CHAPTER V.

THE PATRIARCHS OF THE NORTHERN BUDDHISTS.

Features of Asiatic life in the time of the patriarchs--Character, powers, and intellectual qualities of the patriarchs--Series of thirty-three patriarchs--Appointment of Kashiapa by Shakyamuni--The Svastika council of Rajagriha, for writing out the books of Buddha, and settling what should be received as canonical--The part taken by Ananda in the authorship of the Buddhist books--Ananda, second patriarch--The third was Shangnavasu--Remarks on samadhi and reverie--Fourth, Upagupta--Conversion of a wicked woman when dying--Fifth, sixth, and seventh patriarchs--Buddha's prophecy regarding Buddhanandi, the seventh--Struggle between filial love and Buddhist conviction in Buddhamitra--The way in which he subdued an unbelieving king--Maming given to the king of the Getae to induce him to raise the siege of Pataliputra--Kapimara, the thirteenth--Nagarjuna, the fourteenth--Converts ten thousand Brahmans--Writes the Ta-chi-tu-lun--Vigorous defence of Buddhism by Kanadeva--Assassination of Kanadeva--Sanghanandi, precocious as a boy--Prophecy respecting him--Rahulata ascends to heaven--Sangkayasheta's discussion on the nature of sound--Converts five hundred hermits--Kumarada's views on the inequality of present retribution--Difficulties met with by Manura in teaching Buddhism in Southern and Western India--A patriarch's power over birds--Haklena converts Singhalaputra, who succeeded him as patriarch (the twenty-fourth), but was killed by the king of Candahar--The orthodox school has only twenty-four patriarchs--The contemplative school has twenty-eight--Pradjnyatara, the twenty-seventh converts Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth, who proceeds to China--Hindoo knowledge of the Roman empire.

WE are now in the midst of the Asiatic world of two thousand and sixteen hundred years ago. In India, in Afghanistan, and