text,--as having been
made by Buddha.

(4) Meaning "The Fearless Hill." There is still the Abhayagiri tope,
the highest in Ceylon, according to Davids, 250 feet in height, and
built about B.C. 90, by Watta Gamini, in whose reign, about 160
years after the Council of Patna, and 330 years after the death
of Sakyamuni, the Tripitaka was first reduced to writing in
Ceylon;--"Buddhism," p. 234.

(5) We naturally suppose that the merchant-offerer was a Chinese, as
indeed the Chinese texts say, and the fan such as Fa-Hsien had seen and
used in his native land.

(6) This should be the pippala, or bodhidruma, generally spoken of, in
connexion with Buddha, as the Bo tree, under which he attained to the
Buddhaship. It is strange our author should have confounded them as he
seems to do. In what we are told of the tree here, we have, no doubt,
his account of the planting, growth, and preservation of the famous Bo
tree, which still exists in Ceylon. It has been stated in a previous
note that Asoka's son, Mahinda, went as the apostle of Buddhism to
Ceylon. By-and-by he sent for his sister Sanghamitta, who had entered
the order at the same time as himself, and whose help was needed, some
of the king's female relations having signified their wish to become
nuns. On leaving India, she took with her a branch of the sacred Bo
tree at Buddha Gaya, under which Sakyamuni had become Buddha. Of
how the tree has grown and still lives we have an account in Davids'
"Buddhism." He quotes the words of Sir Emerson Tennent, that it is
"the oldest historical tree in the world;" but this must be denied if
it be true, as Eitel says, that the tree at Buddha Gaya, from which
the slip that grew to be this tree was taken more than 2000 years ago,
is itself still living in its place. We must conclude that Fa-Hsien,
when in Ceylon, heard neither of Mahinda nor Sanghamitta.

(7) Compare what is said in chap. xvi, about the inquiries made
at monasteries as to the standing of visitors in the monkhood, and
duration of their ministry.

(8) The phonetic values of the two Chinese characters here are in
Sanskrit sa; and va, bo or bha. "Sabaean" is Mr. Beal's reading
of them, probably correct. I suppose the merchants were Arabs,
forerunners of the so-called Moormen, who still form so important a
part of the mercantile community in Ceylon.

(9) A Kalp