No More Learning

The signs of poison in the viands and in the demeanour of the persons are
carefully noted. Medicaments must pass similar tests. The instruments
1 Megasth. XXVII, 16
2 Arth, 17-18.
>


## p. 445 (#483) ############################################

XIX]
THE PALACE
445
of the shampooer and others must be handled by the body-guard,
and the persons themselves bathed, etc. : articles of ornament and apparel
are inspected by female slaves; cosmetics, etc. , are first tried on those who
apply them. If actors are admitted, the orchestra and others appurten-
ances separate them from the spectator. The King rides or drives in the
company of high officials. When he embarks upon a ship, the same is
the case ; no other vessel must be near, and troops are stationed on the
shore. Similar precautions attend the hunt Foreign emissaries received in
durbar, and the king inspects his troops armed and mounted on elephant or
horse. In his progresses the roads are lined on both sides by police who
keep away all armed persons, ascetics, and cripples ; he never enters a
crowd? Should he take part in a procession, banquet, festival, or wed-
ding, is in full retinue.
The question of grown-up princes - that problem of polygamous
sovereignties-receives careful consideration: for princes, like crabs, devour
their parents’. Shall they be kept at hand, or aloof? if the latter, shall it
be in a specified locality, in a frontier fort, in a foreign country, in rustic
seclusion ? or finally, shall they be put out of the way ? In any case, they
are to be under surveillance, and at need betrayed by agents-provocateurs.
The good son is to be made Commander-in-Chief or Heir Apparent, and
in general the eldest is to be preferred. But a single son, if misbehaving,
must by some expedient be replaced. The Arthaçāstra even contemplates
a joint-family sovereignty, as exempt from the difficulties attending
succession?
It would seem that the states contemplated by the Indian science of
Polity are of moderate extent. With the great empires, and in particular
with that of the Mauryas, comes in the institution of Viceroys, or uparājas“,
for example at Ujjain and Taxila. It has been suggested that it was the
Alexandrian invasion that gave the impetus to the foundation of a single
sovereignty embracing the greater part of India. This is sufficiently refuted
by the facts : and indeed the conception of a Universal Emperor is quite
familiar in the Vedic period: we may even believe that the conception was
brought into India by the Aryans, who must have known of the great
Mesopotamian powers. If we must seek for any foreign influence in
.
Maurya times, we should think rather of the Achaemenids, whose domi-
nions extended to the Indus. As is well known (v. sup. p. 432), the architecture
of the period, and also the style of Açoka's edicts show definite traces of
Persian influence ; and the expressions the king's eye' and the king's
ear', occurring in the Arthaçāstra (pp. 175 and 328), seem to furnish
literary indications pointing in the same direction.
1 Arth. 18 (p. 45).
2 Ibid. 13-4.
3 Ibid. 14; cf. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 139 n.
4 Cf. Fick, op. cit. p. 86.
:


## p. 446 (#484) ############################################

CHAPTER XX
AÇOKA, THE IMPERIAL PATRON OF BUDDHISM
The son and successor of Chandragupta is in Buddhist literature
known as Bindusāra, whereas the Purāņas give the name Nandasāra or
Bhadra sāra: in such a matter the Buddhist testimony would have superior
authority. The Greek; use instead of the name a title, Amitrochates=
Sanskrit Amitraghāta, 'slayer of the foe', a form which is quoted, perhaps
with reference to this king, in the grammatical work of Patañjali'.
From Greek sources we learn concerning Bindusāra only that he
was in communication with Seleucus Nicator, from whom he received an
envoy named Daïmachus and solicited the purchase of sweetwine, figs, and
a philosopher, the last named being refused on the ground that the sale of
a sophist was not in accordance with Greeka. The second Ptolemy,
Philadelphus, also dispatched a representative, Dionysius, whose memoirs
are unfortunately not preserved.
The Purāņas attribue to Bindusāra a reign of twenty-five years, the
Pāli books one of twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Whether he earned, or
merely assumed, his soubriquet, we do not learn; but it is clear that he
maintained intact the dominions inherited from Chandragupta. He had
to deal with disaffection in Taxila, a city which was also to give trouble
to his successor. It was allayed by the despatch of that destined successor,
his son Açoka.
The events and occurrences of the life of Açoka, as we know them
from the sole trustworthy source, namely his own inscriptions, are as
follows. In the ninth year after his coronation he effected the conquest of
the Kalinga country, i. e. Orissa with the Ganjām District of Madras. The
slaughter and suffering which attended the conquest produced upon his mind
such an impression that it proved the turning-point in his career. He joined
the Buddhist order as a lay disciple, and thus subjected himself to the influence
Mahābhāshya, III, 2,88. For 'Aultpor. dons (Athenaeis XIV, 67) Strabo has
Αλλιτορκάδως.
2 See Chapter XVII, p. 389.
3 Açokāvadāna (= Divyavadāna, XXVI) pp. 371 f.
446


