 26th August, the name "of the holy Iosaph, son of Abener, King of India." Barlaam is not mentioned, and is not therefore recognised as a saint in the Greek Church. No history is added to the simple statement I have quoted; and I do not know on what authority it rests. But there is no doubt that it is in the East, and probably among the records of the ancient church of Syria, that a final solution of this question should be sought. Some of the more learned of the numerous writers who translated or composed new works on the basis of the story of Josaphat, have pointed out in their notes that he had been canonised; and the hero of the romance is usually called St. Josaphat in the t.i.tles of these works, as will be seen from the Table of the Josaphat literature below. But Professor Liebrecht, when identifying Josaphat with the Buddha, took no notice of this; and it was Professor Max Muller, who has done so much to infuse the glow of life into the dry bones of Oriental scholarship, who first pointed out the strange fact--almost incredible, were it not for the completeness of the proof--that Gotama the Buddha, under the name of St. Josaphat, is now officially recognised and honoured and worshipped throughout the whole of Catholic Christendom as a Christian saint!" Professor T.W. Rhys Davids gives further a Bibliography, pp.
xcv.-xcvii.
M.H. Zotenberg wrote a learned memoir (_N. et Ext._ XXVIII. Pt. I.) in 1886 to prove that the Greek Text is not a translation but the original of the Legend. There are many MSS. of the Greek Text of the Book of Barlaam and Joasaph in Paris, Vienna, Munich, etc., including ten MSS. kept in various libraries at Oxford. New researches made by Professor E. Kuhn, of Munich (_Barlaam und Joasaph. Eine Bibliographisch-literargeschichtliche Studie_, 1893), seem to prove that during the 6th century, in that part of the Sa.s.sanian Empire bordering on India, in fact Afghanistan, Buddhism and Christianity were gaining ground at the expense of the Zoroastrian faith, and that some Buddhist wrote in Pehlevi a _Book of Yudasaf_ (Bodhisatva); a Christian, finding pleasant the legend, made an adaptation of it from his own point of view, introducing the character of the monk Balauhar (Barlaam) to teach his religion to Yudasaf, who could not, in his Christian disguise, arrive at the truth by himself like a Bodhisatva. This Pehlevi version of the newly-formed Christian legend was translated into Syriac, and from Syriac was drawn a Georgian version, and, in the first half of the 7th century, the Greek Text of John, a monk of the convent of St. Saba, near Jerusalem, by some turned into St. John of Damascus, who added to the story some long theological discussions. From this Greek, it was translated into all the known languages of Europe, while the Pehlevi version being rendered into Arabic, was adapted by the Mussulmans and the Jews to their own creeds. (_H. Zotenberg, Mem. sur le texte et les versions orientales du Livre de Barlaam et Joasaph, Not. et Ext._ XXVIII. Pt. I. pp. 1-166; _G.
Paris, Saint Josaphat_ in _Rev. de Paris_, 1"er Juin, 1895, and _Poemes et Legendes du Moyen Age_, pp. 181-214.)
Mr. Joseph Jacobs published in London, 1896, a valuable little book, _Barlaam and Josaphat, English Lives of Buddha_, in which he comes to this conclusion (p. xli.): "I regard the literary history of the Barlaam literature as completely parallel with that of the Fables of Bidpai.
Originally Buddhistic books, both lost their specifically Buddhistic traits before they left India, and made their appeal, by their parables, more than by their doctrines. Both were translated into Pehlevi in the reign of Chosroes, and from that watershed floated off into the literatures of all the great creeds. In Christianity alone, characteristically enough, one of them, the Barlaam book, was surcharged with dogma, and turned to polemical uses, with the curious result that Buddha became one of the champions of the Church. To divest the Barlaam-Buddha of this character, and see him in his original form, we must take a further journey and seek him in his home beyond the Himalayas."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sakya Muni as a Saint of the Roman Martyrology.
"Wie des Kunigs Son in dem aufscziechen am ersten sahe in dem Weg eynen blinden und eyn aufsmorckigen und eyen alten krummen Man."[7]]
Professor Gaston Paris, in answer to Mr. Jacobs, writes (_Poemes et Leg.
du Moyen Age_, p. 213): "Mr. Jacobs thinks that the Book of Balauhar and Yudasaf was not originally Christian, and could have existed such as it is now in Buddhistic India, but it is hardly likely, as Buddha did not require the help of a teacher to find truth, and his followers would not have invented the person of Balauhar-Barlaam; on the other hand, the introduction of the Evangelical Parable of _The Sower_, which exists in the original of all the versions of our Book, shows that this original was a Christian adaptation of the Legend of Buddha. Mr. Jacobs seeks vainly to lessen the force of this proof in showing that this Parable has parallels in Buddhistic literature."--H.C.]
