All the 1,000
buddhas of this aeon, after demonstrating the attainment of
enlightenment at Vajrasana, proceed to Sarnath to give the
first turning of the wheel of Dharma. In like manner,
Shakyamuni walked from Bodhgaya to Sarnath in order to meet
the five ascetics who had left him earlier. Coming to the
Ganges, he crossed it in one step, where King Ashoka later
made Pataliputra his capital city. He entered Benares early morning, made his arms round, bathed, ate his meal and,
leaving by the east gate of the city, walked northwards to Rishipatana Mrigadava, the rishi's Deer Park.
There are many legends about the origin of this name. Fa
Hien says that the rishi was a pratyeka buddha who had dwelt
there but, on hearing that the son of King Suddhodana was
about to become a supreme buddha, entered nirvana. Others
mention 500 pratyeka buddhas and Hsuan Chwang mentions a
stupa marking the site of their nirvana.
The name Deer Park derives from an occasion in one of
Shakyamuni's former lives as a bodhisattva, when he was
leading a herd of deer. After much indiscriminate plundering
of the herd by a local king, an agreement was made with him
that one of their number would be offered only when
necessary. The turn came of a doe, who was shortly to give
birth and wished to delay until then. The bodhisattva
offered himself in her stead, which so impressed the king
that he not only resolved to refrain from killing deer in
future but gave the park to them on their own.
At this place the five ascetics had resumed their austere
practices. When they saw the Buddha approaching, thinking
him still to be the Gautama who had forsaken their path,
they decided not to welcome him. Yet, as he neared they
found themselves involuntarily rising and paying respect.
Proclaiming that he was the Buddha, Shakyamuni assured them
that the goal had been attained. Hsuan Chwang saw a large,
dome-shaped stupa on this spot, where a large mound,
probably its remains, surmounted by a muslim monument now,
stands a short distance south of the park.
During the first watch of the night the Buddha was silent,
during the second he made a little conversation and at the
third began the teaching. At the spot where all the buddhas
first turn the wheel, 1,000 thrones appeared. Shakyamuni
circumambulated those of the three previous buddhas and sat
upon the fourth. Light radiated from his body, illuminating
the 3,000 worlds, and the earth trembled. Brahma offered him
a 1,000-spoked golden wheel, and Indra and other gods also
made offerings, all imploring the Buddha to teach.
Thus, inviting the gods and all who wished to hear, and
saying that he spoke not for the purpose of debate but in
order to help living beings gain control of their minds,
Shakyamuni began the first turning of the wheel of Dharma.
He taught the middle way, that avoids the extremes of
pleasure and austerity, the four noble truths, and the
eightfold path. Kaundmya was the first of the five ascetics
to understand and realize the teaching; Ashvajit was the
last. All eventually became arhants.
The teachings included in the collection known as the first
turning of the wheel, which began here, extended over a
period of seven years. Other teachings, such as those on the
Vinaya and on the practice of close placement of
mindfulness, were given elsewhere, but the wheel was turned
twelve times at Sarnath.
From
the time of the Buddha, monastic tradition flourished for
over 1,500 years on the site of the Deer Park. Amongst the
many ruins, archaeologists have found traces dating from as
early as the third century B.C., and the existing
inscription of Ashoka's pillar, dating from that time,
implies that a monastery was already established during
Ashoka's reign. Fa Hien speaks of two monasteries with monks
in residence, while two centuries later Hsuan Chwang
describes a mahavihara encompassing eight divisions. This
contained a great temple with ornate balconies, over one
hundred niches containing gilt images on its walls, and a
statue of the Buddha in the teaching posture.
The last monastery constructed before the muslim invasion,
the Dharmachakra-jina vihara, was the largest of all. It was
built by Kumaradevi, queen of King Govindachandra, who ruled
in Benares from 1114-1154. Here a surviving fragment of
stone inscription records that in 1058 a monk presented a
gift copy of the Prajna-paramita Sutra to the monastery
evidence of Mahayana activity at that time. The discovery in
the area of ancient statues of Heruka and Arya Tara shows
that vajrayana was also practiced there.
Formerly, two great stupas adorned the site. Only the
Dhamekha remains, assigned by its inscription to the sixth
century. The Dharmarajika stupa built by Ashoka, some say
upon the very place of the teaching, was pulled down in the
eighteenth century by Jagat Singh, who consigned the casket
of relics contained within it to the Ganges river. Hsuan
Chwang describes that Ashoka's pillar, which stood in front
of the stupa, was so highly polished that it constantly
reflected the stupa's statue of the Buddha.
Benares, which was the second city to reappear following the
last destruction of the world, was also a site of the
previous buddha's manifestations. Kashyapa, the third buddha
of this aeon, built a monastery near Deer Park, where he
ordained the brahmin boy, Jotipala, an earlier incarnation
of Shakyamuni. Hsuan Chwang records stupas and an artificial
platform at the places where several previous buddhas had
walked and sat in meditation.
Deer Park was also the location of Shakyamuni's deeds as a
bodhisattva in former lives. Hsuan Chwang mentions a number
of stupas commemorating these near the monastery: one where
the bodhisattva offered himself as the deer; another where,
as a six-tusked elephant, he offered his tusks to a
deceitful hunter and a third where the bodhisattva had been
a bird, with Maudgalyayana and Sariputra as a monkey and an
elephant.
Another stupa commemorated the occasion when Indra
manifested as a hungry old man and asked a fox, an ape and a
hare (the Buddha in a former life) for food. The fox brought
fish, the ape brought fruit, but the bodhisattva hare,
having nothing else to offer, threw himself on a fire and
offered his roasted body. Indra was so moved by this act
that he took the hare and placed him in the moon. Many
people in central Asia still refer to the moon as the hare
sign, or worship the hare in the moon.
Today the actual site of the Buddha's teaching at Sarnath
and the several ruins in the area have been enclosed in a
pleasant park. Nearby, a well-planned museum houses a number
of unearthed statues, many barely damaged, as well as
several other findings from the site. The museum's entrance
is dominated by the famous lion capital from Ashoka's pillar
(an indication of the Indian Government's renewed interest
in Buddhism), has been adopted as the national emblem. The
wheel design on its base has become the central figure of
India's flag.
Adjacent to the park is the Mahabodhi Society's
Mulaghandaluti Temple, an imposing building containing
certain relics of the Buddha. Close by is the Society's
sangharama and a library possessing a rare collection of
buddhist literature. Also in the vicinity are Burmese,
Chinese and Tibetan temples, as well as a Tibetan monastery
and the Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, where two
hundred young monks practice and study the many aspects of
the Buddha's teaching, aspiring to qualify for the degree of
acharya. There is also a Tibetan printing press, The
Pleasure of Elegant Sayings, which over the last decade has
published more than thirty Tibetan texts of buddhist
treatises, otherwise hard to find. Thus the wheel of Dharma
that Shakyamuni first turned at Sarnath continues to
revolve.
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