Chapter 1
Section 43 of Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical Sketch, Volume 1. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shashank Jachmola. Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical Sketch, Volume 1 by Charles Elliott, Ashoka.
Part 1. The first period in the history of Buddhism extends from the death of the founder to the death of Ashoka, i.e. to about 232 BC. It had then not only become a great Indian religion, but had begun to send forth missionaries to foreign countries. But this growth had not yet brought about the internal changes which are inevitable when a creed expands far beyond the boundaries within which it was a natural expression of local thought. An intellectual
movement and growth is visible within the limits of the Pali canon and is confirmed by what we hear of the existence of sects or schools but it does not appear that in the time of Ashoka the workings of speculation had led to any point of view materially different from that of Gautama. Our knowledge of general Indian history before the reign of Ashoka is scanty and the data which can be regarded as facts for Buddhist ecclesiastical history are scantier still.
We hear of two, or including the Mahasangati, three, meetings sometimes called councils. Scriptures, obviously containing various strata, were compiled and 18 sects or schools had time to arise and some of them to decay. Much doubt has been cast upon the councils, but to my mind, this suspicion is unmerited, provided that too ecclesiastical a meaning is not given to the world. Footnote 551, especially in R.O. Franke's article in the JPTS 1908, to demonstrate the
literary dependence of chapters 11, 12 of the Kulavaga does not seem to me equivalent to demonstrating that the narratives contained in those chapters are air bubbles. End footnote. We must not suppose that the meetings held at Rajagaha and Vaisali were similar to the Council of Nikea or that they produced the works edited by Pali tech society. Such terms as canon, dogma and council, though indispensable, are misleading at this period.
We want less formal equivalents for the same ideas. A number of men who were strangers to those conceptions of a hierarchy and a Bible, which are so familiar to us, met together to fix and record the opinions and injunctions of the master or to remove misapprehensions and abuses. Footnote 552 The mantras of the Brahmins were hardly a sacred book analogous to the Bible or Quran,
and, besides, the early Buddhists would not have wished to imitate them. End footnote It would be better if we could avoid using even the word Buddhist at this period for it implies a difference sharper than the divisions existing between the followers of Gautama and others. They were in the possession of the followers of Christ before they received an Antioch,
the name of Christians and the meeting at Rajagaha was analogous to the conferences recorded in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. The record of this meeting and of the subsequent meeting at Vaishali is contained in chapters 11 and 12 of the Kulavagga, which must therefore be later than the second meeting and perhaps considerably later. Other accounts are found in the Deepavansa, Mahabuddhi Vansa and Buddha Ghoshas commentaries. The version given in the Kulavaga is abrupt and does not entirely agree with other narratives of what followed on the death of the Buddha.
Footnote 553 Example given Digambara Nikaya 16 End footnote It seems to be a combination of two documents, for it opens as a narrative by Cassapa,
but it soon turns into a narrative about him. But the clumsiness in compilation and the errors of detail are hardly sufficient to discredit an event which is probable in itself and left an impression on tradition. The Buddha combined great personal authority with equally great liberality. While he was alive, he decided all questions of dogma and discipline himself, but he left to the order authority to abolish all the minor precepts.
It seems inevitable that some sort of meeting should have been held to consider the position created by this wide permission. Brief and confused as the story in the Kulavaga is, there is nothing improbable in its outline, namely that a resolution was taken at Kusinara where he died to hold a synod during the next reigns at Rajagaha, a more central place where alms and lodgings were plentiful and there come to an agreement as to what should be accepted as the true doctrine and discipline. Accordingly,
500 monks met near this town and inquired into the authenticity of the various rules and suttas. They then went on to ask what the Buddha had meant by the lesser and minor precepts which might be abolished Ananda, who came in for a good deal of blame in the course of the proceedings confessed that he had forgotten to ask the master for an explanation and divergent opinions were expressed as to the extent of the discretion allowed
Kassapa finally proposed that the Sangha should adopt without alteration or addition the rules made by the Buddha This was approved and the Dhamma and Vinaya as chanted by the assembled Bhikkus were accepted. The Abhidhamma is not mentioned. The name usually given to these council is Sangati, which means singing or chanting together. An elder is said to have recited the text sentence by sentence and each phrase was intoned after him by the assembly as a sign of acceptance.
Opali was the principal authority for the Vinaya and Ananda for the Dhamma, but the limits of the authority claimed by the meeting are illustrated by an anecdote which relates that after the chanting of the law had been completed, Purana and his disciples arrived from the southern hills. Footnote 554 Kullavaga 11.1.11 End Footnote The elders asked him to accept the version rehearsed by them.
He replied, The Dhamma and Vinaya have been well sung by the Dehras. Nevertheless, as they have been received and heard by me from the mouth of the Lord, so will I hold them. In other words, the council has put together a very good account of the Buddha's teaching,
but has no claim to impose it on those who have personal reminiscence of their own. This want of a central authority, though less complete than in Brahmanism, marks the early life of the Buddhist community. We read in later works of a succession of elders who are sometimes called patriarchs, but it would be erroneous to think of them as possessing episcopal authority. Footnote 555 Especially in Chinese works.