## p. 447 (#485) ############################################

LIFE OF AÇOK A
447
3
of ideas of which he was destined to be one of the greatest propa-
gators. His active devotion to that faith began, however, two and a
half years later, about the end of the eleventh year from his coronation,
when he became a member of the Sangha, or order of monks, and in that
capacity travelled from place to place, like the wandering Buddhist and Jain
brothers displaying energy, as he phrases it? This energy took the
form of visits and gifts to Brāhmans, ascetics, and old people, instructions
and discussions relating to the Buddhist Dharma, or religious rules
and principles. At the end of this tour, which he claims to have had
important results, not however very clearly indicated, he issued the first of
his religious proclamations, an exhortation to his officials to adopt the
like principle of energetic action; and he also orders that his missive should
cverywhere be engraved upon rocks and on stone pillars, where such
existed. The practice of carviny Buddhist sentiments in this manner
on conspicuous objects was afterwards to receive a very wide extension, as
is still visible in Tibet, in Central Asia, in China, and throughout the
Buddhist world. During the following two years, the thirteenth and
fourteenth, Açoka's activity must have been at its height. He issued
no fewer than sixteen missives, of which fourteen are found engraved,
is one corpus, in places as far distant as the extremities of his empire, at
Girnār in Kāthiāwār, at Mansehra and Shābhāzgarhi in the Punjab,
and twelve of the same with two others at Dhauli and Jaugada in Orissa. ?
In these records, which seem to have been engraved in his fourteenth year,
Açoka gives an account of the administrative and other measures which he
had adopted. He had been active in causing wells to be dug by the
roads, in providing medical aid for men and animals (perhaps a reference to
animal hospitals, now known as Panjroles), and in propagating medical or
useful plants ; and this not only in his own dominions, but in those
of the neighbouring, independent and quasi-independent states of South
India and the north-west frontier, nay, even as far as the Greek kingdom of
Antiochus and beyond. Then he had made regulations restricting
the slaughter of animals for food and especially on occasions of festivals
and public shows. He had issued eloquent appeals for kindness and con-
sideration in family relationships, in dealings with Brāhmanas and teachers,
in the mutual attitudes of different sects ; further, he had denounced
what he regarded as excess of profitless (i. e. Brāhman) ceremony in public
and private life and had inculcated economy, earnestness, and mutual
exhortation. For the gay progresses of his predecessor on their hunting
and holiday excursions (see Chapter xvi, pp. 373-75) he had substituted
1 Edict of Sahasram, etc.
2 The Orissa versions omit nos. XI-XIII of the other groups and append two
special ones.


