Abstract
So far as my scanty reading goes, I have never met with a book on the subject of the “Wandering Jew” making mention of an Indian tale in this connection, and I therefore deem it more or less useful to call attention of the folk-lorists to the following Buddhist narrative, for which I have to thank Mr. Seisaku Murayama, an assiduous Pâli scholar in Japan, who was kind enough to make a journey in my behalf with the sole intention of personal examination of the Chinese text. The passage occurs in “Tsah-ö-han-King” (Samyuktâgamasûtra, translated by Gunabhadra, circa A.D 435–443), printed in Fuh-chau, 1609, tom, xxiii. fol. 30, and may be translated thus:—‘This is a portion of an answer of Pin-tau-lu (= Pindola Bharadvâga?) to the question of the King As'ôka.] “And further, when the Buddha was staying in the kingdom of S'râvasti with the five hundred arhats, the daughter of the Sreshthin Anâthapindada happened to live in the kingdom of Fu-lau-na-poh-to-na (= Pundara-varddhana?), and invited thither the Buddha and the monks. All other monks then, went gliding through the air; but I, exerting my supernatural energy, held up a huge mount and there went. Then the Buddha accused me with these words: ’Wherefore do you play such a miracle? for which offence I now punish you with eternal existence in this world, incapable of the reach to Nirvâna, thus to guard my doctrine against its destruction.’ ”
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MINAKATA, K. The Story of the “Wandering Jew”. Nature 53, 78 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/053078b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053078b0
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