sand years after He had reached Nirvana, His doctrines would reach
the north" fell into the mistake of applying it to China, whereas Tibet
was meant, the error was corrected after the eleventh century of the
Tzina era in most of the temple chronologies. Besides which, it may now
refer to other events relating to Buddhism, of which Europe knows
nothing, China or Tzina dates its present name only from the year 296 of
the Buddhist era* (vulgar chronology having assumed it from the first
Hoang of the Tzin dynasty): therefore the Tathagata could not have
indicated it by this name in his well-known prophecy. If misunderstood
even by several of the Buddhist commentators, it is yet preserved in its
true sense by his own immediate Arhats. The Glorified One meant the
country that stretches far off from the Lake Mansorowara; far beyond
that region of the Himavat, where dwelt from time immemorial the great
"teachers of the Snowy Range." These were the great Sraman-acharyas who
preceded Him, and were His teachers, their humble successors trying to
this day to perpetuate their and His doctrines. The prophecy came out
true to the very day, and it is corroborated both by the mathematical
and historical chronology of Tibet--quite as accurate as that of the
Chinese. Arhat Kasyapa, of the dynasty of Moryas, founded by one of the
Chandraguptas near Ptaliputra, left the convent of Panch-Kukkutarama, in
consequence of a vision of our Lord, for missionary purpose in the year
683 of the Tzin era (436 Western era) and had reached the great Lake of
Bod-Yul in the same year. It is at that period that expired the
millennium prophesied.
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* The reference to Chinahunah (Chinese and Huns) in the Vishma
Parva of the Mahabharata is evidently a later interpolation, as
it does not occur in the old MSS. existing in Southern India.
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The Arhat carrying with him the fifth statue of Sakya Muni out of the
seven gold statues made after his bodily death by order of the first
Council, planted it in the soil on that very spot where seven years
later was built the first GUNPA (monastery), where the earliest Buddhist
lamas dwelt. And though the conversion of the whole country did not
take place before the beginning of the seventh century (Western era),
the good law had, nevertheless, reached the North at the time
prophesied, and no earlier. For, the first of the golden statues had
been plundered from Bhikshu Sali Suka by the Hiong-un robb
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