six "supernatural talents," the faculty of comprehending in
one instantaneous view, or by intuition, all beings in all worlds.]

[Footnote 4: This was Brahma, the first person of the Brahmanical
Trimurti, adopted by Buddhism, but placed in an inferior position, and
surpassed by every Buddhist saint who attains to bodhi.]

[Footnote 5: A note of Mr. Beal says on this:--"General Cunningham, who
visited the spot (1862), found a pillar, evidently of the age of Asoka,
with a well-carved elephant on the top, which, however, was minus trunk
and tail. He supposes this to be the pillar seen by Fa-hien, who mistook
the top of it for a lion. It is possible such a mistake may have been
made, as in the account of one of the pillars at Sravasti, Fa-hien says
an ox formed the capital, whilst Hsuean-chwang calls it an elephant."]

[Footnote 6: These three predecessors of Sakya-muni were the three
Buddhas of the present or Maha-bhadra Kalpa, of which he was the fourth,
and Maitreya is to be the fifth and last. They were: (i) Kra-kuchanda,
"he who readily solves all doubts"; a scion of the Kasyapa family. Human
life reached in his time forty thousand years, and so many persons were
converted by him. (2) Kanakamuni, "body radiant with the color of pure
gold"; of the same family. Human life reached in his time thirty
thousand years, and so many persons were converted by him. (3) Kasyapa,
"swallower of light." Human life reached in his time twenty thousand
years, and so many persons were converted by him.]

[Footnote 7: This would seem to be absurd; but the writer evidently
intended to convey the idea that there was something mysterious about
the number of the topes.]

CHAPTER XVIII

~Buddha's Subjects of Discourse~

Fa-Hien stayed at the Dragon vihara till after the summer retreat, [1]
and then, travelling to the southeast for seven yojanas, he arrived at
the city of Kanyakubja, lying along the Ganges. There are two
monasteries in it, the inmates of which are students of the hinayana. At
a distance from the city of six or seven li, on the west, on the
northern bank of the Ganges, is a place where Buddha preached the Law to
his disciples. It has been handed down that his subjects of discourse
were such as "The bitterness and vanity of life as impermanent and
uncertain," and that "The body is as a bubble or foam on the water." At
this spot a tope was erected, and still exists.

Having crossed the Ganges, and gone south for thr