Samadhi means ecstatic reverie, and as there is some uncertainty as to its nature in some writers on Buddhism,

it may be well to draw attention to this instance of snake-charming. It means a mesmerising power, a fixing of the mind and eye which has an effect on the snake. To fix the faculties in Buddhist contemplation is to enter into san-mei or samadhi. Those phenomena which we call trance, brown study, reverie, are examples of an inactive samadhi. The addition of an effort of will makes an active samadhi, as that used in snake charming by Buddhists, and as that of mesmerists.

He founded a house to be used by monks as a contemplation hall at the spot, and perhaps the snakes he tamed may have been kept there in a box, as is sometimes done now in China. But the account does not say.

He went thence to Candahar, at that time called Kipin, and there propagated the doctrines of Buddhism about eighty years before the conquests of Alexander. He lived in the Siang- (elephant) pe (white) mountain, sat on his chair, and entered into a trance. While this was happening, Upagupta, his successor, was being much troubled with five hundred pupils, who were self-opinionated and proud. He felt that they were beyond his power to guide and elevate. There was not existing between him and them the "secret link of influence" (yuen, "cause." Sansc. nidana) that would have overcome this difficulty. This conviction he acquired in a samadhi, and learned or rather thought at the same time, while still in the ecstatic state, that only Shangnavasu could reform them. The samadhi here appears to be an elevated state of inspiration. But it has also a magical power. The next point in the narrative is the arrival of Shangnavasu himself flying through the air. He was habited most shabbily, and when he sat down on Upagupta's chair, the pupils stared angrily at him for daring to do this. But Upagupta came before him and bowed to him most respectfully. Shangnavasu pointed to the air, and fragrant milk fell as if from a spring on the side of a high mountain.

This was the result of a samadhi, which the patriarch said was the samadhi of a Naga rushing eagerly forward.

[paragraph continues] He then exhibited five hundred different kinds of samadhi. At the same time he observed to Upagupta, that when Buddha performed any magical act by samadhi, his pupil Maudgalyayana did not know what samadhi it was. Nor did inferior disciples know the name of any samadhi by help of which Maudgalyayana might do anything wonderful. "Nor do I," he said, "understand that of Ananda. Nor do you understand mine."

"When I enter the Nirvana," he continued, "77,000 Sutras will perish with me; also 10,000 Shastras and 80,000 works of the class of discipline."