to the characters, "square, round, four inches."
Hsuan-chwang says it was twelve inches round.

(5) In Williams' Dictionary, under {.}, the characters, used here,
are employed in the phrase for "to degrade an officer," that is, "to
remove the token of his rank worn on the crown of his head;" but to
place a thing on the crown is a Buddhistic form of religious homage.

(6) The Vaisyas, or bourgeois caste of Hindu society, are described
here as "resident scholars."

(7) See Eitel's Handbook under the name vimoksha, which is explained
as "the act of self-liberation," and "the dwelling or state of
liberty." There are eight acts of liberating one's self from all
subjective and objective trammels, and as many states of
liberty (vimukti) resulting therefrom. They are eight degrees of
self-inanition, and apparently eight stages on the way to nirvana. The
tope in the text would be emblematic in some way of the general idea
of the mental progress conducting to the Buddhistic consummation of
existence.

(8) This incense would be in long "sticks," small and large, such as
are sold to-day throughout China, as you enter the temples.

(9) "The illuminating Buddha," the twenty-fourth predecessor of
Sakyamuni, and who, so long before, gave him the assurance that he
would by-and-by be Buddha. See Jataka Tales, p. 23.

(10) The staff was, as immediately appears, of Gosirsha Chandana, or
"sandal-wood from the Cow's-head mountain," a species of copper-brown
sandal-wood, said to be produced most abundantly on a mountain of (the
fabulous continent) Ullarakuru, north of mount Meru, which resembles
in shape the head of a cow (E. H., pp. 42, 43). It is called a "pewter
staff" from having on it a head and rings and pewter. See Watters,
"China Review," viii, pp. 227, 228, and Williams' Dictionary, under
{.}.

(11) Or Sanghati, the double or composite robe, part of a monk's
attire, reaching from the shoulders to the knees, and fastened round
the waist (E. H., p. 118).

(12) These were the "marks and beauties" on the person of a supreme
Buddha. The rishi Kala Devala saw them on the body of the infant Sakya
prince to the number of 328, those on the teeth, which had not yet
come out, being visible to his spirit-like eyes (M. B., pp. 148, 149).

(13) Probably="all Buddhas."

(14) The number may appear too great. But see what is sa