IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
11
,4
330
MARCO POLO
BOOK III.
the second to the capital of Gandinira ; the third to Kalinga ; the fourth to the snake-
gods. The Gandhára tooth was
perhaps, like the alms - bowl, carried off by a Sassanid invasion, and may be identical with that tooth of Fo, which the Chinese annals state to have been brought to China in A.D. 530 by a Persian embassy. A tooth of Buddha is
now shown in a monastery at Fuchau ; but whether this be either the Sassanian present, or that got from Ceylon by Ktiblái, is unknown. Other teeth of Buddha were shown in Hiuen Tsang's time at Balkh, at Nagarahára (or Jalálábád), in Kashmir, and at Kanauj. (Koeppen, u. s. ; Fortune, II. 108 ; H. Tsang, II. 31, So, 263.)
NOTE 7.—Fa-hian writes of the alms-pot at Pesháwar, that poor people could fill it with a
-- few flowers, whilst a rich man
should not be able to do so with Ioo, nay, with I000 or Io,000 bushels of rice ; a parable doubt
less originally carrying a lesson,
2
Teeth of Buddha.
like Our Lords remark on the widow's mite, but which hardened
T. At Kandy, after Tennent. 2. At Fu-chau, from Fortune. eventually into some foolish story
like that in the text.
The modern Mussulman story at Kandahar is that the alms-pot will contain any quantity of liquor without overflowing.
This Pâtra is the Holy Grail of Buddhism. Mystical powers of nourishment are ascribed also to the Grail in the European legends. German scholars have traced in the romances of the Grail remarkable indications of Oriental origin. It is not impossible that the alms-pot of Buddha was the prime source of them. Read the prophetic history of the Petra as Fa-hian heard it in India (p. 161) ; its mysterious wanderings over Asia till it is taken up into the heaven Tushita, where Maitreya the Future Buddha dwells. When it has disappeared from earth the Law gradually perishes, and violence and wickedness more and more prevail :
" ghat is it ?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes ?
If a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd."
-- Tennyson's Holy Grail.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.