The Procession of the Buddha's Tooth

The Buddha's tooth is always brought out in the third month. Ten days before it is brought out, the king adorns a great elephant, dresses a man of ready speech in the king's own clothes, and sets him on the elephant, and he beats a drum and cries out, "Through three asamkhya kalpas the Bodhisattva acted without sparing his body or his life. He gave up his kingdom, his wife, and his children, and he tore out his eyes and gave them to another. He cut off his flesh to ransom a dove, he cut off his head and gave it away, he threw his body down to feed a starving tiger, and he did not grudge his marrow or his brain. All these austerities of every kind he bore for the sake of living beings. He became a Buddha and was in the world for forty five years, preaching the Law and teaching, giving peace to those who had no peace and saving those who were not saved, and when his bond with living beings was at an end he entered nirvana. It is one thousand four hundred and ninety seven years since he entered nirvana. The eye of the world is put out, and living beings grieve on and on. Ten days from now the Buddha's tooth will come out to the vihara of Wuweishan. Let every man of the Way and layman in this country who would plant merit level the roads, adorn the lanes and the streets, and make ready every kind of flower and incense and the things for the offering." When this has been cried out, the king sets up along both sides of the road the many shapes the Bodhisattva took in his five hundred bodies. He appears as Xudana, and as Shan, and as the king of the elephants, and as a deer and a horse. All these figures are painted in colors and adorned, and they look like living men. Then the Buddha's tooth comes out and goes along the middle of the road, receiving offerings all the way, until it reaches the Buddha hall of the vihara of Wuwei. Men of the Way and laymen gather like clouds, burning incense and lighting lamps, and the services of the Law of every kind do not stop by day or by night. When ninety days are full, the tooth goes back to the vihara inside the city. The vihara inside the city opens its doors on the fast days, and men bow and pay honor there according to the Law.

Forty li east of the vihara of Wuwei there is a mountain, and in the mountain there is a vihara named Bati, with some two thousand monks. Among the monks there is a shramana of great virtue named Damojudi, and all the people of that country look up to him together. He has lived in a stone cell some forty years, and he practices a heart of kindness always, so that he has moved even the snakes and the rats, and they stay with him in one room and do no harm to one another.

Seven li south of the city there is a vihara named Mohe pikeluo, where three thousand monks live.

There was a shramana of high virtue whose keeping of the precepts was clear and clean, and the people of the country all thought he must be an arhat. When he was near his end the king came to look in on him, and he gathered the monks as the Law requires and asked, "Has this monk attained the Way?" They answered him truthfully, "He is an arhat." When he had died, the king looked into the sutras and the Vinaya and buried him by the rule for arhats. Four or five li east of the vihara they piled up good great firewood, something over three zhang across and as much in height, and on the top they laid sandalwood and aloeswood and other fragrant woods, and they made steps on the four sides, and they took clean fine white cotton and wrapped it round the pile above and below. They made a great bier cart, like the hearse carts of this land, only without the dragon and fish carving. At the time of the cremation the king and the people of the country and the four assemblies all gathered and made offerings of flowers and incense. From the bier to the burial place the king himself made offerings of flowers and incense. When the offerings were done, the bier was set on the pile of wood and butter oil was poured over the whole of it, and then it was lit. While the fire burned, each man in reverence of heart took off his outer garment and threw it from where he stood into the fire, with the feather fans and the canopies, to help the cremation. When the cremation was done they gathered up the bones and raised a stupa over them at once. When Faxian came, he did not meet the man while he was alive and saw only the burial.

The king believed deeply in the Law of the Buddha and wished to build a new vihara for the monks. First he held a great assembly and fed the monks. When the offering was done, he chose a fine pair of oxen and adorned their horns with gold and silver and jewels. He had a fine golden plough made, and the king himself ploughed the four corners of the field. Then he cut off households of the people and fields and house sites and gave them over, and he wrote the grant on iron. From that time it has been handed down age after age, and no one dares do away with it or change it.

While Faxian was in this country he heard a man of the Way from India recite a sutra on a high seat, and it went thus. "The Buddha's bowl was in Vaishali at first, and now it is in Jiantuowei. When some hundreds of years have passed it will come again to the country of the Western Yuezhi, and after some hundreds of years to the country of Yutian, and after it has stayed some hundreds of years it will come to the country of Quci, and after some hundreds of years it will come again to the land of Han, and after it has stayed some hundreds of years it will come again to the country of Sri Lanka, and after some hundreds of years it will go back to Central India. When it has reached India it will rise to the Tushita heaven, and the Bodhisattva Maitreya will see it and sigh in wonder, 'The bowl of the Buddha Shakyamuni has come,' and he and the gods will make offerings of flowers and incense for seven days. When the seven days are over it will come back to Jambudvipa, and the dragon king of the sea will carry it into the dragon palace. When the time draws near for Maitreya to attain the Way, the bowl will divide again into four and go back to Mount Pinna, where it first was. When Maitreya has attained the Way, the four heavenly kings will think of the Buddha again and offer the bowl, as was the rule with the Buddhas before him. The thousand Buddhas of the Worthy Kalpa will use this bowl together, and when the bowl is gone the Law of the Buddha will fade away little by little. After the Law of the Buddha has faded, the lives of men will grow shorter, down to five years. In the time when life is five years, rice and butter will all vanish away, and men will be utterly evil, so that when they take up a piece of wood it turns into a sword or a club, and they wound and cut one another. Those among them who have merit will flee into the mountains, and when the evil men have killed one another off they will come out again and say to one another, 'The men of old lived very long lives, and it was only because their evil was great and they did all that is not lawful that our lives grew so short, down to five years. Let us now do all that is good together, raise a heart of kindness and pity, and practice faith and right dealing.' As each of them practices faith and right dealing in this way, their lives will double and double again, up to eighty thousand years. When Maitreya comes into the world and first turns the wheel of the Law, he will save first the disciples who followed the Law that Shakyamuni left behind, those who left the household life and those who took the three refuges, the five precepts, and the rule of fasting, and those who made offerings to the Three Jewels. Second and third he will save those who have a bond with him." Faxian wished at that time to copy this sutra, but the man said, "There is no book of this sutra here. I only recite it by mouth."

Faxian stayed in this country two years, and by further seeking he got a text of the Mishasai lü, and got the Chang ahan and the Za ahan, and got one part of the Za zang as well. These are all books that the land of Han does not have.