Note 120 — Chapter XX

A reading Vaitulya has also been found in some manuscripts of the Lotus discovered at Kashgar and it is suggested that the word may refer to the sect of Vetullas or Vetulyakas mentioned in the Commentary on the Kathâvatthu as holding that the Buddha really remained in the Tushita heaven and sent a phantom to represent him in the world and that it was Ânanda, not the Buddha, who preached the law. See Kern, Vers. en Med. der K. Ak. v. Wetenschappen, Letterk., R. 4 D. VIII. pp. 312-9, Amsterdam, 1907, and De la Vallée Poussin's notice of this article in J.R.A.S. 1907, pp. 434-6. But this interpretation does not seem very probable.