## p. 448 (#486) ############################################

448
[CH
AÇOK A
edifying spectacles and pious conferences; and he had arranged that he
should himself always, even in his most private hours, be accessible to
urgent calls—serious inroad upon the strict apportionment of the royal
time which we have detailed above (p. 443). Finally, in his thirteenth year
he had instituted quinquennial circuits of the leading officials for the
purpose of proclaiming the moral law as well as for the discharge of their
normal functions. In the fourteenth year he appointed high officials,
entitled dharma mahāmātras, with the duty of inculcating piety, redressing
misfortune or wrong, organising charitable endowments and gifts. Some
of these officers stood in special relation to the establishments, and
benevolences, of his various relatives, and the operations of other extended
even to the foreign countries to which allusion has been made above.
The next objects of Açoka's solicitude were the unsubdued frontier
peoples, and persons in the provinces who had incurred penalties, concern-
ing whom we have the two edicts addressed to his officers at Dhauli and
Jaugada in the Kalinga country. Towards both classes he expresses a
paternal regard :- he is anxious to win the confidence of the borderers ; and,
as regards imprisoned persons he solemnly exhorts his officials to make
justice, patience, and forbearance the principles of their action. At the
same time he gives instruction for the periodical public recitation of these
admonitions, and repeats, for the benefit of the Kalinga officials, bis inten-
tion of instituting quinquennial circuits. His sons, the Viceroys in Taxila
and Ujjain, would follow a similar practice at intervals of three years.
The ensuing period of about twelve years has left little record in
documents emanating from the emperor himself. But we may plausibly
conjecture that Açoka now entered upon that course of religious foundations
which has given him his unique reputation as a builder of Buddhist shrines.
Eighty-four thousand religious edifices - a conventional high number in
India - are ascribed to him, the chief sites being the places famed as having
been visited by Buddha ; and he is said to have redistributed among them
the relics of Buddha, which were originally portioned between eight
favoured cities. The actual records are not at variance with such a
supposition. We know that in his thirteenth, and again in his twentieth,
year he dedicated cave-dwellings in the Barābar hills for the use of monks
of the Ājivika sect. In his fifteenth year he enlarged the stupa of the
Buddha Kanakaumani, not far from Kapilavastu; and during the twenty-
first year he personally visited this site and that of Buddha's own birth-
place, the garden of Lumbini, setting up commemorative pillars and in the
latter case granting a remission of taxation. In this period would also fall
the inscriptions which attest his growing attachment to the Buddbist order


## p. 449 (#487) ############################################

xx]
BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS
449
and doctrine, that which ordains ecclesiastical penalties for schism', and
the address to the community of monks, which among the sayings of
Buddha, containing nothing that has not been well said, selects certain
passages as pre-eminently suited for instruction and meditation”.
At this point we should doubtless interpolate a series of events which
were of high importance for the spread of Buddhism, and which, though
not mentioned by the emperor himself, are among all the legendary matter
that has gathered round his name the portion best entitled to credence.
It is in the nineteenth year from Açoka's coronation, the twenty-first
according to a proposed chronological emendation, that the Mahāvamsa, the
Pāli history of Buddhism in India and Ceylon, places the Third Council, held
under the emperor's patronage in the Açokārāma at Pāțaliputra. The Council,
occasioned by sectarian differences among the Buddhist confession, of which
as many as eighteen divisions are named, was held under the presidency of
a famous monk, named Moggaliputta Tissa, to be distinguished from
another Tissa mentioned in the same accounts as brother and viceroy of
Açoka : in the northern texts he is called Upagupta. It deliberated during
a period of nine months ; and its ultimate decision is stated to have been
;
in favour of the school of the Sthaviras, which afterwards prevailed in
Ceylon. This remarkable gathering, though ignored by the northern
Buddhists, can hardly be a fiction : it represents the culmination of the
earlier form of Buddhism, which with the ensuing expansion was destined
to undergo a profound modification of spirit. The canon of authoritative
scriptures is stated to have been on this occasion definitely closed ; and in
the Kathāvatthu, composed at the time by Upagupta, we have a full record
of the divergencies of opinion which led to its convention. Its dismissal
was the signal for an organisation of the missionary activity which was
already as we have seen included in the policy of Açoka. The names of
the chief evangelisers of the different provinces are carefully preserved to
us. To Kashmir and Gandhāra was sent Madhyantika, and to the Yavana
or Greek country (Bactria ? ), Mahārakshita ; southern India, in its several
provinces, claimed the apostles Mahādeva (Mahishamandala), Rakshita
(Vanavāsa), Dharmarakshita a Yavana (Aparāntaka), and Mahādhar-
marakshita (Mahārāshtra) ; Majjhima proceeded to the Himālaya regions,
and the fraternal pair Soņa and Uttara, linked by the common vicissitudes
of more than a single existence, to Suvarnabhūmi, or a part of further India.
That these are no mere legendary names we are permitted to know from
some of the earliest surviving monuments of Buddhism the stūpas of
Sānchï, dating from the second, or first, century B. C. , where relies of some
of them have actually come to light3. But their fame has been eclipsed by
1 Edict of Sārnāth, Kaucāmbi and Sānchi. 2 Edict of Bhābrā.
3 See Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes, pp. 285 sqq. ; Maisey, Sānchi, pp. 108-115 ; Fleet
J. R. A. S. , 1910, pp. 425 f. For the stūpas of Sānchi see Chapter XXVI.
a
>


