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and a nine-crested one in the North. "A blue canopy and blue 

 dress, blue banner (are to be used) and all the offering is to be 

 made blue". "The cloud-raonarehs too must be depicted, emitting 

 a shower, and rubbing against one another; at the end masses 

 of rain-birds and lightning are to be painted", and offerings of 

 parched rice, fish, flesh and honey-food without curds must be 

 made. After all these preparatory measures the prophet of the 

 Law, pure and clad in pure raiment, must recite this "Whirlwind" 

 chapter, "the Heart of Snakes". 



Bkal ' gives a short abstract of this sutra (nr 188), as he found 

 it in the Chinese Tripitaka. Of the great Naga kings enumerated 

 in the beginning the third one is Sagara ^ the principal sea god 

 of Chinese Buddhists, who often called him simply "The Sea- 

 dragon-king". By this name he is also indicated in the titles of 

 the two sutras nrs 456 and 457 of Nanjo's Catalogue ^ The fourth 

 Naga king, Anavatapta *, was well-known in Japan, as we will 

 see below ^ To him nr 437 of Nanjo's Catalogue is devoted 

 (translated A. D. 308) ". In the fifth place the Naga king Manasvin ' 

 is mentioned. Then follows Varuna ', the Naga king, different 

 from the deity of this name, called in China the Deva of the 

 Water ", which name reminds us of the famous SuitengU '" of Tokyo. 

 Professor Speter had the kindness to point out to me that in 

 the Mahcivastu ", where the Buddha blesses Bhallika and Trapusa, 

 among the protectors of the West Virupaksha, the.Nagas and 

 Varuna are mentioned. As to Virupaksha, one of the four guar- 

 dians of the world, he is the sovereign of all the Nagas. Varuna, 

 the Brahmanic god of heaven, is at the same time the regent 



1 A catena of Buddhist scriptures from the Chinese (1871), p. 419 sqq. 



2 The first and second are Nanda and Upananda. Sagara is written ^fe ^M ^S , 



cf. EiTEL, Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary, s. v. (there wrongly ''^ instead of ^^). 



3 Nr 456 : -^ g^ |^ ^^ ^ ^ , "Buddhabhashita Sagara Nagaraja sutra". 



Nr 457: '^ ;^ '^ f| 3E |§; ^ f jl ^ ' "^"'^™ °" *^^ ^^^' "^ *^® ^^"^' 

 spoken by Buddha for the sake of the NSga-king Sagara". 



5 Book II, Ch. Ill, § 4. 



6 Anavatapta nagarSja pariprkkha si5tra. The Chinese title is quite different. 



7 ^ ^p Wr . Cf. EiTEL, 1.1. s.v. Manasa, where Manasvin is wrongly said to be 

 the tutelary deity of lake Manasarovara (in Tibet identified with lake Anavatapta, cf. 

 Kawaguchi, Three years in Tibet, Ch. XXVI, pp. 139 sqq.).- 



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