End footnote Footnote 556 Upali, Dasaka, Sonaka, Siggava, with whom the name of Chandravajji is sometimes coupled, and Tissa, Mughaliputta. This is the list given in Deepavasa. End footnote They were at most the chief teachers of the order.
From the death of the Buddha to Ashoka only five names are mentioned. but five names can fill the interval only if their bearers were unusually long-lived. It is therefore probable that the list merely contains the names of prominent Tehras who exercised little authority in virtue of any office, though their personal qualities assured them respect.
Upali, who comes first, is called chief of the Vinaya, but so far as there was one head of the order, it seems to have been Kassapa. He is the Brahman ascetic of Uruvela whose conversion is recorded in the first book of Mahavagga and is said to have exchanged robes with the Buddha. Footnote 557 Sam Nikaya 16.11
The whole section is called Kasapa Sanyutta. End footnote He observed that Dutangas and we may conjecture that his influence tended to promote asceticism. Dasaka and Sonaka are also designated as chiefs of the Vinaya and there was perhaps a distinction between those who studied, to use modern phrases, ecclesiastical law and dogmatic theology. The accounts of the second council are as abrupt as those of the first and do not connect it with previous events.
Footnote 558 They are to be found chiefly in Kulavagga 12, Deepavasa 4 and 5th and Mahavasa 4. End footnote The circumstances said to have led to its meeting are, however, probable. According to the Kulavagga, a hundred years after the death of the Buddha,
certain Bhikkhus of Vajjian lineage resident at Vaisali upheld ten theses involving relaxation of the older discipline. The most important of these was that monks were permitted to receive gold and silver, but all of them, trivial as they may seem, had a dangerous bearing for they encouraged not only luxury but the formation of independent schools. For instance, they allowed pupils to cite the practice of their preceptors as a justification for the conduct unauthorized monks resident in one parish to hold Upasatha in separate companies and not as one united body. The story of the condemnation of these new doctrines contain miraculous incidents but seems to have a historical basis.
It relates how a monk called Yasa when a guest of the monk of Vaisali quarrelled with them because they accepted money from the laity and, departing thence, sought for support among the Tehras or elders of the south and west. The result was a conference at Vaisali in which the principal figures are Revata and Sabakami, a pupil of Ananda, expressly said to have been ordained 120 years earlier. Footnote 559 The Deepawasa adds that all the principal monks present had seen the Buddha. They must therefore all have been considerably over a hundred years old so that the chronology is open to grave doubt.
It would be easier if we could suppose the meeting was held a hundred years after the Enlightenment. End footnote The ten theses were referred to a committee which rejected them all and this rejection was confirmed by the whole Sangha who proceeded to rehearse the Vinaya. We are not, however, told that they revised their Sutta or Abhidhamma. Here ends the account of the Kula Vagga, but the Deepa Vasa adds that the wicked Vajjian monks, to whom it ascribes wrong doctrines as well as errors in discipline, collected a strong faction and held a schismatic council called the Mahasangati.
This meeting recited or compiled a new version of the Dhamma and Vinaya. They are said to have rejected the Parivara, the Patisambhida, the Nidesa and parts of the Jataka. These are all lighter parts of the canon and if the word rejection were taken literally, it would imply that the Mahasangati was late too. But perhaps all that is meant is that the books were not found in their canon. Chinese sources
Example given Fa Sign Translator Leggy page 99, state that they had an Abhidhamma of their own.
End footnote. It is not easy to establish any facts about the origin and tenets of this Mahasangitika or Mahasangika sect, though it seems to have been important. The Chinese pilgrims Fa Sai and Suang Chuang writing on the basis of information obtained in the 5th and 7th centuries of our era represented as arising in connection with the first council which was either that of Rajagaha or some earlier meetings supposed to have been held during the Buddha's lifetime
and Swang Chwang intimates that it was formed of laymen as well as monks and that it accepted additional matters including dharanis or spells rejected by the monkish council. Footnote 561 Buddhist Records of the Western World Volume 2 Pages 164-165 Watchers
Huangshuang Pages 159-161 End footnote Its name, admitted by its opponents, seems to imply that it represented at one time the opinions of the majority or at least a great number of the faithful. But it was not the sect which flourished in Ceylon and the writers of the Deepavasa is prejudiced against it. It may be a result of this animus that he connects it with the discredible Vajian schism and the Chinese tradition may be more correct.
On the other hand, the adherents of the school would naturally be disposed to assign it an early origin. Farsai says that the Vinaya of the Mahasangikas was considered the most complete with the fullest explanations. Footnote 562 Cap 36 Leggy
Page 98 End footnote A translation of this text is contained in the Chinese Tripataka. Footnote 563 See, it sings records of the Buddhist religion translated by Thakakusu, page 20, and Nanjio's catalogue of the Buddhist Tripitaka, numbers 1199, 1105, and 1159.
End footnote. Early Indian Buddhism is said to have been divided into 18 sects or schools, which have long ceased to exist and must not be confounded with any existing denominations. Farsai observes that they agree in essentials and differ only in details, and this seems to have been drew not only when he wrote about 420 AD, but throughout their history.
