The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 29

[751] Diod. 19, 33, 34. The narrative is apparently taken from Duris of Samos, who wrote soon after the year 300 _B.C._

[752] Cic. "Tuscul." 5, 27. Plut. "Vitios." c. 4. Aelian, "Var. Hist."

7, 13.

[753] Colebrooke, "Asiatic Researches," 4, 205-215.

[754] La.s.sen puts Yajnavalkya about the year 360 B.C., and Patanjali, the author of the Yogacastra, between 144 and 124 B.C., _loc. cit._ 1^2, 875, 999, and 2^2, 516. We must also agree with La.s.sen, that in the theory which Mandanis developes from Onesicritus (frag. 10, ed. Muller), the principles of the Yoga can be traced. The opposition also in which this Mandanis places himself to Cala.n.u.s, the adherent to strict asceticism, is in favour of the view. As Panini also mentions the Yoga (La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 878), it was in existence towards the end of the fourth century. In the same way I can only agree with La.s.sen that the book which bears Yajnavalkya's name, and according to the commentators was composed by a pupil of his, cannot be put earlier than 300 B.C. It is the next oldest to Manu (Stenzler, "Yajnavalkya," s. x.).

In it the opposition to the Buddhists is vigorous, the Yoga is presented in a simpler form than in the Bhagavad-gita and Patanjalis, and it is free from the mysticism afterwards adopted into the system. The reign of Ac.o.ka and his immediate successors could not give any room for the Brahmans to hope for a.s.sistance from the state.

[755] Yajnavalkya, 3, 148, 149.

[756] Yajnavalkya, 3, 182, 157.

[757] Yajnavalkya, 3, 145.

[758] Yajnavalkya, 3, 160, 161, 198, 203, 194.

[759] "Bhagavad-gita," in Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 30.

[760] "Bhagavad-gita," in Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 30.

[761] Yajnavalkya, 3, 155.

[762] Yajnavalkya, 3, 63-66, 155.

[763] Yajnavalkya, 3, 195, 196.

[764] Yajnavalkya, 3, 191.

[765] Muir, _loc. cit._ 6, 300.

[766] _Supra_, p. 207, _n._

[767] Yajnavalkya, 1, 271, 272.

[768] Yajnavalkya, 2, 185.

CHAPTER IX.

Ac.o.kA OF MAGADHA.

The Brahmans had reason to expect favourable effects from the changes they had made in their doctrine and ethics. They had taken account of the desire for the worship of more real and living deities, and in order to satisfy this they had pushed Brahman into the background; they were zealous in giving tangible shape to the benefits which their deities had bestowed upon men; they ascribed the best results to pilgrimages, and if on the one hand they intensified the merits and efficacy of penance, they allowed on the other hand the merit of works to fall into the background, and moderated asceticism. They sought to reconcile the elements of Buddhist speculation with their ancient system, and increased the circle of the men admitted to salvation. In the Yoga they had as a fact found a deeper solution of the problem of the liberation of the Individual than Buddha had pointed out in his doctrine. Then it happened that so far from obtaining the a.s.sistance and support from the state which the new law claimed, the power of the throne which ruled all India ranged itself on the opposite side.

