we proceed, however, to endeavour to trace the connexion of that Brahmanical rishi with the Sakya house, by means of 1323, 1468, 1469, and other historical works in Nanjio’s Catalogue, we soon find that Indian histories have no surer foundation than the shifting sand;—­see E. H., on the name Sakya, pp. 108, 109.  We must be content for the present simply to accept Gotama as one of the surnames of the Buddha with whom we have to do.

(10) See chap. vi, note 5.  It is there said that the prediction of Maitreya’s succession to the Buddhaship was made to him in the Tushita heaven.  Was there a repetition of it here in the Deer-park, or was a prediction now given concerning something else?

   (11) Nothing seems to be known of this naga but what we read here.

   (12) Identified by some with Kusia, near Kurrah (lat. 25d 41s N., lon.
   81d 27s E.); by others with Kosam on the Jumna, thirty miles above
   Allahabad.  See E. H., p. 55.

(13) Ghochira was the name of a Vaisya elder, or head, who presented a garden and vihara to Buddha.  Hardy (M.  B., p. 356) quotes a statement from a Singhalese authority that Sakyamuni resided here during the ninth year of his Buddhaship.

(14) Dr. Davids thinks this may refer to the striking and beautiful story of the conversion of the Yakkha Alavaka, as related in the Uragavagga, Alavakasutta, pp. 29-31 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. x, part ii).

CHAPTER XXXV

DAKSHINA, AND THE PIGEON MONASTERY.

South from this 200 yojanas, there is a country named Dakshina,(1) where there is a monastery (dedicated to) the bygone Kasyapa Buddha, and which has been hewn out from a large hill of rock.  It consists in all of five storeys;—­the lowest, having the form of an elephant, with 500 apartments in the rock; the second, having the form of a lion, with 400 apartments; the third, having the form of a horse, with 300 apartments; the fourth, having the form of an ox, with 200 apartments; and the fifth, having the form of a pigeon, with 100 apartments.  At the very top there is a spring, the water of which, always in front of the apartments in the rock, goes round among the rooms, now circling, now curving, till in this way it arrives at the lowest storey, having followed the shape of the structure, and flows out there at the door.  Everywhere in the apartments of the monks, the rock has been pierced so as to form windows for the admission of light, so that they are all bright, without any being left in darkness.  At the four corners of the (tiers of) apartments, the rock has been hewn so as to form steps for ascending to the top (of each).  The men of the present day, being of small size, and going up step by step, manage to get to the top; but in a former age, they did so at one step.(2) Because of this, the monastery is called Paravata, that being the Indian name for a pigeon.  There are always Arhats residing in it.