If the
Chinese annalists of Saul in accepting the prophecy of our Lord that "a
thousand years after He had reached Nirvana, His doctrines would reach
the north" fell into the mistake of applying it to China, whereas Tibet
was meant, the error was corrected after the eleventh century of the
Tzina era in most of the temple chronologies. Besides which, it may now
refer to other events relating to Buddhism, of which Europe knows
nothing, China or Tzina dates its present name only from the year 296 of
the Buddhist era* (vulgar chronology having assumed it from the first
Hoang of the Tzin dynasty): therefore the Tathagata could not have
indicated it by this name in his well-known prophecy. If misunderstood
even by several of the Buddhist commentators, it is yet preserved in its
true sense by his own immediate Arhats. The Glorified One meant the
country that stretches far off from the Lake Mansorowara; far beyond
that region of the Himavat, where dwelt from time immemorial the great
"teachers of the Snowy Range." These were the great Sraman-acharyas who
preceded Him, and were His teachers, their humble successors trying to
this day to perpetuate their and His doctrines.
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