r heads,(5) and then depart,
going out by the door on the west as they entered by that on the east.
The king every morning makes his offerings and performs his worship,
and afterwards gives audience on the business of his government. The
chiefs of the Vaisyas(6) also make their offerings before they
attend to their family affairs. Every day it is so, and there is no
remissness in the observance of the custom. When all the offerings are
over, they replace the bone in the vihara, where there is a vimoksha
tope,(7) of the seven precious substances, and rather more than five
cubits high, sometimes open, sometimes shut, to contain it. In front
of the door of the vihara, there are parties who every morning sell
flowers and incense,(8) and those who wish to make offerings buy
some of all kinds. The kings of various countries are also constantly
sending messengers with offerings. The vihara stands in a square of
thirty paces, and though heaven should shake and earth be rent, this
place would not move.

Going on, north from this, for a yojana, (Fa-Hsien) arrived at the
capital of Nagara, the place where the Bodhisattva once purchased
with money five stalks of flowers, as an offering to the Dipankara
Buddha.(9) In the midst of the city there is also the tope of Buddha's
tooth, where offerings are made in the same way as to the flat-bone of
his skull.

A yojana to the north-east of the city brought him to the mouth of a
valley, where there is Buddha's pewter staff;(10) and a vihara also
has been built at which offerings are made. The staff is made of
Gosirsha Chandana, and is quite sixteen or seventeen cubits long. It
is contained in a wooden tube, and though a hundred or a thousand men
ere to (try to) lift it, they could not move it.

Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha's
Sanghali,(11) where also there is reared a vihara, and offerings are
made. It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for
the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to
it, and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain
from the sky.

South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great
hill fronting the south-west; and here it was that Buddha left his
shadow. Looking at it from a distance of more than ten paces, you
seem to see Buddha's real form, with his complexion of gold, and
his characteristic marks(12) in their nicety clearly and brightly
displayed.