## p. 450 (#488) ############################################

450
[CH.
AÇOKA
that of the saints entrusted with the conversion of Ceylon, who are
said to have been no other than Açoka's own children, his son the monk
Mahendra and his daughter the nun Sanghamitrād. Accompanied by the stha-
viras Rishtriya, Utriya, Çambala, and Bhadrasāra, they received a becoming
welcome from the king of Ceylon, Devānāmpiya Tissa, who with his people
was ultimately converted, and founded in honour of the evangelists the
Great Vihāra, thenceforward the headquarters of Singhalese Buddhism.
The special history of the island falls outside the scope of this chapter :
the mission of the princely pair was treasured in the memory of Indian
Buddhism ; and its dispatch has been supposed to be depicted in a fresco
on a wall in one of the caves of Ajanta.
We now return to Açoka's own rescripts, the concluding group of
seven edicts, which are found inscribed upon pillars, the whole number at
Delhi and six of them also at other spots in the central regions of
Hindustān. They belong to the twenty-seventh and following year from
the coronation. In tenor they open out no new courses of action, but
repeat and continue the earlier principles. One of them, however, which
will be textually introduced below (pp. 459-60), has an especial interest, as
a recapitulation of the aims and measures of the reign.
The whole duration of Açoka's rule was, according to the concurrent
testimony of the Brāhman and Buddhist historians, 36-37 years, reckoned,
no doubt, from his accession. He himself makes mention of his brothers
and sistersø, a sufficient refutation of the legend that at his accession he
began his reign by putting to death all the hundred other sons of Bindusāra,
His elder brother, known in northern literature as Susïma, and in Pāli
books as Sumana, doubtless did incur the fate of a vanquished rival : and
it is to the son of Susima, by name Nigrodha, that the king's conversion
to Buddhism is ascribed. A full brother, Tissa, plays a considerable part
in the Pāli story. He is said to have been for a time viceroy, and to have
joined the Buddhist order, along with Agni-Brahmā, husband of
-
Sanghamitrā, in the fourth year after Açoka's coronation. A Chief Queen
and her sons, no doubt the princes referred to as viceroys in Taxila and
Ujjain, are mentioned in the edicts, as also are the second queen Kāruvāki
and her son Tivara. The Chief Queen, in the Ceylon records named
Asandhimitrā, may possibly have been the heroine of Açoka's youthful
romance as Viceroy of Ujjain, the lovely maiden named Devi, of
Vedisā (Vidiça, the modern Bhilsa), mother of Mahendra and Sangha-
1 On these relationships v. inf. p. 451.
2 Griffiths, Pll. 94, 95. For the history of Ceylon see Chapter XXV.
3 Rock Edict v.
4 According to the story Nigrodha was at the time about seven years o! d ! The
date is, of course, irreconcilable with the edicts.
5 Pillar Edict VII.
a


