Pataliputra, King Ashoka's Capital

Crossing the river and going down south one yojana, they came to the town of Pataliputra in the country of Magadha. Pataliputra is the place King Ashoka ruled. The royal palace halls within the city were all made by setting spirits to the work. The walls of piled stone and the gate towers, the figures cut and the patterns carved, are not such as men of the world could make. They are standing to this day.

King Ashoka's younger brother had gained the Way of an arhat, and he dwelt always on Mount Gridhrakuta, for his heart delighted in quiet. The king, out of reverence, wished to invite him home and make offerings to him; but he loved the quiet of the hills and would not take the invitation. The king said to his brother, "Only take my invitation, and I will make you a hill inside the city." Then the king made food and drink ready, called the spirits together and said to them, "Tomorrow you shall all take my invitation. There are no seats, so let each one bring his own." The next day the great spirits each came carrying a great stone, four or five paces across. When the sitting was over, he set the spirits to pile those stones into a great hill of stone; and at the foot of the hill he had them make a stone chamber of five great squared stones, some three zhang long, two zhang broad, and more than one zhang high.

There is a Brahmin youth of the Great Vehicle, named Radhasvami, who lives within this city. He is quick of understanding and deep in wisdom, and there is nothing he does not master, and he keeps himself pure. The king of the country honors him and serves him as a teacher, and when he goes to ask after him he does not dare sit at his side. If the king out of love and reverence so much as takes his hand, the Brahmin, when his hand has been taken, always pours water over himself and washes. He is some fifty years old, and the whole country looks up to him. It is thanks to this one man that the law of the Buddha is spread abroad, and the other ways cannot put the monks down.

Beside King Ashoka's stupa a sangharama of the Great Vehicle has been built, and it is very grand and fair. There is a monastery of the Lesser Vehicle as well, and together they hold six or seven hundred monks, whose bearing is orderly and worth the seeing. Shramanas of high virtue from the four quarters and men who come with questions of learning, when they seek the meaning and the reason of things, all come to this monastery. The Brahmin's son, the teacher, is also named Manjushri, and the great and virtuous shramanas of the country and the monks of the Great Vehicle all look up to him; he too dwells in this sangharama.

Of all the countries of the Middle Country, the town of this one alone is the greatest. The people are rich and flourishing, and they vie with one another in doing what is kind and right. Every year, on the eighth day of the jianmao month, they hold a procession of images. They make a carriage of four wheels, bind bamboo into five storeys upon it, and set on brackets and upright shafts, so that it stands some two zhang high and looks like a stupa. They wrap it about with white cotton, and then they paint it in colors and make the figures of the gods, and they deck the top of it with gold and silver and lapis lazuli, and hang silk banners and canopies from it. On the four sides they make niches, and in each one is a seated buddha with a bodhisattva standing in attendance. There are some twenty carriages, and every carriage is decked differently. On this day the clergy and the laity of the whole land gather, and they make songs and music and offer flowers and incense. The Brahmins come and invite the Buddha, and the Buddha enters the city in his turn and stays two nights within the city, and all night long they burn lamps and make offering with music. Every country does the same. The elders and householders of that country each set up within the city a house of merit and medicine (福德醫藥舍). All the poor, the orphaned and alone, the crippled and lame, and every sick person in the country come to this house, and they are given all they need, and the physicians look at their illness and treat them as is fitting. Food and drink and hot medicine are given them so that all are made easy, and when they are well they go away of themselves.

King Ashoka broke open seven stupas and made eighty-four thousand stupas. The great stupa he made first is a little more than three li south of the city. Before this stupa is a footprint of the Buddha, and a monastery has been raised over it, with its door to the north facing the stupa. South of the stupa is a stone pillar, one zhang four or five chi round and more than three zhang high. On it is an inscription which says, "King Ashoka gave Jambudvipa to the monks of the four quarters, and then bought it back again with money, and did so three times over."

Three or four hundred paces north of the stupa is the place where King Ashoka first made the Niraya city (泥梨城), that is, the city of hell. In the middle of it is a stone pillar, this one too more than three zhang high, with a lion on the top. On the pillar is an inscription that records how the Niraya city came to be made, and the years and the days and the months of it.