We may now quote some passages bearing on important points. About the sources of the Indus: "All the priests asked Fah-Hian what he knew as to the time when the law of Buddha began to spread eastward from their country." Hian replied, "On enquiry, men of those lands agreed in saying that, according to an ancient tradition, Shamans from India began to carry the sacred books of Buddha beyond the river, from the time when the image of Maitreya Bodhisatwa was set up." This image was set up three hundred years or so after the Nirvana of Buddha (about B.C. 243--or, according to some estimates, B.C. 177), which corresponds with the time of Pingwang of the Chan family (b.c. 770--the Chinese date of Buddha's Nirvana being different from that which is usually received in India.) Hence it may be said that the diffusion of the great doctrine can be attributed to the influence of this image. For, apart from the power of the divine teacher Mait-reya, who followed in the footsteps of Sakya, who would have been sufficient to cause the knowledge of the three precious ones to be spread so far, that even men on the outskirts of the world acquired that knowledge? We may conclude, therefore, with certainty, that the origin of this diffusion of the law of Buddha was no human work, but sprung from the same cause as the dream of Ming Ti (pp. 23-25). The three precious ones above referred to, are the Buddhist trinity, everywhere acknowledged, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha--or, as some say, Buddha--the law and the church. The dream of Ming Ti resembles that which we know as the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, and foretells the coming of "the Saviour," one of the names given to Siddartha. The vision of a divine being, 70 feet high, with a body like gold, and his head glorious as the sun--one who is fanciful may here discern a likeness to the individual described in Rev. i. 13, seq.--induced the king to send to India to seek after the law of Fo, or Buddha. Some one speaking of two great towers adorned with all the precious substances, which had been erected at a certain town--the Taxila of the Greeks--to commemorate episodes in the life of Buddha, makes the remark "The kings, ministers, and people of all the surrounding countries vie with each other in making religious offerings at these places, in scattering flowers and burning incense continually" (p. 33).