The past Buddhas and Käsyapa in Indian art and epigraphy

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the hot springs on the Vipulagiri, one of the five mountains enclosing Räjagrha
(Girivraja)28 or on the Hiranyaparvata near the right bank of the Ganges, we may
safely assume, that they were svayambhü, i. e. natural cavities in the rock. When on
the contrary they belonged to some sanghäräma in the plains, e. g. at Nälandä, they
probably were artificial imitations in the shape of carved slabs of stone.
In the course of this paper we have mentioned examples of images of Käsyapa
Buddha. The Chinese pilgrims furnish brief accounts of two sanctuaries dedicated to
the worship of this Buddha. Fa-hsien29 gives in his thirty-fifth chapter a very
fantistic description of a rock-cut monastery consisting of five stages which he calls
a sanghäräma of the former Buddha Käsyapa and locates in the Deccan. At the end
of the chapter he says that what he reports is merely from hearsay. It must be the
same marvellous convent described by Hsüan-tsang and apparently seen by him
from a distance on his way from Kalinga to Andhradesa. But he connects it with
Nägärjuna and makes no mention of Käsyapa. The older pilgrim’s information may
therefore be discarded as valueless.
Hsüan-tsang’s detailed account of Mahäbodhi, the present Bodh-Gayä, contains
a passage of great interest for our subject. “To the north-west of the Bodhi-tree”,
he says, “in a vihära is an image of Käsyapa Buddha. It is noted for its miraculous
and sacred qualities. From time to time it emits a glorious light. The old records say
that if a man actuated by sincere faith walks round it seven times, he obtains the
power of knowing the place and condition of his former births”. Cunningham
found the remains of a small vihära which answer exactly the described position but
the miraculous image it enshrined was not recovered. The Chinese pilgrim in his
further description of Mahäbodhi mentions a stüpa and stone pillar marking the spot
where the Buddha Käsyapa had sat in meditation. By its side were vestiges of the
site used for sitting and walking by the four past Buddhas30.
Another great place of pilgrimage, the site of the Mrgadäva near Benares, where
Säkyamuni started turning the Wheel of the Law, also contained a memorial of
Käsyapa. Outside the enclosure of the Dharmacakrapravartana-Sanghäräma Hsüan-
tsang saw not only a stüpa on the spot where Säkyamuni predicted the future attain-
ment of Buddhahood to Maitreya but not far from it a similar monument erected
on the place where he had received a similar prophecy from his predecessor Käsyapa.
Near this stüpa there was an artificial platform of dark blue stone, fifty paces long by
seven feet high, which had been a cahkrama of the four past Buddhas31.
The evidence of the ancient monuments supplemented by the narratives of the
Chinese pilgrims testifies the reverence in which the Indian Buddhists held the past
Buddhas and in particular Käsyapa. It must be borne in mind that the stüpas and
monasteries which have been recovered and explored are only a small part of the
numberless Buddhist sanctuaries which once were scattered over the whole subcon-

28 On the five mountains of Räjagrha cf. M. Bh. (Bombay ed.), II, 21, 1—3) Buddhacarita
(ed. Johnston) X, 2.
29 Legge, Fa-hien’s Record, pp. 96f. Beal, op. eit. vol. II, pp. 214 f. Watters, op. cit. vol. II,
p. 207.
30 Beal, II, 124, 139; Watters, II, 139. 141. Cunningham, Mahäbodhi, p. 36.
31 Beal, II, 48; Watters II, 52. Säkyamuni’s name in this previous birth, as pointed out
by Watters, was not Prabhäpäla, but Jyotirpäla (Pali Jotipäla).