The Country of Jiaosaluo憍薩羅國

The country of Jiaosaluo is more than six thousand li around. Mountains and ridges ring its borders, and forests and marshes run on one after another. The great capital city of the country is more than forty li around. The soil is rich and fat, and the good of the land grows and thrives. Towns and villages look on one another, and the households are full and solid. The people are large in body and dark in color. The customs are hard and fierce, and the people are brave and keen by nature. They believe in the false and the true together, and their learning and their arts are high and clear. The king is a Kshatriya. He honors and reveres the teaching of the Buddha, and his kindness and love are deep and far. The monasteries are more than a hundred, and the monks are a little short of ten thousand, and all of them study and practice the Law and teaching of the Greater Vehicle. The temples of the gods are more than seventy, and the followers of other ways live mingled among them.

Not far south of the city there is an old monastery, and beside it there is a stupa raised by King Wuyou. Long ago the Tathagata once showed great divine power in this place and broke down the followers of other ways. Later the bodhisattva Longmeng stayed in this monastery. At that time the king of this country was named Suoduopohe. He prized and revered Longmeng, and set guards around his gate and his house. At that time the bodhisattva Tipo came from the country of Zhishizi seeking to debate, and he said to the gatekeeper, "Be so good as to announce me." Then the gatekeeper went in and told his master. Longmeng knew the name well. He filled a bowl full of water and ordered a disciple, "Take this water and show it to Tipo." Tipo looked at the water and silently threw in a needle. The disciple carried the bowl back, holding his doubt. Longmeng said, "What did he say?" He answered, "He said nothing at all. He only threw a needle into the water." Longmeng said, "How wise that man is! He is one who knows the first stirring of things, and in seeing what is faint he is next to a sage. His virtue is full like this. Call him in quickly." The disciple said, "What does this mean? Is this the wondrous eloquence that has no words?" Longmeng said, "Water takes its square or its round shape from the vessel, and it is clear or muddy according to what is in it. It fills to the brim without a gap, and it is so clear and so deep that none can sound it. I filled the bowl and showed it to him, likening it to the roundness of the wisdom of my learning. Then he threw in a needle, and so he went to the very end of it. This is no common man. Summon him in quickly." Now the bearing and the manner of Longmeng were stern and made all things solemn, so that those who spoke with him all bowed down and lowered their heads. Tipo had always admired that manner and that beauty, and had long hoped to receive teaching. Now that he was about to take up his study, he first let his quick spirit run. Yet he feared that majesty, so he went up into the hall and sat to one side, and all day long they spoke of dark and hidden things, and their words and their meanings were pure and high. Longmeng said, "The one who learns after me crowns the age, and his wondrous eloquence lights up those who went before. I am only old and worn, and I have met so fine a man. Truly there is now a vessel to pour into, and the lamp will be handed on without break. The spreading of the Law and the teaching will rest on this man. Be so good as to move your seat forward, and let us speak at ease of what is dark and deep." Tipo heard the word and was proud in his own heart. Before opening the storehouse of meaning he first wandered in the garden of debate. He raised the point of his words and looked up to press his questions. Then all at once he saw that majestic face. He forgot his words and closed his mouth. He left his seat, took the blame upon himself, and asked to receive instruction. Longmeng said, "Sit down again. Now I will give you half of the utterly true and wondrous principle, the true teaching of the King of the Law." Tipo threw his five limbs to the ground and gave his life over with a single heart, and said, "From this day on I will dare to hear your word."

The bodhisattva Longmeng was skilled and practiced in the art of medicine. He nourished his life with what he ate and drank, so that his years came to several hundred while his will and his looks did not fade. King Yinzheng too had got the wondrous medicine, and his years also were several hundred. The king had a young son, who said to his mother, "When will one like me come to the throne?" His mother said, "As things stand now, there is no time set for it. Your father the king is already several hundred years old, and many of his sons and grandsons have grown old and died. All this comes from the power of the blessing of Longmeng and from his art of medicine. When the bodhisattva passes into stillness, the king will surely die. Now the bodhisattva Longmeng is wide and far in wisdom and deep and thick in compassion. He gives to all living things, and he holds his body and his life as things already cast away. You should go to him and try to beg his head. If you carry out this purpose, you will get what you wish." The prince took his mother's word with respect and came to the monastery. The gatekeeper was startled and afraid, and so the prince was able to enter. At that time the bodhisattva Longmeng was chanting praises and walking. When he suddenly saw the prince, he stood still and said, "What evening is this evening, that you bring your steps down to a monk's room? You seem in danger and in fear, and you have come driving in haste." The prince answered, "I took up what my mother was saying, and our talk came to those who give the body away. I held that all that has life holds its life dear. That is the word of the sutras and a maxim, and I thought that no one lightly gives away the body of his reward to one who asks for it. My loving mother said, 'It is not so. The Well Gone Ones of the ten directions and the Tathagatas of the three ages, from the time they first raised their hearts until they witnessed the fruit, sought the way of the Buddha with diligence and practiced the precepts and patience. Some threw their bodies down to feed beasts, and some cut their flesh to save a dove. King Yueguang gave his head to a Brahman, and King Cili let a starving yaksha drink his blood. Such cases are more than can all be set out. If you seek those who awoke before us, what age has been without them? And now the bodhisattva Longmeng is firm in this high purpose.' I have something I seek, and I need a man's head for it. I have called for one year after year, and no one has given it. If I were to seize and kill by force, my burden of sin would be all the greater, and if I harmed the guiltless cruelly, a foul virtue would be plain for all to see. You alone, bodhisattva, practice the holy way and look far ahead to the fruit of buddhahood. Your love wets all that has knowing, and your kindness reaches what is without bound. You hold the body light as something floating, and you look on the body as a rotten thing. Do not go against your first vow. Grant me what I ask." Longmeng said, "Yes. True indeed are these words. I seek the holy fruit of buddhahood, and I learn from the Buddha how to give away. This body is like an echo. This body is like a bubble. It rolls on through the four kinds of birth and goes and comes through the six paths. I made a wide vow long ago, and I will not go against what others desire. Yet, prince, there is one thing that cannot be. What will you do about it? Once my body is ended, your father too will be lost. If you look at this and think on it, who can save him?" Longmeng walked about and looked around for something with which to end his life. With a dry blade of thatch he cut his own throat, as if a sharp sword had severed it, and his body and his head lay apart. When the prince saw it, he ran off in fright. The gatekeeper went up and told the king, setting out the whole matter from beginning to end. The king heard and was struck with grief, and he too indeed came to the end of his life.