NOTE 3.--Marco is not the only eminent person who has expressed this view of Sakyamuni"s life in such words. Professor Max Muller (_u.s._) says: "And whatever we may think of the sanct.i.ty of saints, let those who doubt the right of Buddha to a place among them, read the story of his life as it is told in the Buddhistic canon. If he lived the life which is there described, few saints have a better claim to the t.i.tle than Buddha; and no one either in the Greek or the Roman Church need be ashamed of having paid to his memory the honour that was intended for St. Josaphat, the prince, the hermit, and the saint."
NOTE 4.--This is curiously like a pa.s.sage in the _Wisdom of Solomon_: "Neque enim erant (idola) ab initio, neque erunt in perpetuum ... acerbo enim luctu dolens pater cito sibi rapti filii fecit imaginem: et ilium qui tune quasi h.o.m.o mortuus fuerat nunc tamquam deum colere coepit, et const.i.tuit inter servos suos sacra et sacrificia" (xiv. 13-15). Gower alludes to the same story; I know not whence taken:--
"Of _Cirophanes_, seith the booke, That he for sorow, whiche he toke Of that he sigh his sonne dede, Of comfort knewe none other rede, But lete do make in remembrance A faire image of his semblance, And set it in the market place: Whiche openly to fore his face Stood euery day, to done hym ease; And thei that than wolden please The Fader, shuld it obeye, Whan that thei comen thilke weye."
--_Confessio Amantis_.[8]
NOTE 5.--Adam"s Peak has for ages been a place of pilgrimage to Buddhists, Hindus, and Mahomedans, and appears still to be so. Ibn Batuta says the Mussulman pilgrimage was inst.i.tuted in the 10th century. The book on the history of the Mussulmans in Malabar, called _Tohfat-ul-Majahidin_ (p.
48), ascribes their first settlement in that country to a party of pilgrims returning from Adam"s Peak. Marignolli, on his visit to the mountain, mentions "another pilgrim, a Saracen of Spain; for many go on pilgrimage to Adam."
The identification of Adam with objects of Indian worship occurs in various forms. Tod tells how an old Rajput Chief, as they stood before a famous temple of Mahadeo near Udipur, invited him to enter and worship "Father Adam." Another traveller relates how Brahmans of Bagesar on the Sarju identified Mahadeo and Parvati with Adam and Eve. A Malay MS., treating of the _origines_ of Java, represents Brahma, Mahadeo, and Vishnu to be descendants of Adam through Seth. And in a Malay paraphrase of the Ramayana, _Nabi Adam_ takes the place of Vishnu. (_Tod._ I. 96; _J.A.S.B._ XVI. 233; _J.R.A.S._ N.S. II. 102; _J. Asiat._ IV. s. VII. 438.)
NOTE 6.--The _Patra_, or alms-pot, was the most valued legacy of Buddha.
It had served the three previous Buddhas of this world-period, and was destined to serve the future one, Maitreya. The Great Asoka sent it to Ceylon. Thence it was carried off by a Tamul chief in the 1st century, A.D., but brought back we know not how, and is still shown in the Malagawa Vihara at Kandy. As usual in such cases, there were rival reliques, for Fa-hian found the alms-pot preserved at Peshawar. Hiuen Tsang says in his time it was no longer there, but in Persia. And indeed the _Patra_ from Peshawar, according to a remarkable note by Sir Henry Rawlinson, is still preserved at Kandahar, under the name of _Kashkul_ (or the Begging-pot), and retains among the Mussulman Dervishes the sanct.i.ty and miraculous repute which it bore among the Buddhist _Bhikshus_. Sir Henry conjectures that the deportation of this vessel, the palladium of the true _Gandhara_ (Peshawar), was accompanied by a popular emigration, and thus accounts for the transfer of that name also to the chief city of Arachosia. (_Koeppen_, I. 526; _Fah-hian_, p. 36; _H. Tsang_, II. 106; _J.R.A.S._ XI. 127.)