In different epochs and countries, Buddhism presents a series of surprising metamorphoses, but the divergences between the sects existing in India at any given time are less profound in character and less violent in expression than the divisions of Christianity. Similarly, the so-called sects in modern China, Burma and Siam are better described as schools in some ways analogous to such parties as the high and low church in England.
Footnote 564. An exception ought perhaps to be made for the Japanese sects. On the other hand, some of the eighteen schools exceeded the variations permitted in Christianity and Islam by having different collections of the scriptures. But at the same time of which we are treating these collections had not been reduced to writing. They were of considerable extent compared with the Bible or Quran and they admitted later explanatory matter. The record of Buddha's words did not profess to be a miraculous revelation, but merely a recollection of what had been said.
It is therefore natural that each school should maintain that the memory of its own scholars had transmitted the most accurate and complete account, and that tradition should represent the successive councils as chiefly occupied in reciting and sifting these accounts. It is generally agreed that the 18 schools were in existence during or shortly before the reign of Ashoka and that six others arose about the same period but subsequently to them. Footnote 565. The names are not quite the same in the various lists and it seems useless to discuss them in detail. See Deepawasa 5th, 3948, Mahawasa 5th and in Reis Davids, J.R.A.S. 1891, page 411, Rock Hill, Life of the Buddha, Chapter 6, Geiger, Translation of Mahawasa, Appendix B.
Footnote 566 The Hemavattikas, Rajagirikas, Siddhatas, Pubbaselikas, Aparaselikas and Apararajagirikas The best materials for a study of their opinions are afforded by the text and commentary of the Katha Vattu, a treatise attributed to Tissa Moghaliputta, who is said to have been president of the third council held under Ashoka. It is an examination and refutation of heretical views rather than a description of the bodies that held them,
but we can judge from it what was the religious atmosphere at the time, and the commentary gives some information about various sects. Many centuries later, Ai Ching tells us that during his visit to India, 671 to 695 AD, the principal schools were four in number with 18 subdivisions. subdivisions. These four are the Mahasangikhas, the Stavira, equivalent to the old Theravada, the Mula Sarvasati Vada and the Samitia. And from the time of Ashoka onwards, they threw the remaining divisions into the shade. Footnote 568. They must not be confused with the four
philosophical schools. Vaibhashika, Sautranthika, Yogakara and Madhyamika. These came into existence later. But the Vettul Yakas were important in Ceylon. End footnote. He adds that it is not determined which of the four should be grouped with the Mahayana and which with the Hinanaya, that distinction being probably later in origin. The differences between the eighteen schools in I Ching's time were not vital but concerned the
composition of the canon and details of discipline. It was a creditable thing to be versed in the scriptures of them all. Footnote 570. See Paramarthas Life of Vasabandhu, Tongpao, 1904, page 290. End footnote. It is curious that though the Katha Vathus pays more attention to the opinions of the six new six than to those held by most of the eighteen, yet this latter number continued to be quoted nearly a thousand years later, whereas the additional six seem
forgotten. It may be that they were more unorthodox than the others and hence required fuller criticism. Five of their names are geographical designations, but we hear no more of them after the age of Ashoka. The religious horizon of the heretics confuted in the Kathavatu does not differ materially from that of the Pitakas. There are many questions about Arhatship, its nature, the method of obtaining it and the possibility of losing it. Also, we find registered divergent
views respecting the nature of knowledge and sensation. Of these, the most important is the doctrine attributed to the Samitiyas that a soul exists in the highest and truest sense. They are also credited with holding that an Arhat can fall from Arhat-ship, that a god can enter the paths or the order and that even an unconverted man can get rid of all lust and ill will. Footnote 571 See Riz Davids in J.R.A.S. 1892, pages 8-9
The name is variously spelled. The PTS print Sametiya but the Sanskrit text of the Madhyamaka Vritti in Biblical Buddhism has Sametiya. Sanskrit dictionaries give Sametiya. The Abhidharma section of the Chinese Tripataka Nanjio 1272 contains a Shastra belonging to this school. Nanjio 1139 is apparently their Vinaya.
End footnote. This collection of beliefs is possibly explicable as a result of the view that the condition of the soul, which is continuous from birth to birth, is stronger for good or evil than its surroundings. The germs of the Mahayana may be detected in the opinions of some sects on the nature of the Buddha and the career of a Bodhisattva. Thus the Andhakas thought that the Buddha was superhuman in ordinary affairs of life and the Vithulaikas held that he was not really born in the world of men
but sent a phantom to represent him remaining himself in the Tusita heaven. Footnote 572 to 319. Confer J.R.A.S. 1907, page 432, suggested on the authority of Kashgarian MSS that the expression Vailpulya Sutra is a misreading for Vaitulya Sutra, a sutra of the Vaitulyakas. Ananda was sometimes identified with the phantom who represented the Buddha.