## p. 451 (#489) ############################################

xx
FOUNDATION OF SHRINES AND CITIES
451
>
mitrāl. Another romanee is connected with the name of Tishyara-
kshitā, represented as an attendant upon Asandhimitrā and Chief Queen
of Açoka's later years, who, enacting the part of Potiphar's wife, is
stated to have occasioned the blinding of the emperor's eldest son and
heir, Kuņāla, Viceroy of Taxila, and in a still later legend founder of the
Buddhist dynasty of Khotan in Chinese Turkestān. The jealousy of
Tishyarakshitā is said to have been aroused also by Açoka's devotion to
the sacred Banyan tree at Gayā, under which the son of Çuddhodana
had attained to Perfect Enlightenment. And thus on the Sanchi stūpa,
where we find carved the propitiatory procession to the tree, by which the
threatened mischief was appeased”, we have an actual first or second
century represenation in art, though by no means a portrait, of the great
propagator of the Buddhist faith and morals and the imperially lavish
founder of its shrines.
Açoka's activity in this latter respect is not proportionally evidenced
by existing monuments. When the Chinese pilgrims refer, as they con-
stantly do, to a 'stūpa of Açoka,' we cannot in strictness understand
anything more than one of archaic style, such as are those still more or less
intact at Sanchi, or Bhārhut or figured on their sculptures and elsewhere,
nor are we allowed to ascribe en bloc to the emperor himself the pillars at
Delhi, Allahābād, Sārnāth, Rāmpūrvā and other places, on which his edicts
are found inscribed ; he himself forbids this, when he orders his edicts to be
engraven on pillars, where such should be found3.
The only works of this
nature particularised by him in the edicts relating to the places in question
are the double enlargement of the stūpa of Koṇāgamana at Nigliva, the
pillar erected at the same place and that at the Lumbuni garden : the cave-
dwellings assigned to the Ājivika monks in the Barābar hills are not
expressly stated to have been constructed by Açoka's orders.
have added the stone railing round the Bodhi-tree, whieh
to be figured on the stūpa of Sānch, we have completed the list
1 Mahendra is said to have been twenty years of age, and Sanghamitrā eighteen,
at the time of their ordination. As the former was born fourteen years before the
coronation, this brings us to the year after that event, which is again hardly to be
reconciled with the edicts. It was for Mahendra, who was ordained by Moggaliputta
Tissa and who afterwards succeeded the later as head of his followers, that Açoka built
the Açokārāma at Pāțaliputa. As well as known, Mahendra is in the northern stories
made the brother, and not the son, of Açoka, probably through confusion with Tissa
A son of Sanghamitrā, Sumana, by name, also became a monk. Of a daughter of Açoka,'
by name Chārumati, a Nepal legend will be mentioned below.
2 Foucher, The Beginn'ngs of Buddhist Art. pp. 108-9. See also Chapter XXVI,
Pl. XXII, 60.
3 Edict of Sahasrām etc. (the earlist edict). Pillars set up by Açoka's own orders
are mentioned in Pillar Edict VII (quoted in full inf. p. 459). In other cases style and
archaeological considerations must decide.
When we
seems


## p. 452 (#490) ############################################

452
(ch.
AÇOKA
of what can certainly be ascribed to him. But, no doubt, the remains of
that palace, the Açokārāma, the Kukkutārāma, and other erections at
Pātaliputra may de plausibly claime 1 for him! ; and we may also mention
the completion on his behalf, by the Yavana king Tushāspha, of the
Sudarçana tank in Junāgrah, which had been begun by his grandfather
Chandragupta”. For the rest we must be content to believe that the great
reputation which he enjoyed in this respect had a solid foundation.
Two famous cities in frontier countries have a traditional claim to
Açoka as founder, The former is Çrinagar, the capital of Kashmir,
embracing the site of the old Crinagari, which is connected with his name?
In Nepāl the ancient city of Deo. Pātan (Deva-pattana) and the adjacent
village of Chabāhil are associated with a visit of Açoka accompanied by a
daughter Chārumati and her Kshatriya husband Devapāla'. The two latter
are said to have remained in the country and to bave built respectively a
nunnery and a monastery, the latter left unfinished by its founder. The legend
- for such it is-derives some support from the archaic style of the
four neighbouring stupas ascribed to Açoka.
The name Açoka occurs in only one of the known inscriptions".
Elsewhere the emperor employes (in conjunction with rājā‘king') the official
titles derānam priya 'dear to the gods, and priyadarçana, ‘of friendly
mien. ' The founder style - which in later ages the popular grumbling, so
humorously common in India, as in other countries, diverted to the sense of
'fool'- is known to have been employed by contemporary kings in Ceylon,
and by Açoka's grandson (or still more remote descendant) Daçaratha, so
that it was probably normal; indeed Açoka himself once uses the plural in
the sense particularly of kings. ' Priyadarçin also, which has been well ren-
dered 'gracious,' may represent a customary view that the king should wear
‘a mild' pleasant, and composed aspect 6. But it is certainly quite possible, as
M. Senart suggests?
, that it was adopted by Açoka at his ordination name.
The chronology of the reign is fixed within wide limits by the mention
in the thirteenth Rock Edict of the Yona King Antiochus and beyond that
Antiochus to where dwell the four kings severally named Ptolemy
(Philadelphus of Egypt 285-247 B. C. ) Antigonus (Gonatas of Macedon,
278-239), Magas (of Cyrene, died 258), and Alexander (of Epirus, 272-258? )"
1 Waddell, Report on the Excavations at Pāļaliputra (Patna), Calcutta. 1903.
2 Ep. Ind. VIII, pp. 46-7.
3 Rājatarangiņi, translation of Sir M. A. Stein, I, II. 101-7, and the notes.
4 Sylvain Levi, Le Nepal (Musee Guimet, 1905-8), I. pp. 67 and 263 ; II, 24,336;
III, 161 f.
5 Found in 1915 at Maski in the Raic hūr Dist. of Hyderābād ; see Hyderabad
Arch. Series, No. 1, 1915,
6 Mbh. XII, 61, 39 ; cf. 57, 19. In the Kharoshțhi documents from Chinese
Turkestān priyadārçınā is a common form of polite address; see Kharosthi Inscriptions,
Part I, 1920, passim.
Les Inscriptions de Piyadusi, II, pp. 227-8.
:
7


