Traveling south from Gandhara for four days, the group came to the country of Purusapura. Once, when the Buddha traveled to this country with his disciples, he said to Ananda, “After my nirvana, a king by the name of Kaniska will build a stupa at this place.”
King Kaniska later appeared in the world. He once went on a pleasure trip. Indra, intending to enlighten him, transformed himself into a shepherd boy who was making a stupa by the roadside.
The king asked him, “What are you doing?”
The boy replied, “I am making a Buddha stupa.”
The king remarked, “That is a very good deed.”
Then the king built a stupa more than four hundred feet high right over the one made by the shepherd boy. He decorated it with various kinds of precious ornaments. None of the stupas and temples [Faxian and the group] had seen on the way could compare with this one in magnificence and grandeur. It was generally said that this stupa was the most splendid in all of Jambudvipa. When the construction of King Kaniska’s stupa had been completed, the
smaller one, which was about three feet high, emerged on the south side of the larger one.
The Buddha’s almsbowl was kept in this country. The king of Yuezhi dispatched a great force to attack the country in ancient times, with the intention of acquiring the almsbowl. Having subdued the country, the devout Buddhist king of Yuezhi made rich offerings because he wanted to take away the almsbowl. He presented offerings to the Triple Gem, then caparisoned a huge elephant and placed the bowl upon it. But the elephant crouched on the ground and would not move forward. Then the king made a four-wheeled cart that was hitched to eight elephants, and the bowl was placed on it. But the cart could not move. The king realized that it was not time for him to own the Buddha’s almsbowl. With a sense of deep shame and remorse [at his deeds], he built a stupa and a monastery on the spot, and guardians were stationed there to make all kinds of offerings.
THE JOURNEY OF THE EMINENT MONK FAXIAN
kathA 