A history that lost :hinna:
The Buddha’s alms bowl -DAWN Magazine; November 10, 2002
THE Buddha, after enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, arose from his seat and walked to a neighbouring grove. He fell into an ecstatic trance that lasted for seven weeks. During this time he “enjoyed the experiences of deliverance.” At the end of the seven weeks, the Guardians of the Four Quarters realized that once the Buddha came out of his trance, he would be in dire need of food, having fasted for the whole period. They arose and each in turn placed a golden bowl at the Buddha’s feet, for they knew that without the begging bowl, he could not receive the food that the gods were to give him. But the Buddha refused to accept the golden bowls, as they were made of precious materials and unsuited for a religious mendicant.
**The guardians then offered other bowls made of less valuable materials. All were refused, until they offered him four bowls made of stone. These he accepted, but enforced a condition that none of the Guardian of the Quarters should be honoured by the acceptance of his bowl. He was pleased to accept all the four bowls which he afterwards moulded into one by his miraculous power. Thus, the four bowls became one, but on it, the rims of the other three were always to be seen. In this way, he managed to please all the four guardians.
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The Buddha had made his daily practice to go out begging, alms bowl in hand, at a particular time of day. The other monks also followed his lead.
The statutes of the Buddhist monastic order state that a monk cannot accept an offering by hand, only that what is put into his begging bowl — one of the few utensils a Buddhist monk is allowed to own. The alms bowl of the Buddha was venerated after his Mahaparinirvana (death) by Buddhists for more than a thousand years.
The monuments of Peshawar are described in great detail by the Chinese pilgrims, Fahian, Sung-Yun and Hiuen Tsiang, who came one after another in search of Buddhist scriptures to Gandhara and on a pilgrimage of its holy places.
**Fahian came in AD 400 when Chandragupta II was the emperor of India. He found the alms bowl of Buddha in Peshawar being held in great veneration, and noted that the original four rims of the bowls could easily be seen on it.
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Sung-Yun came to Gandhara in AD 400. He does not mention anything about the bowl. Immediately preceding his visit, Gandhara was conquered by the Huns, the barbarians from Central Asia. As the then king of Gandhara was not a Buddhist, it is most probable that the bowl had already been removed.
Hiuen Tsiang, the most famous Chinese pilgrim, followed Fahian after two centuries. The glory of Gandhara had faded and the monastery of the bowl, into an abyss. At the time of Hiuen Tsiang’s visit, Harsha of Kanauj was the emperor of India. Gandhara was without a king and was ruled by a king of Kapisa in Afghanistan.
Regarding the story of the Buddha’s alms bowl in Peshawar, we mostly depend on the accounts of Fahian, who can be regarded as a credible eyewitness because he visited the city and saw the bowl for himself. He states that a king, Yue-Chi, came with a large army contingent and tried to take it away. After Yue-Chi had conquered Gandhara, he had a large elephant decorated and placed the bowl on top of the animal. The elephant fell to the ground and refused to get up. Then, the king made a four-wheel carriage on which the bowl was placed and eight elephants were yoked to draw it, but they were again unable to advance. The king, defeated by the power of the bowl, was soon to erect a stupa and monastery at the site to honour the Buddha.
**There were perhaps 700 priests who, at the approach of noon, used to bring out the Buddha’s alms bowl and with Upasakas, made all kinds of offerings to it. They then ate their mid-day meal. The alms bowl was glistening and bright. Its surface showed different colours, but mainly it was black. People used to throw flowers into it.
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The alms bowl of the Buddha was in Peshawar at the time of Fahian’s visit to Gandhara. Afterwards, when he was in Sri Lanka, he heard that the patra (the alms bowl) had at first been kept in the city of Vaisali in India, but was then somewhere near the borders of Gandhara. It is said that in a 100 years, it will again be transported to Gandhara.
There is no mention of the alms bowl of the Buddha in Peshawar in the diary of the Chinese pilgrim Sung-Yun because at the time of his visit, the then king of Gandhara was not a Buddhist. It is most probable that by then, it had already been removed. It was in Persia at the time of Hiuen Tsiang’s visit to Gandhara in AD 630.
Professor Alfred Foucher, the French archaeologist who was a great authority on the Gandhara civilization, was in the NWFP with the French Scientific Mission. During 1895-7, he and his team had surveyed the entire Peshawar district. He writes that there is a monument by the name of Panj-tirath on the Grand Trunk Road in Peshawar. It is a Hindu monument which contained, as the name indicates, five little tanks which are the holy begging places shaded by some sacred fig trees. The Hindu Brahmans traced the origin of the Panj-tirath site to the five Pando brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharata war. Professor Foucher, who attributes it to the Buddhist period, writes, “Unfortunately, the place has been too disturbed and the indications of the pilgrims are too vague to allow us to affirm anything in a decisive fashion. At all events, they are convinced that it is somewhere near the Panj-Tirath that following the right methods, first of all, search should be made for the site of the Patra-chaitya (sanctuary of the alms bowls). Professor A.H. Dani doubts Professor Foucher’s identification of the site of the alms bowl of the Buddha at Panj-Tirath, and presumes it to be at Gor Khuttree, a monument in Peshawar City.
The story of the alms bowl is accurately carved in Gandhara sculptures. The Guardians of the Four Quarters present the bowls to the Buddha. He holds it in his hand, either in a seating or standing position. Sometimes, it is placed on a throne under a canopy and the worshippers adore it.
Peshawar once contained numerous important Buddhist monuments. Unfortunately, it was always open to foreign invaders who came to Gandhara intermittently. They destroyed and rebuilt it. The process of construction and destruction continued for several centuries.
**Although the alms bowl of the Buddha is no longer in Peshawar, yet its story is preserved in Buddhist text and Gandhara art.
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(Prof Fidaullah Sehrai was the director of the Peshawar Museum and chairman of the Department of Archaeology and Fine Arts, University of Peshawar. He specializes in Buddhism and its arts and architecture, with particular emphasis on the Gandhara civilization).