Udyana

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (Retd.)

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Udyana or Udyāna (Sanskrit, meaning garden or orchard; Chinese: 烏萇; pinyin: Wūcháng) was a Buddhist region in North India delimited in part by the Indus River.

Variants of name

• Woo-chang/Wūcháng (Chinese: by Fahian)
• Swat
• U-chang (Chinese: by Fahian)
• [[U-chang-na (by Xuanzang)
• Udyāna (Sanskrit: उद्यान)

History

The area is said to have supported some 500 viharas of the Sthavira nikāya at which traveling śrāmaṇeras were provided lodgings and food for three days. It is said Gautama Buddha's footprint or petrosomatoglyph, a rock on which he dried his clothes and a place where he converted a nāga.

It is said that the two schools derived from the Sthavira nikāya, the Dharmaguptaka and Kāśyapīya, were established in this area. Both of these schools had proto-Mahayana doctrines.

Udyāna is of vital importance in the Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, as most of the later tantras are identified as originating there.

Visit by Xuanzang in 631 AD

Alexander Cunningham writes about 7. Udyana or Swat:

[p.81]: On leaving Utakhanda Hwen Thsang travelled about 600 li, or 100 miles, towards the north, to U-chang-na, or Udyana, which was situated on the river Su-po-fa-su-tu, the Subhavastu and Suvastu of Sanskrit, the Suastus of Arrian, and the Swat or Suat river of the present day. It is called U-chang by the earlier pilgrims Fa-Hian and Sung-yun, which is a close transcript of Ujjana, the Pali form of Udyana. The country is described as highly irrigated, and very fertile. This agrees with all the native accounts, according to which Swat is second only to the far-famed valley of Kashmir. Hwen Thsang makes it 5000 li, or 833 miles, in circuit, which must be very near the truth, if, as was most probably the case, it included all the tributaries of the Swat river. Udyana would thus have embraced the four modern districts of Panjkora, Bijawar, Swat, and Bunir, which have a circuit of only 500 miles, if measured on the map direct, but

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[p.82]: of not less than 800 miles by road measurement. Fa-Hian mentions Su-ho-to as a small district to the south of Udyana. This has generally been identified with the name of Swat ; but from its position to the south of Udyana, and to the north of Parashawar, it cannot have been the large valley of the Swat river itself, but must have been limited to the smaller valley of Bunir. This is confirmed by the legend told by Fa-Hian of the hawk and pigeon ; in which Buddha, to save the pigeon, tears his own flesh and offers it to the hawk. The very same legend is related by Hwen Thsang, but he places the scene at the north-west foot of the Mahaban mountain, that is, in the actual valley of Bunir. He adds that Buddha was then a king, named Shi-pi-kia, or Sivika, which may, perhaps, be the true form of Fa-Hian's Suhoto.

The capital of Udyana was called Mung-kie-li, or Mangala, which is probably the Mangora of Wilford's surveyor, Mogal Beg, and the Manglora of General Court's map. It was 16 or 17 li, about 2¾ miles, in circuit, and very populous. At 250 or 260 li, about 42 miles, to the north-east of the capital the pilgrim reached the source of the Suhhavastu river, in the fountain of the Naga king Apalāla ; and at 750 li, or 125 miles, further in the same direction, after crossing a mountain range and ascending the Indus, he arrived at Tha-li-lo, or Darel, which had been the ancient capital of Udyana. Darel is a valley on the right or western bank of the Indus, now occupied by Dardus, or Dards, from whom it received its name. It is called To-li by Fa-Hian, who makes it a separate kingdom. The Dards are now usually divided into three separate tribes, according to the dialects which

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[p.83]: they speak. Those who use the Arniya dialect occupy the north-western districts of Yasan and Chitral ; those who speak the Khajunah dialect occupy the north-east districts of Hunza and Nager ; and those who speak the Shina dialect occupy the valleys of Gilgit, Chilas, Darel, Kohli, and Palas, along the banks of the Indus. In this district there was a celebrated wooden statue of the future Buddha Maitreya, which is mentioned by both of the pilgrims. According to Fa-Hian it was erected 300 years after the Nirvana of Buddha, or about B.C. 243, that is, in the reign of Asoka, when the Buddhist religion was actively disseminated over India by missionaries. Hwen Thsang describes the statue as 100 feet in height, and states that it was erected by Madhydntika. The name and the date mutually support each other, as Madhyantika, or Majjhima in Pali, was the name of the Buddhist teacher, who, after the assembly of the Third Synod in Asoka's reign, was sent to spread the Buddhist faith in Kashmir and the whole Himavanta country. This is most probably the period alluded to by Hwen Thsang when Darel was the capital of Udyana.

References

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