Kapilavastu. Its Desolation. Legends of Buddha¹’s Birth, and Other Incidents in Connexion with it.

Less than a yojana to the east from this brought them to the city of Kapilavastu;1 but in it there was neither king nor people. All was mound² and desolation. Of inhabitants there were only some monks³ and a score or two of families of the common people. At the spot where stood the old palace of king Suddhodana2 there have been made images of the prince (his eldest⁴ son) and his mother;3 and at the places where that son appeared mounted on a white elephant when he entered his mother’s womb,4 and where he turned his carriage round on seeing the sick man after he had gone out of the city by the eastern gate,5 topes have been erected⁵. The places (were also pointed⁶ out)6 where (the rishi) A-e7 inspected the marks (of Buddhaship on the body) of the heir-apparent (when an infant); where, when he was in company with Nanda and others, on the elephant being struck down and drawn⁷ to one side, he tossed it away;8 where he shot an arrow to the south-east, and it went a distance of thirty le, then entering the ground and making a spring to come forth⁸, which men subsequently fashioned into a well from which travellers might drink;9 where, after he had attained⁹ to Wisdom, Buddha returned and saw the king, his father;10 where five hundred Sakyas quitted their families and did reverence¹⁰ to Upali11 while the earth shook and moved in six different ways; where Buddha preached his Law to the devas, and the four deva kings and others kept the four doors (of the hall), so that (even) the king, his father, could not enter;12 where Buddha sat under a nyagrodha tree, which is still standing,13 with his face to the east, and (his aunt) Maja-prajapati presented him with a Sanghali;14 and (where) king Vaidurya

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