with a bell of lapis lazuli, both adorned with rows of pearls.  Its colour is of a yellowish white, and it forms an imperfect circle twelve inches round,(4) curving upwards to the centre.  Every day, after it has been brought forth, the keepers of the vihara ascend a high gallery, where they beat great drums, blow conchs, and clash their copper cymbals.  When the king hears them, he goes to the vihara, and makes his offerings of flowers and incense.  When he has done this, he (and his attendants) in order, one after another, (raise the bone), place it (for a moment) on the top of their heads,(5) and then depart, going out by the door on the west as they entered by that on the east.  The king every morning makes his offerings and performs his worship, and afterwards gives audience on the business of his government.  The chiefs of the Vaisyas(6) also make their offerings before they attend to their family affairs.  Every day it is so, and there is no remissness in the observance of the custom.  When all the offerings are over, they replace the bone in the vihara, where there is a vimoksha tope,(7) of the seven precious substances, and rather more than five cubits high, sometimes open, sometimes shut, to contain it.  In front of the door of the vihara, there are parties who every morning sell flowers and incense,(8) and those who wish to make offerings buy some of all kinds.  The kings of various countries are also constantly sending messengers with offerings.  The vihara stands in a square of thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth be rent, this place would not move.

Going on, north from this, for a yojana, (Fa-hien) arrived at the capital of Nagara, the place where the Bodhisattva once purchased with money five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the Dipankara Buddha.(9) In the midst of the city there is also the tope of Buddha’s tooth, where offerings are made in the same way as to the flat-bone of his skull.

A yojana to the north-east of the city brought him to the mouth of a valley, where there is Buddha’s pewter staff;(10) and a vihara also has been built at which offerings are made.  The staff is made of Gosirsha Chandana, and is quite sixteen or seventeen cubits long.  It is contained in a wooden tube, and though a hundred or a thousand men ere to (try to) lift it, they could not move it.

Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha’s Sanghali,(11) where also there is reared a vihara, and offerings are made.  It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it, and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain from the sky.