James Legge’s translation of the Chinese monk Fa-hien’s “A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms” has a number of tidbits that I want to highlight.
A month after the (annual season of) rest, the families which are looking out for blessing stimulate one another to make offerings to the monks, and send round to them the liquid food which may be taken out of the ordinary hours. All the monks come together in a great assembly, and preach the Law; after which offerings are presented at the [stupa] of Śāriputra, with all kinds of flowers and incense. All through the night lamps are kept burning, and skillful musicians are employed to perform.
When Śāriputra 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 Kaśyapa also did the same. The bhikshunis for the most part make their offerings at the [stupa] of Ananda, because it was he who requested the World-honored one to allow females to quit their families (and become nuns). The Śramaṇeras mostly make their offerings to Rāhula. 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 Mahāyāna present offerings to the Prajña-pāramitā, to Mañjuśrī and to Kwan-she-yin.
Legge offers this explanation of Kwan-she-yin:
Kwan-she-yin and the dogmas about him or her are as great a mystery as Mañjuśrī. The Chinese name is a mistranslation of the Sanskrit name Avalokiteśvara, ‘On-looking Sovereign,’ or even ‘On-looking Self-Existent,’ and means Regarding or looking on the Bounds of the world,’ = ‘Hearer of Prayer.’ Originally, and still in Thibet, Avalokiteśvara had only male attributes, but in China and Japan (Kwannon), this deity (such popularly she is) is represented as a woman, “Kwan-yin, the greatly gentle, with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes;” and has her principal seat in the island of P’oo-t’oo, on the China coast, which is a regular place of pilgrimage. To the worshippers of whom Fā-hien speaks, Kwan-she-yin would only be Avalokiteśvara. How he was converted into the ‘goddess of mercy,’ and her worship took the place which it now has in China, is a difficult inquiry, which would take much time and space, and not brought after all, so far as I see, to a satisfactory conclusion. … I was talking on the subject once with an intelligent Chinese gentleman, when he remarked, ‘Have you not much the same thing in Europe in worship of Mary?’
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p40-47
Here’s Fa-hien explanation of Ānanda’s parinirvāṇa:
Four yojanas on from this place to the east brought the travelers to the confluence of the five rivers. When Ānanda was going from Magadha to Vaiśāli, wishing his parinirvāṇa to take place (there) the devas informed king Ajātaśatru of it, and the king immediately pursued him, in his own grand carriage, with a body of soldiers, and had reached the river. (On the other hand), the Lichchhavis of Vaiśāli had heard that Ananda was coming (to their city), and they on their part came to him. (In this way), they all arrived together at the river, and Ānanda considered that, if he went forward, king Ajātaśatru would be angry, while, if he went back, the Lichchhavis would resent his conduct. He thereupon in the very middle of the river burnt his body in an ecstasy of Samādhi, and his parinirvāṇa was attained. He divided his body (also) into two, (leaving) the half of it on each bank; so that each of the two kings got one half as a (sacred) relic, and took it back (to his own capital), and there raised a tope over it.
Legge’s note makes an effort to explain this burning Samādhi
Eitel has a long article (pp. 114-115) on the meaning of Samādhi, which is one of the seven sections of wisdom (bodhyanga). Hardy defines it as meaning ‘perfect tranquility;’ Turnour, as ‘meditative abstraction;’ Burnouf, as ‘self-control;’ and Edkins, as ‘ecstatic reverie.’ ‘Samadhi,’ says Eitel, ‘signifies the highest pitch of abstract, ecstatic meditation; a state of absolute indifference to all influences from within or without; a state of torpor of both the material and spiritual forces of vitality; a sort of terrestrial nirvāṇa, consistently culminating in total destruction of life.’ He then quotes apparently the language of the text, ‘He consumed his body by Agni (the fire of) Samādhi,’ and says it is ‘a common expression for the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic self-annihilation.’ All this is simply ‘a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge.’ Some facts concerning the death of Ānanda are hidden beneath the darkness of the phraseology, which it is impossible for us to ascertain. By or in Samādhi he burns his body in the very middle of the river, and then he divides the relic of the burnt body into two parts (for so evidently Fā-hien intended his narration to be taken), and leaves one half on each bank. The account of Ananda’s death in Nien-ch’ang’s ‘History of Buddha and the Patriarchs’ is much more extravagant. Crowds of men and devas are brought together to witness it. The body is divided into four parts. One is conveyed the Tushita heaven; a second, to the palace of a certain Naga king; a third is given to Ajātaśatru; and the fourth to the Lichchhavis. What it all really means I cannot tell.
A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p75-77
