By the side of the tope of Asoka, there has been made a mahayana monastery, very grand and beautiful; there is also a hinayana one; the two together containing six or seven hundred monks.  The rules of demeanour and the scholastic arrangements(6) in them are worthy of observation.

Shamans of the highest virtue from all quarters, and students, inquirers wishing to find out truth and the grounds of it, all resort to these monasteries.  There also resides in this monastery a Brahman teacher, whose name also is Manjusri,(7) whom the Shamans of greatest virtue in the kingdom, and the mahayana Bhikshus honour and look up to.

The cities and towns of this country are the greatest of all in the Middle Kingdom.  The inhabitants are rich and prosperous, and vie with one another in the practice of benevolence and righteousness.  Every year on the eighth day of the second month they celebrate a procession of images.  They make a four-wheeled car, and on it erect a structure of four storeys by means of bamboos tied together.  This is supported by a king-post, with poles and lances slanting from it, and is rather more than twenty cubits high, having the shape of a tope.  White and silk-like cloth of hair(8) is wrapped all round it, which is then painted in various colours.  They make figures of devas, with gold, silver, and lapis lazuli grandly blended and having silken streamers and canopies hung out over them.  On the four sides are niches, with a Buddha seated in each, and a Bodhisattva standing in attendance on him.  There may be twenty cars, all grand and imposing, but each one different from the others.  On the day mentioned, the monks and laity within the borders all come together; they have singers and skilful musicians; they pay their devotion with flowers and incense.  The Brahmans come and invite the Buddhas to enter the city.  These do so in order, and remain two nights in it.  All through the night they keep lamps burning, have skilful music, and present offerings.  This is the practice in all the other kingdoms as well.  The Heads of the Vaisya families in them establish in the cities houses for dispensing charity and medicines.  All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans, widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases.  They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.

When king Asoka destroyed the seven topes, (intending) to make eighty-four thousand,(9) the first which he made was the great tope, more than three le to the south of this city.  In front of this there is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihara has been built.  The door of it faces the north, and on the south of it there is a stone pillar, fourteen or fifteen cubits in circumference, and more than thirty cubits high,