Sir E. Tennent, through Mr. Wylie (to whom this book owes so much), obtained the following curious Chinese extract referring to Ceylon (written 1350): "In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl, which is neither made of jade nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour, and glossy, and when struck it sounds like gla.s.s. At the commencement of the Yuen Dynasty (i.e. under Kublai) three separate envoys were sent to obtain it." Sanang Setzen also corroborates Marco"s statement: "Thus did the Khaghan (Kublai) cause the sun of religion to rise over the dark land of the Mongols; he also procured from India images and reliques of Buddha; among others the _Patra_ of Buddha, which was presented to him by the four kings (of the cardinal points), and also the _chandana chu_" (a miraculous sandal-wood image). (_Tennent_, I. 622; _Schmidt_, p. 119.)
The text also says that several _teeth_ of Buddha were preserved in Ceylon, and that the Kaan"s emba.s.sy obtained two molars. Doubtless the envoys were imposed on; no solitary case in the amazing history of that relique, for _the_ Dalada, or tooth relique, seems in all historic times to have been unique. This, "the left canine tooth" of the Buddha, is related to have been preserved for 800 years at Dantapura ("_Odontopolis_"), in Kalinga, generally supposed to be the modern Puri or Jagannath. Here the Brahmans once captured it and carried it off to Palibothra, where they tried in vain to destroy it. Its miraculous resistance converted the king, who sent it back to Kalinga. About A.D. 311 the daughter of King Guhasiva fled with it to Ceylon. In the beginning of the 14th century it was captured by the Tamuls and carried to the Pandya country on the continent, but recovered some years later by King Parakrama III., who went in person to treat for it. In 1560 the Portuguese got possession of it and took it to Goa. The King of Pegu, who then reigned, probably the most powerful and wealthy monarch who has ever ruled in Further India, made unlimited offers in exchange for the tooth; but the archbishop prevented the viceroy from yielding to these temptations, and it was solemnly pounded to atoms by the prelate, then cast into a charcoal fire, and finally its ashes thrown into the river of Goa.
The King of Pegu was, however, informed by a crafty minister of the King of Ceylon that only a sham tooth had been destroyed by the Portuguese, and that the real relique was still safe. This he obtained by extraordinary presents, and the account of its reception at Pegu, as quoted by Tennent from De Couto, is a curious parallel to Marco"s narrative of the Great Kaan"s reception of the Ceylon reliques at Cambaluc. The extraordinary object still so solemnly preserved at Kandy is another forgery, set up about the same time. So the immediate result of the viceroy"s virtue was that two reliques were worshipped instead of one!
The possession of the tooth has always been a great object of desire to Buddhist sovereigns. In the 11th century King Anarauhta, of Burmah, sent a mission to Ceylon to endeavour to procure it, but he could obtain only a "miraculous emanation" of the relique. A tower to contain the sacred tooth was (1855), however, one of the buildings in the palace court of Amarapura.
A few years ago the King of Burma repeated the mission of his remote predecessor, but obtained only a _model_, and this has been deposited within the walls of the palace at Mandale, the new capital. (_Turnour_ in _J.A.S.B._ VI. 856 seqq.; _Koeppen_, I. 521; _Tennent_, I. 388, II. 198 seqq.; _MS. Note by Sir A. Phayre; Mission to Ava_, 136.)
Of the four eye-teeth of Sakya, one, it is related, pa.s.sed to the heaven of Indra; the second to the capital of Gandhara; the third to Kalinga; the fourth to the snake-G.o.ds. The Gandhara tooth was perhaps, like the alms-bowl, carried off by a Sa.s.sanid invasion, and may be identical with that tooth of Fo, which the Chinese annals state to have been brought to China in A.D. 530 by a Persian emba.s.sy. A tooth of Buddha is now shown in a monastery at Fu-chau; but whether this be either the Sa.s.sanian present, or that got from Ceylon by Kublai, is unknown. Other teeth of Buddha were shown in Hiuen Tsang"s time at Balkh, at Nagarahara (or Jalalabad), in Kashmir, and at Kanauj. (_Koeppen_, u.s.; _Fortune_, II. 108; _H. Tsang_, II. 31, 80, 263.)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Teeth of Budda.
1. At Kandy, after Tennent. 2. At Fu-Chau from Fortune.]