The doctrines attributed to the Uttarapatakas and Andhakas respectively that an unconverted man, if good, is capable of entering on the career of a Bodhisattva and that a Bodhisattva can, in the course of his career, fall into error and be reborn in state of woe, show an interest in the development of a Bodhisattva and a desire to bring it nearer to human life which are foreign to the Pitakas. An inclination to think of other states of existence in a manner half-mythological, half-metaphysical is indicated by other heresies, such as that there is an intermediate realm where beings await rebirth, that the dead benefit by gifts given in the world, that there are animals in heaven,
that the four truths, the chain of causation and the eightfold path are self-existence. Asankhata Footnote 573 It is remarkable that this view, though condemned by the Katha-Vattu, is countenanced by the Khodaka-Patha. End footnote.
The point of view of the Katha-Vattu and indeed of the whole Pali-Tripitaka is that of the Vibhaja-Vadans, which seems to mean those who proceed by analysis and do not make vague generalizations. This was the school to which Tissa Mughaliputta belonged and was identical with the Theravada, teaching of the elders or a section of it. The prominence of this sect in the history of Buddhism has caused its own view,
namely that it represents primitive Buddhism to be widely accepted. And this view deserves respect, for it rests on a solid historical basis, namely that about two and a half centuries after the Buddha's death and in the country where he preached, the Vibhajavadans claim to get back to his real teaching by an examination of the existing traditions. Footnote 574. The Katha Vathus constantly cites the Nikayas.
End footnote. This is a very early starting point but the Sarvasati Vadans were also an early school which attained to widespread influence and had a similar desire to preserve the simple and comparatively human presentment of the Buddha's teachings as opposed to later embellishments. Footnote 575 Pali Sabhativadins End Footnote Only three questions in the Kathavattu are directed against them but this probably means
not that they were unimportant, but that they did not differ much from the Vibhajavadans. The special views attributed to them are that everything really exists, that an adhats can fall from adhatship, and that continuity of thought constitutes samadhi or meditation. These theses may perhaps be interpreted as indicative of an aversion to metaphysics and the supernatural. A saint has not undergone any supernatural transformation but has merely
reached a level from which he can fall. Meditation is simply fixity of attention, not a mystic trance. In virtue of the first doctrine, European writers often speak of the Sarvastivadans as realists, but their peculiar view concerned not so much the question of objective reality as the difference between being and becoming. They said that the world is whereas other schools maintain that it was a continual process of becoming. Footnote 576. Confer the doctrine of the
Sankhya's. For more about the Sarvasitivadhan's, see below Book 4, Chapter 22. End footnote. It is not necessary at present to follow further the history of this important school. It had a long career and flourished in Kashmir and Central Asia. Confused as are the notices of these ancient sects, we see with some clearness that in opposition to the Theravada, there was another body alluded to in terms which, though hostile, still imply an admission of size
and learning, such as Mahasangika or Mahasangitika, the people of the Great Assembly and Acharya Vada or the doctrine of the teachers. It appears to have originated in connection with some council and to embody a popular protest against the severity of the doctrine they are laid down. This is natural, for it is pretty obvious that many found the argumentative psychology of the Theravadans added in wearisome. The Deepavamsa accuses the Mahasangikas of garbling the canon,
but the Chinese pilgrims testified that in later times their books were regarded as specially complete. One well-known work, the Mahavastu, perhaps composed in the 1st century BC, describes itself as belonging to Lokutara branch of the Mahasangikas. The Mahasangikas probably represent the elements which developed into Mahayana. It is not possible to formulate their views precisely,
whereas the Theravada was essentially teaching for the Bhikkhu, they represented those concessions to popular taste from which Buddhism has never been quite dissociated even in its earliest period. Part 2. For some two centuries after Gautama's death, we have little information as to the geographical extension of his doctrine, but some of the Sanskrit versions of the Vinaya represent him as visiting Mutra, Northwest India and Kashmir.
Footnote 577 See especially lay Nord-West, Dele Inde, Dansle Vinaya des Moola Sarvastivadins by Przezilski in JA 1914, 2 pages 492FF End footnote So far as is known, the story of this journey is not supported by more ancient documents
or other arguments. It contains a prediction about Kanishka and may have been composed in or after his reign when the flourishing condition of Buddhism in Gandhar made it seem appropriate to glit the past. But the narratives about Mutra and Kashmir contain several predictions relating to the progress of the faith hundred years after the Buddha's death and these can hardly be explained except as references to a tradition that those regions were converted at the
epoch mentioned. There is no doubt of the connection between Kashmir and Sarvasti-Vadhan nor anything improbable in the supposition that the first missionary activity was in the direction of Mutra and Kashmir. But the greatest landmark in the earlier history of Buddhism is the reign of Ashoka. He came to the throne about 270 BC and inherited the vast dominion of his father and grandfather. Almost all that we know of the political events of his reign is that his
coronation did not take place until four years later, which may indicate a disputed succession and that he rounded off his possessions by the conquest of Kalinga, i.e. the country between the Mahanadi and the Godavari about 261 BC. This was the end of his military career. Nothing could be gained by further conquests, for his empire already exceeded the limits set to effective government by the imperfect communications of the epoch, seeing that it extended from
Afghanistan to the mouths of the Genghis and southwards, almost to Madras. No evidence substantiates the later stories which represent him as a monster of wickedness before his conversion, but according to the Pavassa, he at first favoured heretics. The general effect of Ashoka's rule on the history of Buddhism and indeed of Asia is clear, but there is still some difference of opinion as to the date of his conversion.
