The Gates of India: Being an Historical NarrativeHoldich, Thomas Hungerford, Sir
History
The Gates of India: Being an Historical Narrative
Holdich, Thomas Hungerford, Sir
Afghanistan -- Description and travel; Balochistan (Pakistan) -- Description and travel
Investigations such as led to the remarkable discovery by Dr. Stein of
the site of that famous Buddhist sanctuary marking the spot where
Buddha, in a former birth, offered his body to the starving tigress on
Mount Banj, south of Buner, have never been possible farther north, on
account of the dangerous character of the hill-people of those
regions. Other Chinese pilgrims, Song Yun (A.D. 520) and Huec Sheng,
have recorded that after leaving the capital of ancient Udyana (near
Manglaor, in Upper Swat) they journeyed for eight days south-east, and
reached the place where Buddha made his body offering. "There high
mountains rose with steep slopes and dizzy peaks reaching to the
clouds," etc. "There stood on the mountain the temple of the collected
bones which counted 300 priests." But there is no mention of other
Buddhist sites of importance in the valley of the Indus. Leaving
Udyana, Fa Hian and his companions went south to the country of
Su-ho-to (Lower Swat), and finally ("descending eastward") in five
days found themselves in Gandhara--or the Upper Punjab. Nine days'
journey eastward from the point where they reached Gandhara they came
to the place of Buddha's body-offering, or Mount Banj. Such, in brief
outline, is the story of one pilgrim's journey across the Himalayas to
India. Other pilgrims undoubtedly entered India _via_ the Kabul River
valley, but we need hardly follow them. There were hundreds of them,
possibly thousands, and the pains and penalties of the pilgrimage but
served to add merit to their devotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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