1916.] Taxild as a Seat of Learning. 19 



Bodhisatta sent him home and defeated the foreign king. In 

 the Asadisa Jataka l we find that the Bodhisatta mastered the 

 three Vedas and the eighteen Vijjas at Taxila. He was born 

 as the eldest son of the King of Benares named Asadisa and 

 he had a younger brother named Brahmadatta. His father 

 willed away his throne to his eldest son, but he refused to take 

 the kingdom and gave it over to his younger brother. The 

 councillors intrigued. Upon this, he left the kingdom and went 

 to the dominion of another king where he made himself known 

 as a bowman. The king appointed him as his archer. In order 

 to remove all doubts about him from the minds of his old 

 bowmen, the king asked him to bring down a mango from 

 the top of a tree with his bow and arrow. He succeeded in 

 doing so by shooting an arrow to the sky which came to the 

 earth with the mango aimed at. 



In the Sarabhanga Jataka, 4 the Bodhisatta was born in 

 the womb of the wife of a priest. His father sent him to 

 Taxila to learn arts. He studied arts and paid fees to the 

 famous teacher. After completing his education, he received 

 from his teacher Khaggaratana (a valuable sword), Sandhi- 

 yuttamendakasingadhanum (a bow made up of the horn of a 

 ram), Sandhiyuttatunhiram (a quiver made up of joints), Sanna- 

 hakancukarh (an armour), Unhisa (a turban). The Bodhisatta 

 trained up 500 young men and then returned home. The king, 

 in order to see the arts of the Bodhisatta, collected 60,000 

 archers and he caused his drum to be beaten in the city 

 intimating to the people to come and see the arts of the 

 Bodhisatta. He came to the assembly with a sword only in 

 his hands concealing other things given by his teacher. The 

 assembled archers refused to give their bows to him. Bodhi- 

 satta requested the king to encircle a space in the centre with 

 a cloth and entered into the enclosure. After entering into 

 the enclosure, he put on a turban and took his bow. He 

 requested the king to call men from 4 classes — Akkhanavedhl. 

 Valavedhi, Saddavedhf, and Saravedhi. Then the king sum- 

 moned the archers. The Bodhisatta gave 30 arrows to each 

 and asked them to shoot them at him simultaneously while he 

 would prevent them alone. The archers refused to shoot at 

 the young Bodhisatta. They afterwards shot and the Bodhi- 

 satta prevented them by ndrdca (a light javelin). The Bodhi- 

 satta said that he would pierce them by an arrow. They 

 became terrified. Four plantain plants were kept on four 

 sides and he pierced them by one arrow. He was further 

 requested to show more feats, namely, saralatthi (a stick of 

 arrows), sararajjum (a rope of arrows), saraveni (a row of ar- 

 rows), sarapasada (a palace of arrows), saramandapa (a pavilion 



1 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 87. » Ibid., Vol. V, p. 127 