## p. 453 (#491) ############################################

xx]
CHRONOLOGY OF REIGN
453
The fact that there are all supposed to be reigning makes it unlikely that
the edict was issued long after the year 258 B. C. , when one, if not two, of
them died. A prior limit of any value does not seem to be supplied by the
passage, inasmuch as Antiochus Theos, whose reign began in 261 B. c. , was
preceded by a sovereign, his father, of like name. The omission of the
Bactrian ruler Diodotus, whose independence of the Seleucid empire dates
from about 250 B. C. , confirms the inference that the edict is not long
posterior to the year 258. Adopting 258-7 as its provisional date, and
accepting the arguments which assign it to the fourteenth year, we arrive at
270 B. C. , as the latest year for the coronation : but plainly nothing in the
calculation forbids an earlier date. That the coronation was posterior by
four years to the actual beginning of the reign is affirmed by the Ceylon
tradition and perhaps also indirectly implied by the same : which would
give the year 274 B. C. , as the latest possible for Açoka's accession. But this
may reasonably be suspected as an invention made in the interest of a
chronological system'. A provisional chronological scheme of the reign
might then take shape as follows:
274 B. C. at latest : accession.
270 B. C. at latest : coronation.
262 B. C. at latest : conquest of Kalinga and adhesion to Buddhism.
260 B. C. at latest : entry into the order of monks and beginning of active propaganda.
259 B. C. at latest : issue of first Edict (that of Sahasrām, Rūpnāth, Bairāt and Brahmagiri)
258-7 B. C. at latest : issue of the fourteen Rock Edicts ; dedication of cave dwellings in
the Barābar hills.
256 B. C. at latest : visit to Kapilavastu.
253 B. C. ? : Council of Pāțaliputra.
250 B. C. at latest : second visit to Kapila vastu and visit to the Lumbini garden.
243. 2 B. C. at latest : issue of Pillar Edicts.
237-6 B. C. ? death of Açoka (on the assumption that the reign lasted 36 or 37 years, as
the Purānas and Pāli books affirm).
According to the Ceylon tradition the coronation of Açoka took
place 218 years (i. e. in the 219th year) after the death of Buddha, and the
Council in the 236th year. The tradition of Khotan on the other hand,
as reported in Tibetan books”, places the 50th year (out of 55) in the
reign at an interval of 234 years from the Parinirvāņa. These Chinese and
Sanskrit reckonings are, as is well known, vitiated by confusion with another
Açoka, Kālāçoka or Kākavarņa of the Çiçunāga dynasty, who is placed
one century after Buddha. The number 218 may very well be deserving
of credit as a genuine traditions ; but it is of value for the determination
rather of the date of Buddha than that of Açoka. A much discussed
number 256 in the earliest edict has no bearing upon chronology4.
1 A supposition broached and rejected by M. Senart, op. cit. II. pp. 237-8. But
possibly Açoka may have been de facto ruler during the last years of Bindusāra, which
may explain the extra three years assigned by the Buddhists to that king (supra, p. 446).
2 Rockhill, Lije of the Buddha, p. 233, and the an texts there named
3 Geiger's translation of the Mahāvāmsa, Introduction pp. XXXI sqq.
4 F. W. Thomas, Ind. Ant. , 1908, pp. 19-23, and Les Vivāsāh d' Açoka (Jour. As. ,
S rie X, XV, pp. 507-22).
:


## p. 454 (#492) ############################################

454
[ch,
AÇOKA
The activity of Açoka lay wholly, so far as we are informed of it, in
the sphere of dharma, i. e. according to the Indian definition, the sphere
of conduct leading to heaven or to final liberation? ; we may say, the
spheres of religion and morality. It therefore furnishes a complement to
the strictly political system of the Arthaçāstra. We may consider it
under the aspects of the emperor's principles and personal action, his
admonitions, and his ordinances and institutions.
It was, as we have seen, the events of the Kalinga war that awoke
the humanitarian and missionary spirit in Açoka. He was impressed
both by the actual horrors of the campaign and by the interference with
the peaceful and moral influence of the religious teachers. The chords
which were struck have in Indian life a dominant note : Açoka attached
himself to the Buddhist religion, the most important of those which upheld
the doctrines of ahimsā and maitri, abstinence from doing hurt to, and
benevolent feeling towards, living creatures. Two and a half years later
he awoke to the possibilities of his position, joined the order of monks,
and entered upon a course of 'activity. '
The importance of energetic action by the sovereign was not a new
conception ; the Indian writers on policy make it the subject of constant
admonition to their rulers (v. sup. p. 443). Nor was the idea of royal res-
ponsibility for the virtue of the people a novelty : the king is, as we have
seen (ibid. ), the upholder of dharma and incurs a proportion of the sin of
the people, if the exacts the taxes without maintaining the social order.
But Açoka gives to these principles a new force and direction by calling
upon all to participate in his energy and by fixing attention upon moral
improvement as a means to happiness in the present, and further in another,
life. His position is therefore not merely paternal, as the books would
require, and as he himself professes? : he has also a inoral and religious
responsibility and mission.
The degree of Açoka's appreciation of Buddhisın is not very easily
definable ; and it was even at one tine contended that his early faith, which
laid such special stress upon the doctrine of benevolence, was rather that
of Jainism. He emphasises the principle of tolerance, wishes for the real
prosperity of all sects, and, while not discouraging discussion, always a
prominent feature of Indian religious life, earnestly preaches avoidance of
offence. If he discountenances what he considers vain ceremonials and
certain popular entertainments, which were occasions of animal slaughter,
his attitude to the Brāhman system in general is benevolent and respectful:
he believes in the gods and would have his people strive for heaven.
Nevertheless, Açoka, was undoubtedly a Buddhist: he became a lay disciple
1 For the employment of the word by Açoka see Senart, Les Inscriptions de
Piyadasi, II, pp. 308 f.
2 Kalinga Edicts I and II.
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## p. 455 (#493) ############################################

xx)
RELIGIONS
455
and then a monk ; later he proclaims his regard for the religion and his
personal faith? ; he addresses the church, naming certain passages from
?
the scriptures as specially suitable for teaching and study ; he denounces
penalties for schism ; he holds a council which defines the canon ; and
finally he stands out as by far the greatest author of the religious foun-
dations of the sect. On the other hand we hear from him nothing concern-
ing the deeper ideas or fundamental tenets of the faith ; there is no mention
of the Four Grand Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Chain of Causation, the
supernatural quality of Buddha : the word and the idea of Nirvāņa
fail to occur ; and the innumerable points of difference which occupied the
several sects are likewise ignored. Açoka, therefore, is no theologian or
philosopher ; and only in the saying that the gift of dharma is above all
other gifts, and in the preference of meditation to liberality, do we find any
trace of such modes of thought.
Of Açoka's personal action the most important features were his
religious tours and progresses, which began at the end of the eleventh year.
They were the occasion of personal intercourse with the people, including
discussions and instructions in religious matters. In the course of these,
and on other occasions, he was wont to issue religious proclamations,
which were published by his officials and inscribed on rocks and pillars.
He claims that in little more than a year he had brought the Brāhman
gods to the knowledge of those people in India, i. e. the wild tribes, who
had formerly known nothing of them. Further he organised shows and
processions exhibiting figures of the gods in their celestial cars, of sacred
elephants, and fires. The practice of earlier times, which made the king
)
accessible to the public only at certain hours, he modified to the extent of
being ready to transact business or see officials even in his most private
seclusion“. He subjected his household to supervision by special religious
dignities : and finally he restricted the diet of the palace practically to the
point of vegetarianism. His activity in causing trees to be planted by the
”
roads, and wells for travellers to be constructed at every half-koss, also
his provision of medical aid for men and animals, and his propagation of
useful plants, need not be further dwelt upon : only in degree were they
a new feature of royal beneficence in India.
Açoka's relations with the Buddhist Sangha were, no doubt, friendly
and cordial. He had himself been ordained, as had his brother, and by
the surrender of his son and daughter also he had acquired a right to the
title 'Kinsman of the Faith. ' But no doubt the monkish chronicles go too
1 Edict of Bhābrā (prasāda in Buddhist phraseology denotes 'faith').
2 Edict of Sahasrām etc.
3 Rock Edict IV.
4 Rock Edict VI.
5 Rock Edict I; Pillar Edict V.
6 Bühler, 2. D. M. G. , XXXVII, pp. 101-2, and as regards trees, wells etc. , cf.
Arthoçīstra, 19.
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## p. 456 (#494) ############################################