The most important document for the chronology of his reign is the inscription known as the First Minor Rock Edict. Footnote 578 See Articles by Fleet in JRAS of 1903, 1904, 1908-1911 and 1914. Hulch in JRAS 1910-1911.
Thomas in JA 1910, S. Levy, JA 1911. End footnote. It is now generally admitted that it does not state the time which has elapsed since the death of the Buddha as was once supposed, and that the king relates in it how for more than two and a half years after his conversion to Buddhism, he was a lay believer and did not exert himself strenuously, but subsequently joined the Sangh
and began to devote his energies to religion rather more than a year before the publication of the edict. Footnote 579 Ashoka's statement is confirmed, if it needs confirmation, by the Chinese pilgrim Ai Qing, who saw in India statues of him in monastic costume. End footnote This proclamation has been regarded by some as the first, by others as the last of his edicts.
On the latter supposition, we must imagine that he published a long series of ethical but not definite Buddhist ordinances and that late in life he became first a lay believer and then a monk, probably abdicating at the same time. But the king is exceedingly candid as to his changes of life and mind. He tells us how the horrors of the war with Kalinga affected him, how he was an easy-going layman and then a zealous monk. Had there been a stage between the war and his acceptance of Buddhism as a layman, a period of many years in which he devoted himself to the moral progress of his people without being himself a Buddhist,
he would surely have explained it. Moreover, in the Bhabhru Edict, which is distinctly aciliastical and deals with the Buddhist scriptures, he employs his favourite word Dhamma in the strict Buddhist sense without indicating that he is giving it an unusual or new meaning. I therefore think it probable that he became a lay Buddhist soon after the conquest of Kalinga, that is in the ninth or tenth year after his accession and a member of the Sangha two and a half years later.
On this hypothesis all his edicts are the utterances of a Buddhist. It may be objected that no one could be a monk and at the same time govern a great empire. It is more natural and more in accordance with Indian usage that towards the end of his life an aged king would abdicate and renounce the world. But Wu Ti, the Buddhist emperor of China, retired to a monastery twice in the course of his long reign, and the cloistered emperors of Japan in the 11th and 12th centuries continued to direct the policy of their country, although they abdicated in name and set a child on the throne as titular ruler. The Buddhist church was not likely to criticize Ashoka's method of keeping his monastic vows
and indeed it may be said that his activity was not so much that of a pious emperor as of an archbishop possessed of exceptional temporal power. He definitely renounced conquest and military ambitions and appears to have paid no attention to ordinary civil administration which he perhaps entrusted to commissioners.
He devoted himself to philanthropic and moral projects for the welfare of man and beast, such as lecturing his subjects on their duties towards all living creature, governing the church, building hospitals and stupas, supervising charities and dispatching missions. In all his varied activity, there is nothing unsuitable to an ecclesiastical statesman. In fact, he is distinguished from most popes and prelates by his real indifference to secular aspirations and by the unusual facilities which he enjoyed for immediately putting his ideals into practice. Ashoka has won immortality by the edicts which he caused to be engraved on stone.
Footnote 580. For a bibliography of the literature above these inscriptions, see Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 3rd edition, 1914, pages 172-174. End footnote. They have survived to the present day and are the most important monuments which we possess for the early history of India and of Buddhism. They have a character of their own. A French writer has said, Onne bavarde passeur la pierre, and for most inscriptions the saying holds good,
but Ashoka wrote on the rocks of India as if he were dictating to a stenographer. He was no stylist and he was somewhat vain although, considering his imperial position and the excellence of his motives, this obvious side of his character is excusable. His inscriptions give us a unique series of sermons on stones and a record, if not of what the people of India thought, at least of what an exceptionally devout and powerful Hindu thought they ought to think.
Between 30 and 40 of these inscriptions have been discovered, scattered over nearly the whole of India and composed in vernacular dialects allied to Pali. Footnote 581. The dialect is not strictly speaking the same in all the inscriptions. End footnote. Many of them are dated by the year of the king's reign and all announced themselves as the enactment of Piyadasi, the name Ashoka being rarely used. Footnote 582. Piyadasi, Sanskrit Priyadarshan. The Deepavasa, 6th, 1 and 14, calls Ashoka Piyadasi and Piyadasana. The name Ashoka has hitherto only been found in one edict discovered at Hyderabad. J.R.A.S. 1960, page 573.
