Beglar, describing
the Chetu cave, mentioned by Fa-hian, thinks it is the Saptaparna cave,
and he is right. For that, as well as the Pippal and the other caves
mentioned in our texts, are too sacred in their associations--both
having been used for centuries by generations of Bhikkhus, unto the very
time of their leaving India--to have their sites so easily forgotten.
---------
On the other hand, the Southern Buddhists, headed by the Ceylonese, open
their annals with the following event:--
They claim according to their native chronology that Vijaya, the son of
Sinhabahu, the sovereign of Lala, a small kingdom or Raj on the Gandaki
river in Magadha, was exiled by his father for acts of turbulence and
immorality. Sent adrift on the ocean with his companions after having
their heads shaved, Buddhist-Bhikshu fashion, as a sign of penitence, he
was carried to the shores of Lanka. Once landed, he and his companions
conquered and easily took possession of an island inhabited by
uncivilized tribes, generically called the Yakshas. This--at whatever
epoch and year it may have happened--is an historical fact, and the
Ceylonese records, independent of Buddhist chronology, give it out as
having taken place 382 years before Dushtagamani (i.
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