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| 0385 |
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Hiuén Tsang says in his time it was no longer there, but in Persia. And indeed the Pâtra from Peshâwar, according to a remarkable note by Sir Henry Rawlinson, is still preserved at Kandahar, under the name of Kashkul (or the Begging-pot), and retains among the Mussulman Dervishes the sanctity and miraculous repute which it bore among the Buddhist Bhikkhus. Sir Henry conjectures that the deportation of this vessel, the palladium of the true Gandhâra (Peshâwar), was accompanied by a popular emigration, and thus accounts for the transfer of that name also to the chief city of Arachosia. (Koepfen, I. 526; Fah-hian, p. 36; H. Tsang, II. 106; J. R. A. S. XI. 127.)
Sir E. Tennent, through Mr. Wylie (to whom this book owes so much), obtained the following curious Chinese extract referring to Ceylon (written 1350): “In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl, which is neither made of jade nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour, and glossy, and when struck it sounds like glass. At the commencement of the Yüen Dynasty (i.e. under Kûblâi) three separate envoys were sent to obtain it.” Sanang Setzen also corroborates Marco’s statement: “Thus did the Khaghan (Kûblâi) cause the sun of religion to rise over the dark land of the Mongols; he also procured from India images and reliques of Buddha; among others the Pâtra of Buddha, which was presented to him by the four kings (of the cardinal points), and also the chandana chu” (a miraculous sandal-wood image). (Tennent, I. 622; Schmidt, p. 119.)
The text also says that several teeth of Buddha were preserved in Ceylon, and that the Kaan’s embassy obtained two molars. Doubtless the envoys were imposed on; no solitary case in the amazing history of that relique, for the Danda, or tooth relique, seems in all historic times to have been unique. This, “the left canine tooth” of the Buddha, is related to have been preserved for 800 years at Dantapura (“Odontopolis”), in Kalinga, generally supposed to be the modern Pûri or Jagannâth. Here the Brahmans once captured it and carried it off to Palibothra, where they tried in vain to destroy it. Its miraculous resistance converted the king, who sent it back to Kalinga. About A.D. 311 the daughter of King Guhasiva fled with it to Ceylon. In the beginning of the 14th century it was captured by the Tamuls and carried to the Pandya country on the continent, but recovered some years later by King Parakrama III., who went in person to treat for it. In 1560 the Portuguese got possession of it and took it to Goa. The King of Pegu, who then reigned, probably the most powerful and wealthy monarch who has ever ruled in Further India, made unlimited offers in exchange for the tooth; but the archbishop prevented the viceroy from yielding to these temptations, and it was solemnly pounded to atoms by the prelate, then cast into a charcoal fire, and finally its ashes thrown into the river of Goa.
The King of Pegu was, however, informed by a crafty minister of the King of Ceylon that only a sham tooth had been destroyed by the Portuguese, and that the real relique was still safe. This is obtained by extraordinary presents, and the account of its reception at Pegu, as quoted by Tennent from De Couto, is a curious parallel to Marco’s narrative of the Great Kaan’s reception of the Ceylon reliques at Cambaluc. The extraordinary object still so solemnly preserved at Kandy is another forgery, set up about the same time. So the immediate result of the viceroy’s virtue was that two reliques were worshipped instead of one!
The possession of the tooth has always been a great object of desire to Buddhist sovereigns. In the 11th century King Anararaha, of Burmah, sent a mission to Ceylon to endeavour to procure it, but he could obtain only a “miraculous emanation” of the relique. A tower to contain the sacred tooth was (1855), however, one of the buildings in the palace court of Amarapura. A few years ago the King of Burma repeated the mission of his remote predecessor, but obtained only a model, and this has been deposited within the walls of the palace at Mandalé, the new capital. (Turnour in J. A. S. B. VI. 856 seqq.; Koepfen, I. 521; Tennent, I. 388, II. 198 seqq.; MS. Note by Sir A. Phayre; Mission to Ava, 136.)
Of the four eye-teeth of Sakya, one, it is related, passed to the heaven of Indra;
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