(Redirected from Uddiyana)'Udyāna' (
Sanskrit, meaning ''garden'' or ''orchard'';
Chinese pinyin: ''wu chang'', also romanized as ''Woo-chang'') was a
Buddhist region in northern
India, delimited in part by the
Indus river and to the south by a region known as
Soo-ho-to.
Prakrit was spoken.
The area is said to have supported some 500
Theravada Buddhist monasteries, at which travelling monks were provided lodgings and food for three days. It is said
Buddha's footprint could be found there (refer
petrosomatoglyph), a rock on which he dried his clothes and a place where he 'converted' a
Naga.
Udyāna is of vital importance in the
Vajrayana schools of
Buddhism, as most of the later tantras are identified as originating there.
Udyāna is the modern day
Swat Valley in
Pakistan.
Fa Xian wrote: "There is a tradition that when Buddha came to North India, he came at once to this country, and that here he left a print of his foot, which is long or short according to the ideas of the beholder. It exists, and the same thing is true about it, at the present day." (This footprint can still be seen today, in the upper Swat valley, at Lat/Long:35.1316,72.459).
References
★
Fa Xian, ''A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms'' (
James Legge translation),
Chapter 8. (Online at the
University of Adelaide Library)