1895.] 
If. P. Qastrl— Cri-dhmma-mnrjgala* 
65 
Qri-dharma-marjgala: A distant echo of the Lalita-vistara } —By Pandit 
Hara Prasad QastrI, M.A. 
[Read February, 1895.] 
In a paper read in December last, 1 I attempted to prove that the 
Dharma-piija prevalent in Western Bengal is Buddhism, though un¬ 
conscious. 
In the preceding paper I have tried to trace the history of Bud¬ 
dhism from the Muhammadan conquest down to the present dajq and 
also to show how widely Buddhism is still prevalent in Bengal, though 
in a form scarcely to be recognized, except by the initiated. 
In the present paper I purpose to draw a comparison between the 
Cri-dharma-marjgala , the hand-book of the Dharma worshippers,—the 
work chanted under thousands of Bata trees on the sacred birthday 2 
of the Buddha,—and the Lalita-vistara, or the hand-book of the Bud¬ 
dha’s life, according to the Mahayana School. 
In the Lalita-vistara , the Buddha is represented as preaching to gods 
and Bodhisattvas in the Tusita-heaven. He was then Garamabhavika , 
i.e., about to receive his last birth. There was a discussion where he 
should be born, it was decided he should be born in the family of pakyas. 
He enters his mother’s womb by the right side. The mother sees mira¬ 
culous visions. She travails in a garden. A storm disperses her at¬ 
tendants. She holds the branch of a tree, and hangs downward with 
her face lifted up towards heaven ; in that condition the Buddha is 
born. On the seventh day after his birth, his mother dies. He is 
named Sarvartha-siddha by his father. Devarsi, the divine Rsi, Asita 
comes to see the boy and predicts that he will renounce the world. 
The Devaputra Mah§9vara also predicts the same thing. He is 
nursed by his stepmother, Mahaprajavatl. He learns to read and 
write various alphabets from V^vamitra, the teacher of boys. He 
goes to see villages; he falls into a trance under a Jambu tree, 
1 [See the Proceedings of the Society, for Dec. 1894, p. 135, where the paper 
is printed at full length. Ed.] 
2 [The Vaigdklu Purnimu ; See Proceedings , p. 137. Ed,] 
J. I. 9 