End footnote. Footnote 583. The principal single edicts are 1. That known as Minor Rock Edict. 1. Found in Four Recensions. 2. The Bhabru or Bhabra Edict of Great Importance for the Buddhist Scriptures. 3. Two Kalinga Edicts. 4. Edicts about Shizam, found at Sarnath and elsewhere. 4. Commemorative Inscriptions in the Terai. 5. Dedications of Caves.
caves. Footnote 584. Ashoka came to the throne about 270 BC, 268 or 272 according to various authorities, but was not crowned until four years later. Events are generally dated by the year after his coronation, Abhishek, not after his accession. End footnote. The 14 rock edicts are mostly sermons. This style often recalls the pitakks verbally, particularly in the application of secular words to religious matters. Thus, we hear that righteousness is the best of lucky
ceremonies and that whereas former kings went on tours of pleasure and hunting, Ashoka prefers tour of piety and has set out on the road leading to true knowledge. In this series, he does not mentioned the Buddha and in the 12th edict he declares that he reverences all sects. But what he wished to preach and enforce was the Dhamma. It is difficult to find an English equivalent for this word but there is no doubt of the meaning. Footnote 585. I must confess that law of piety
Vincent Smith does not seem to me very idiomatic. End footnote. It is the law in the sense of the righteous life which a Buddhist layman ought to live, and perhaps religion is the simplest translation, provided that word is understood to include conduct and its consequences in another world but not theism. Ashoka burns with zeal to propagate this Dhamma and his language recalls the utterances of Dhammapada. Footnote 5.8.6. See Senart, inscription de Piasse,
2. Pp. 314. F.F. End footnote. He formulates the law under four heads. Parents must be obeyed. Respect for living creatures must be enforced.
Truth must be spoken. The teacher must be reverenced by the pupil. And proper courtesy must be shown to relations. Footnote 5. 8. 7. The second minor rock edict.
End footnote. In many ways, the sacred edict of the Chinese emperor Kangxi resembles these proclamations for it consists of imperial maxims on public morality addressed by a Confucian emperor to a population partly Buddhist and Taoist just as Ashoka addressed Brahmins, Jains and other sects as well as Buddhists. But when we find in the 13th rock edict the incidental statement that the king thinks nothing of much importance except what concerns the next
world, we feel great difference between Indian and Chinese ideas, whether ancient or modern. The rock edicts also deal with the sanctity of animal life. Ashoka's strong dislike of killing or hurting animals cannot be ascribed to policy, for it must have brought him into collision with the Brahmans who offered animals in sacrifice but was the offspring of a naturally gentle and civilized mind. We may conjecture that the humanity of Buddhism was a feature which attracted him to
it. In Rock Edict 1, he forbids animal sacrifices and informs us that whereas formerly many thousand animals were killed daily for the royal kitchens, now only three are killed, namely two peacocks and a deer, and a deer not always. But in future, even these three creatures will not be slaughtered. In Rock Edict 2, he describes how he has cared for the comfort of man and beast. Wells have been dug, trees, roots and healing herbs have been planted and remedies, possibly
hospitals have been provided, all for animals as well as for men, and this not only in his own dominions but in neighbouring realms. In the fourteenth year of his reign, he appointed officers called Dhamma Mahatma, ministers or censors of the Dhamma. Their duty was to promote the observance of the Dhamma, and they also acted as charity commissioners and superintendents of the households of the king's relatives. We hear that they attend to charitable
institutions, ascetics, householders and all the sects. I have also arranged that they shall attend to the affairs of the Buddhist clergy as well as the Brahmins, the Jains, the Ajivikas and in fact all the various sects. Further, he tells us that the local authorities are to hold quinquennial assemblies at which the dhamma is to be proclaimed and that religious processions with elephants, cars and illuminations have been arranged to please and instruct the people.
Similar processions can still be seen at the Parahira festival in Kandi. Footnote 588 Rajuka and Pradesika The last rock edict is of special interest for the light which it sheds both on history and on the king's character. He expresses remorse for the bloodshed which accompanied the conquest of Kalinga and declares that he will henceforth devote his attention to conquest by
the Dhamma which he has affected both in his own dominions and in all the neighbouring realms as far as 600 leagues. Even to where the Greek king named Antiochus dwells and beyond that Antiochus to where dwell the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexander, and in the south the kings of the Cholas and Pandyas and of Ceylon, and likewise here in the king's dominions among the Jonas and Cambogias, in Nabhak of the Nabhtis, among the Bhojas and Pitinakas,
among the Andras and Pulindas. Footnote 589 i.e. Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene and Epirus. Footnote 590 Kingdoms in the south of India.