More than three hundred li southwest of the country one comes to Mount Baluomoluoqili, which rises up tall and alone. Its peaks and its crags are steep and sheer, and since it has no cliffs and no valleys it is just as if it were one whole stone. King Yinzheng cut into the middle of this mountain for the bodhisattva Longmeng and set up a monastery. Ten and more li away from the mountain he opened a tunnel, and coming under the mountain he cut upward and hollowed out the stone. Within there are long corridors and walking eaves, high terraces and storeyed halls. The halls have five storeys, and each storey has four courts. In every one of them a hermitage was built, and in each a golden image was cast, of the same measure as the body of the Buddha, and their beauty went to the end of skill and thought. For the rest of the adorning, gold and jewels alone were used. From the high peak of the mountain a flying spring was poured down. It runs round the storeyed halls and belts the corridors and the side rooms as it crosses them, and open windows are pierced to the outside, so that all within is brightly lit. When King Yinzheng first built this monastery, the strength of men was worn out and the treasury was empty. The work was still not half done, and his heart was heavy with worry. Longmeng said to him, "Great king, why do you look as if you carried a sorrow?" The king said, "I set a great heart to work and dared to plant a high blessing. I looked for it to stand firm forever and to wait until Cishi comes. The work is not finished, and my goods and my means are already spent. I hold this regret always, and I sit and wait for the dawn." Longmeng said, "Do not worry. When blessing is raised high and goodness is made great, the gain from it has no end, and when a wide vow is set going, there is no sorrow that is not carried through. Go back to the palace today and take your pleasure to the full. Then go out in the morning and look over the hills and the fields, and when that is done come here, and we shall talk the building over calmly." The king took the teaching and went about it as he was told. The bodhisattva Longmeng dripped a divine and wondrous medicine on the great stones, and they all turned into gold. The king, while out riding, saw the gold, and his heart and his mouth gave each other joy. He turned his carriage to where Longmeng was and said, "Today, while hunting and riding, I was bewitched by gods or ghosts. Here and there in the hills and the woods I saw heaps of gold." Longmeng said, "It is no bewitching by ghosts. Your utmost sincerity has moved things, and so this gold is here. Take it and use it in good time, and carry the great work through." So he built with it, and when the work was finished there was still some left. Then in each of the five storeys four great golden images were cast, and what remained was still piled up full and filled the treasuries. A thousand monks were called together to live within it and to bow and to chant. The bodhisattva Longmeng gathered the teaching and the Law that the Buddha Sakyamuni had proclaimed, and the treatises that the bodhisattvas had set forth, divided them into their classes, and stored them within. Therefore in the first storey above, only images of the Buddha and the sutras and the treatises are placed. In the fifth storey below live the lay servants, with the property and the household goods, and the three storeys between are where the monks dwell. It is heard from the earlier records that when King Yinzheng had finished the building, the cost of the salt eaten by the workmen was reckoned at nine koti of gold coins. Later the monks fell into angry quarrel and went to the king to have the matter settled. Then the lay servants said to one another, "A quarrel has risen among the monks and their words and their counsels go against each other. Bad men will watch for the opening and pull the monastery down." So they barred the double gates against them and shut the monks out. From that time on there have been no monks there again. Looking from far off at the rock of the mountain, no one knows the path to the gate. From time to time they bring in one who is good at medicine to treat the sick within, and he goes in and out with his face covered, and does not know the way.

From here one goes south through the great forest for more than nine hundred li and comes to the country of Andaluo.