1897.] 
79 
L. A. Waddell— Upagupta. 
by Mara in the shape of a dancer with attendants male and female. 
Upagupta overcomes these by magical means bestowing on them 
garlands which he turns into clinging corpses, from which he sets them 
free only on condition that they cease their wicked ways. In this 
regard it is curious to find that dancing girls are the subject of some 
very fine sculptures which were found at an ancient Buddhist site at 
Mathura. 1 2 A slightly different and more dramatic version of this 
personal contest with Mara is given by Acvaghosa as an Avadana? 
According to this version “Mara found Upagupta lost in meditation 
and placed a wreath of flowers on his head. On returning to con¬ 
sciousness and finding himself thus crowned, he entered again into 
Samadhi to see who had done the deed. Finding it was Mara, he 
caused a dead body to fasten itself round Mara’s neck. No power in 
heaven or earth could disentangle it. Finally Mara returned to 
Upagupta, confessed his fault and prayed him to free him from the 
corpse. Upagupta consented on the condition that he (Mara) would 
exhibit himself under the form of Buddha 4 with all his marks.’ Mara 
does so and Upagupta overpowered by the magnificence of the supposed 
Buddha falls down before him in worship. The tableau then closes 
amid a terrific storm.” 
At Mathura, both Hiuen Tsiang and Taranatha mention a large 
cave into which Upagupta was in the habit of throwing a chip of wood 
to register the number of individuals who attained Arahatship through 
him, until the cave ultimately became filled with the chips. 
From Mathura he proceeded to Aparanta 3 (Sindh), during the 
reign of a king called Mahendra and his son 4 Chamasha,’ and there the 
inhabitants of Bagal erected for him a retreat in 4 the grove of the 
duck-herd,’ which was called 4 the Sapghdrdma of the Buck’_this 
certainly does not seem to be the Kukkutarama or monastery of the 
Cock, as Schiefner translates. 4 Hiuen Tsiang also states that 
44 Upagupta the great Arahat frequently sojourned in this kingdom 
(Sindh),” 5 a country which, he notes, was famous for its salt. And as 
1 Archael. Survey of India Repts. Yol. XVII, Plate XXXI. The sculptures 
represent dancing girls dancing on dwarfs, which have been supposed to symbolize 
Energy acting on Matter. 
2 Beal’s Fo-sho-hing-tsano-king, p. XII (Sacred Bks. of East), and in Si-yu-ki 
I, p. 182 
3 Tiiranatha op. cit. 
4 This place was in Aparanta in the extreme west of India, while the Kukkut¬ 
arama was in Pataliputra. Conf. Schiefner’s translation of Taranatha’s History 
p. 18. The Tibetan word is ‘ bya-gag ’ which according to Jaeschke’s Dictionary 
is the name of a species of water-bird or duck. And mv MS. Tibeto-Sanskrit 
Dictionary gives the Sanskrit equivalent as Bakah, and the feminine as Nukuli. 
5 Beal’s Si-yu-ki, II, 273. 