Footnote 591 The inhabitants of the extreme northwest of India not necessarily Greeks by race. Footnote 592 Possibly Tibet. Footnote 593
Or Nabha Pamthes in any case unknown. Footnote 594 All these appear to have been tribes of central India. End footnote. Ashoka thus appears to state that he has sent missionaries to, first, the outlying parts of India,
on the borders of his own dominions, two, to Ceylon, three, to the Hellenistic kingdoms of Asia, Africa and Europe. This last statement is of the greatest importance, but no record has hitherto been found of the arrival of these missionaries in the West. The language of the edict about them is not precise and in fact their dispatch is only an inference from it. Of the success of the Indian missions there is no doubt. Buddhism was introduced into southern India where it flourished to some extent,
though it had to maintain a double struggle against Jains as well as Brahmins. The statement of the Deepa and Mahavasa that missionaries were also sent to Pegu, Suvanabhumi is not supported by the inscriptions, though not in itself improbable, but the missions to the north and to Ceylon were remarkably successful. The Sinhalese chronicles give the names of the principal missionaries dispatched and their statements have received confirmation in the discoveries made at Saatchi and Sonari
where urns have been found inscribed with the names of Majima, Kasapa and Gotiputta, the successor of Dhundubisara who are called teachers of the Himalaya region. Footnote 595 Deepawasa Mahavasa 12
The statement in the Maha and Deepavasas is that Majhima was sent to preach in the Himalaya accompanied by four assistants Kasapa, Malikadeva, Dhundha Bhinausa and Sahasadeva. About the 21st year of his reign, Ashoka made a religious tour and under the guidance of his preceptor Upagupta, visited the Lumbani Park, now Rumendai in the Terai, where the Buddha was born and other spots connected with his life and preaching. A pillar has been discovered at Rumendai bearing an inscription which records the visit and the privileges granted to the village where the Lord was born. At Nigliwa, a few miles off, he erected another inscribed pillar stating that he had done reverence to the stupa of the earlier Buddha Kornagamana and for the second time repaired it.
During this tour, he visited Nepal and Lalitpur, the capital, founding their five stupas. His daughter Charumati is said to have accompanied him and to have remained in Nepal when he returned. She built a convent which still bears her name and lived there as a nun. It does not appear that Ashoka visited Kashmir, but he caused a new capital, Srinagar, to be built there and introduced Buddhism. In the 27th and 28th year of his reign, he composed another series of edicts and this time had them carved in pillars, not on rocks.
They are even more didactic than the rock edicts and contain an increasing number of references to the next world as well as stricter regulations forbidding cruelty to animals. But the king remained tolerant and says that the chief thing is that each man should live up to his own creed. Footnote 596 Pillar Edict 6 End Footnote It is probable that at this time he had partially abdicated or at least abandoned some of the work of administration for an edict for,
he states that he has appointed commissioners with discretion to award honours and penalties, and that he feels secure like a man who has handed over his child to a skilful nurse. In the two series of rock and pillar edicts, there is little dogmatic Buddhism. It is true that the king's anxiety as to the hereafter of his subjects and his solicitude for animals indicate thoughts busy with religious ideas, but still his dhamma is generally defined in terms which do not go beyond morality, kindness and sympathy.
But in the Bhabru, less correctly Bhabra edict, he recommends for study a series of scriptural passages which can be identified more or less certainly with portions of the Pali Pitakas. In the Sarnath Edict, he speaks not only as a Buddhist but as head of the church. He orders that monks or nuns who endeavor to create a schism shall put on lay costume and live outside their former monastery or convent.
He thus assumes the right to expel schismatics from the Sangha. He goes on to say that a similar edict, i.e. an edict against Shism, is to be inscribed for the benefit of the laity who are to come and see it on Uposatha days. And on the Uposatha days, in all months, every officer is to come for the Uposatha, serve as to be inspired with confidence in this edict and to learn it. Thus, the king's officers are to be Buddhists, at least to the extent of attending the Uposatha ceremony, and the edict about schismatics is to be brought to the notice of the laity, which doubtless means that the laity are not to give alms to them. It is probable that many more inscriptions remain to be discovered, but none of those known allude to the conveying of a council and our information as to this meeting comes from the two Sinhalese chronicles and the works of Buddha Ghosh.
It is said to have been held 236 years after the death of the Buddha and to have been necessitated by the fact that the favour shown to the Sangha induced heretics to become members of it without abandoning their errors. Footnote 597 Perhaps meant to be equivalent to 251 BC, Vincent Smith rejects this state and thinks that the council met in the last ten years of Ashoka's reign. But the Sinhali's account is reasonable. Ashoka was very pious but very tolerant. Ten years of this regime may well have led to the abuse complained of.
End footnote. This occasioned disturbances and the king was advised to summon a sage called Tisa Mughaliputta or Upagupta, then living in retirement and to place the affairs of the church in his hands. He did so. Tisadan composed the Katha Vattu and presided over a council composed of 1,000 Arhats which established the true doctrine and fixed the present Pali canon. Even so severe, a critic of Sinhali's tradition as Vincent Smith admits that the evidence for the council is too strong to be set aside, but it must be confessed that it would be reassuring to find some allusions to it in Ashoka's inscriptions.
He did not, however, always say what we should expect. In reviewing his efforts in the cause of religion, he mentions neither a council nor foreign missions, although we know from other inscriptions that such missions were dispatched. Decisions of the council may be equally true and are in no way improbable, for in later times kings of Burma, Ceylon and Siam held conventions to revise the text of the Tripitak.