456
[ch.
AÇOK A
far in representing his devotions as without bounds. Even his lavish
expenditure upon religious edifices is exaggerated in the statement that he
thrice gave away, and purchased back, Jambu-dvipa or the continent of
Indial! It can hardly be that an emperor so conscious of the responsi-
bilities of his unique position should have been made more amenable to
the authority of a religious order by himself joining it. Nor is there in his
actual references to the Sangha any note of special deference ; nor again
do his ordinances accord to it any special regard, since the parishads whose
affairs were to be supervised by the dharma-mahāmātras included the
managing committees of all sects. On the other hand, we fail to detect
even in the advice which Açoka gives to the Sangha concerning specially
applicable passages from the scriptures any note of the arrogance which
might have betrayed an emperor himself at home in the order.
such an attitude would be both un-Indian (as sanctity and learning in India
excite a genuine respect) and anachronistic in what was still an age of
faith. On the whole, easy as it would be to imagine flaws, one way or
the other, in Açoka's relations with the clergy, it would be hard to demons-
trate them to a sound intelligence : by his grasp of the essential he rises
superior to such personal suspicions.
Of the Buddhist leaders with whom he is said to have been in
correspondence the most important is Upagupta or Moggaliputta Tissa.
This divine is reckoned as-fifth in the succession of Vinaya teachers from
the time of Buddha, the series being Upāli, Dāsaka, Sonaka, Siggava and
Chandavajji, Moggaliputta Tissa”. Tissa was 60 years old at the time of
Açoka's coronation, and he died 26 years later, being succeeded by
Mahendra. Apart from the Kathāvattu he is not known as an author,
his great monument being the Third Council. A famous stūpa was built
in his honour at Mathurā.
Mention has already been made of the missionary leaders, whose
activity is said to have followed upon the Third Council, and of Açoka's
several relatives who joined the order (v. sup. p. 450). The Pāli books
mention also Mahāvaruņa, and the two sons of Kunti, Tissa and Sumitta,
who are said to have died after Açoka's eighth year : they are not otherwise
known.
The northern books' mention a minister Rādhāgupta, who is said to
have played an important part in Açoka's attainment of sovereignty and
his administration ; and another minister, the Arhat Yaças, associated with
1 Hiuen Tsiãng states that the fact was recorded in an inscription on the pillar at
Pāțaliputra (trans. Beal, II, p. 91).
2 The identity of this Tissa with Upagupta was proved by Col. L. Waddell in the
Journal (1897, pp. 76-84) and Proceedings (1899, pp. 70-5) of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal. Concerning the succession see Geiger's translation of the Mahāvamsa intro-
duction pp. xlviif.
3 Açokāvadāna ( = Dirijāvadāna, XXIX) and Kunālāvadāna (=ibid. XXVII).


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xx
MORAL EXHORTATIONS
457
9
the Khotan legend of Kustana. The existence of the minister Yoças seems
deserving of credence as he is mentioned in the Sūtrālamkāra of
Açvaghoshal.
The moral exhortations which Açoka most frequently addresses to his
people refer to the practice of simple virtues, namely proper treatment of
slaves and servants, obedience to father and mother, generosity and respect
to friends, companions, relations, ascetics, and Brāhmans, abstinence from
cruelty to living creatures. For this imperial insister. ce upon such obvious
duties we are right to demand some explanation ; and we may perhaps find
an explanation in his statement that there had been during a long period
a deterioration in these respects. Not to attribute to Açoka the character
merely of a retrospective pessimism, we may think of the social and other
changes which might naturally accompany the growth of a great empire,
the succession of dynastic tragedies, the subjugation of small states, the
Greek invasion, and the initiation of numerous sects. And, apart from the
general responsibility of a paternal rule, he might have found even in the
Arthaçāstra (19, p.