322 Notes on the Buddhas from Ceylonese authorities. [June, 



Every Buddha, on having attained the object of his ambition, not 

 only appropriated to himself, and received from his followers the 

 innumerable titles of former Buddhas, (many of which were apper- 

 taining to the gods,) but by visiting the same places, enjoining the 

 same observances, retaining the same moral laws, and imitating all 

 their actions ; he identified himself with the meritorious deeds as well 

 as with the moral doctrines of his predecessors. From these circum- 

 stances it is not easy to particularise the acts of any individual 

 Buddha; and the difficulty has been increased by writers on this 

 subject, who in general have preferred aimless dissertations to histo- 

 rical incidents. 



Of Kakusanda, 

 The first Buddha in the present dispensation, B. C. 3101*. 



At the commencement of this the (Mahd Bhadra KalpaJ most 

 auspicious age of the world according to Buddhists, Kakusanda 

 Buddha appeared in Magadha\, when Kshema^ was king, and the 

 name of the capital was Kshemawattinuwara§ . He visited Ceylon, 

 which then was known by the name of Oja Dweepia, and first 

 manifested himself from Adam's peak, at that time called Dewiyakuta, 

 and on the summit of which he found memorials of the religion of 

 former Buddhas were still existing. The Mahamuvuna gardens (com- 

 prising the plain on which the most sacred edifices at Anuraadhapura 

 are situated) was called Mahatirtiwana ; and to the eastward of these 

 was the city Abhya, the resideuce of a king of the same name ; here 

 also was situated the Pi)^al Kula mountain, (afterwards called Mehint- 

 allai) and a cave which the Buddha chose for his temporary abode. 



A pestilence which had swept off multitudes, having ceased at the 

 time of Kakusanda's arrival, the people, believing that it was by his 

 miraculous interpositions, eagerly listened to the exhortations, and 

 adopted the religion of their benefactor. The garden Mahatirtiwana 

 having been offered to the Buddha, he sent to Kshemawatti to pro- 

 cure a branch of the Maharibodi tree ; that it might remain as a 

 memorial of himself, and an emblem of his religion. The tree was 



* The period not of his birth or death, but of his becoming a Buddha. 



f Magadha, Bahar. 



X Kshema. 



§ Kshemawatimuwara or Khemawatinuwara, probably Saewatnuwara, or Gaya ; 

 the great antiquity of which city may be inferred from the manner in which it is 

 mentioned in the Ramayana. In the transmigrations of Gautama Buddha, 

 before he attained the perfection necessary for a Buddha, he is said to have been 

 incarnate at this time as this very king Kshema, vide Siddbamasuma, Thupa 

 Wanzae, &c» . 