It appeared natural that a pious king should see that the sacred law was observed and begin by ascertaining what that law was. According to tradition, Ashoka died after reigning 38 or 40 years, but we have no authentic account of his death and the stories of his last days seem to be pure legends. The most celebrated are the pathetic tale of Kunal which closely resembles a Jatak and the account of how Ashoka vowed to present a hundred million gold pieces to the Sangha and not being able to raise the wholesome made a gift of his dominions instead. Footnote 598 Jatak No. 472 End Footnote
Part 3 Ashoka had a decisive effect on the history of Buddhism, especially in making it a world religion. This was not the accidental result of his action in establishing it in northwest India and Ceylon, for he was clearly dominated by the thought that the Dhamma must be spread over the whole world, and, so far as we know, he was the first to have that thought in a practical form.
But we could estimate his work better if we knew more about the religious condition of the country when he came to the throne. As it is, the periods immediately before and after him are plunged in obscurity, and to illuminate his reign we have little information except his own edicts, which, though copious, do not aim at giving a description of his subjects. Megasthenes, who resided at Pataliputra about 300 BC, does not appear to have been aware of
the existence of Buddhism as a separate religion, but perhaps a foreign minister in China at the present day might not notice that the Chinese have more than one religion. On the other hand, in Ashoka's time, Buddhism, by whatever name it was called, was well known and there was evidently no necessity for the king to explain what he meant by Dhamma and Sangha. The Buddha had belonged to a noble family and was esteemed by the aristocracy of Magad. The code of morality which he prescribed
for the laity was excellent and sensible. It is therefore not surprising if the Kshatriyas and others recognized it as their ideal, nor if Ashoka found it a sound basis of legislation. This legislation may be called Buddhist in the sense that in his edicts the king enjoins and to some extent enforces silam or morality which is indispensable beginning for all spiritual progress and that his enactments about animals go beyond what is usual in secular law. But he
expressly refrains from requiring adherence to any particular sect. On the other hand, there is no lack of definite patronage of Buddhism. He institutes edifying processions, He goes on pilgrimages to sacred sites. He addresses the Sangha as two of the most important parts of the scriptures and we may infer that he did his best to spread the knowledge of those scriptures. Though he says nothing about it in the edicts which have been discovered, he erected numerous religious buildings including the Saatchitope and the original temple at Bodh Gaya. Their effect in turning men's attention to Buddhism must have been greatly enhanced by the fact that so far as we know, no other sect had stone temples at this time.
To such influence, we must add the human element. The example and well-known wishes of a great king, supported by a numerous and learned clergy, could not fail to attract crowds to the faith and the faith itself, for let us not forget Gautama while we give credit to his follower, was satisfying. Thus Ashoka probably found Buddhism in the form of a numerous order of monks respected locally and exercising a considerable power over the minds and conduct of laymen He left it a great church spread from the north to the south of India and even beyond
with an army of officials to assist its progress with sacred buildings and monasteries, sermons and ceremonies How long his special institutions lasted we do not know but no one acquainted with India can help feeling that his system of inspection was liable to grave abuse. Blackmailing and misuse of authority are ancient faults of the Indian police and we may surmise that the generations which followed him were not long in getting rid of his censors
and inspectors. Christian critics of Buddhism are apt to say that it has a paralyzing effect on the nations who adopted but Ashoka's edicts teem with words like energy and strenuousness. It is most necessary to make an effort in this world, so he recounts the efforts which he has himself made and wants everybody else to make an effort. Work I must for the public benefit, and the root of the matter is an exertion and dispatch of business than which nothing is more
efficacious for their general welfare. These sound like the words of a British utilitarian rather than of a dreamy oriental emperor. He is far from pessimistic. Indeed, he almost ignores the truth of suffering. In describing the conquest of Kalinga, he speaks almost in the Buddha's words of the sorrow of death and separation, but instead of saying that such things are inevitable, he wishes his subjects to be told
that he regrets what has happened and desires to give them security, peace and joy. Ashoka has been compared with Constantine, but it has been justly observed that the comparison is superficial. For Constantine, more like Kanishka than Ashoka, merely recognized and regulated a religion which had already won its way in his empire. He has also been compared with Saint Paul and in so far as both men transformed a provincial sect into a religion
for all mankind, the parallel is just. But it ends there. Saint Paul was a constructive theologian. For good or evil, he greatly developed and complicated the teaching of Christ. But the edicts of Ashoka, if compared with the Pitakas, seem to curtail and simplify their doctrines. No inscription has yet been found mentioning the four truths, the chain of causation and other familiar formulae. Doubtless, Ashoka duly studied these questions, but it was not
theology nor metaphysics which drew him towards religion. In the gallery of pious emperors, a collection of dubious moral and intellectual value, he stands isolated as perhaps the one man whose only passion was for a sane, kindly and humane life, neither too curious of great mysteries nor preoccupied with his own soul, but simply the friend of a man and beast.
For the history of doctrine, the inscription at Rumindeyi is particularly important. It merely states that the king did honour or reverence to the birthplace of the Buddha, who receives no titles except Sakyamuni and Bhagavan here or elsewhere in the inscription. It is a simple record of respect paid to a great human teacher who is not in any way defied, nor does Ashoka's language show any trace of the doctrines afterward known under the name of Mahayana.
He does not mention Nirvana or even transmigration, though doubtless what he says about paradise and rewards, hereafter should be read in the light of Indian doctrines about karma and samsara. End of section 43