As we have seen, Chandragupta's great kingdom was maintained in its full extent by his son Vindusara, and the relations to the West became more extensive under his reign. When Vindusara was in his last sickness, his son Ac.o.ka, the viceroy of Ujjayini, hastened to Palibothra, as the Buddhists inform us, possessed himself of the throne, and caused his brothers to be put to death, with the exception of one born from the same mother as himself.[769] Like his father Vindusara, he daily fed 60,000 Brahmans, ruled with a severe and cruel hand, and himself carried out the execution of those who had incurred his anger. After three years of this savage conduct he was converted, according to the account of the Singhalese, by Nigrodha the son of Sumana, one of the brothers murdered by him, to whom the Sthaviras had granted the initiation of the novice (p. 465). According to the account of the northern Buddhists, a Buddhist Samudra, a merchant of cravasti, who had come to Palibothra, was thrown at Ac.o.ka's order into a vessel full of boiling fat and water. Samudra felt no pain, and when the fire under the kettle could not be kindled by any means, the king was summoned to see the marvel. This sight and Samudra's exhortation converted the king to Buddhism. Ac.o.ka entreated the holy man to forgive him his sinful acts, took his refuge in the law of the Enlightened, and promised to fill the earth with Chaityas (monuments) in honour of Buddha. He caused a large monastery, the Ac.o.karama-Vihara, to be built for the Bhikshus at Palibothra,[770] and instructed his viceroys to erect viharas in all his cities. The relics of Buddha, which had been divided after his death and placed in eight monuments (p. 365), Ac.o.ka caused to be taken away; only the part which the Kocalas had received from Ramagrama and concealed there, remained untouched. The other relics of the Enlightened were divided into 84,000 parts, and placed in cases of gold, silver, crystal, and lapis-lazuli, so that each of the great, middle-sized, and small cities in the kingdom of Ac.o.ka might receive a relic of Buddha. In order to preserve these, 84,000 stupas, _i.e._ domes with coverings over them, together with as many viharas, were built at Ac.o.ka's command.[771] Thus the king adorned the surface of the earth with beautiful stupas, which were like the summits of the mountains, and furnished them with precious stones, parasols, and standards,[772] and travelled to every place where Buddha had stayed and preached, and announced his determination to honour these places also by monuments. In all the cities of the kingdom the law of the Enlightened was proclaimed in the name of the king;[773] the son of the king, Mahendra, and his daughter Sanghamitra, who was born to him before his accession to the throne, renounced the world and received the consecration of the mendicant, the son in the twentieth, the daughter in the eighteenth year of her age; even Tishya, the brother of Ac.o.ka, who alone had been spared, became a Bhikshu, and entered the Ac.o.karama.[774]

As errors had crept in and the true law was not observed everywhere in the viharas, the king took the advice of the Sthavira Maudgaliputra,[775] sat on the same seat with him, and a.s.sembled in council the orthodox and heterodox Bhikshus. When the purity of the sacred law had again been established by the a.s.sembly, Maudgaliputra perceived that the time had come to spread abroad the doctrine of the Enlightened. He sent the Sthavira Mahadeva into the land of Mahisha (a region on the Narmada);[776] Mahadharmaraks.h.i.ta into the land of Maharashtra (the upper G.o.davari); Dharmaraks.h.i.ta into the land of Aparantaka,[777] cona and Uttara into the gold-district of Suvarnabhumi; Madhyama and Kacyapa into the Himavat; and Madhyantika into the land of Cashmere and the Gandharas. Mahendra, the king's son, set out in person to preach the good law in Lanka, when Ac.o.ka had explained to the envoys, whom Devanampriya-Tishya, the king of Lanka, had sent to him at Palibothra, that the king might enlighten his spirit and seek refuge with the best means of salvation, even as he (Ac.o.ka) had sought refuge with Buddha and the Dharma (law) and the Sangha (community). When Mahendra arrived at Ceylon, Devanampriya-Tishya received him hospitably, gave him the garden of Mahamegha near the metropolis Anuradhapura for a habitation, and there built him a vihara.[778] He converted the inhabitants of Lanka by thousands. At his request Ac.o.ka sent him the alms-jar of Buddha, and his right shoulder bone, which the king of Lanka deposited in a stupa, built on Mount Missaka, near Anuradhapura, and Mahendra's sister Sanghamitra followed her brother to Lanka with eleven other initiated women, in order to convey there a branch of the sacred fig-tree of Gaya, under which enlightenment was vouchsafed to Buddha (p.

339). Mahendra received five hundred Kshatriyas of the island into the sacred order; Sanghamitra initiated five hundred maidens and as many women of the royal palace as mendicants; and when the branch was planted in the soil of the garden of Mahamegha, it grew up into a great tree. Ac.o.ka daily supported 60,000 Bhikshus by alms,[779] and during the rainy season, 300,000 religious persons and novices; and gave all his treasures, his ministers, his kingdom, his wives, and finally himself to the a.s.sembly of the Aryas.[780]

Such is the account of Ac.o.ka given in the tradition of the Buddhists. We can establish the fact that he succeeded his father on the throne of Magadha in the year 263 B.C. and retained it till 226 B.C.[781] His inscriptions, the oldest which have come down to us, enable us to test more closely the narration of the Buddhists, who had every reason to honour the memory of the great king, who became a convert to their religion, and gave it a pre-eminent position throughout his vast empire.

Both in the neighbourhood of the modern Peshawur, at Kapur-i-Giri, to the north of Cabul, and near Girnar (Girinagara) on the peninsula of Guzerat, and on the rocks of Dhauli in the neighbourhood of Bhuvanecvara, the metropolis of Orissa, near Khalsi on the right bank of the Yamuna, at Delhi (the ancient Indraprastha), at Allahabad, Bakhra, and Bhabra in the neighbourhood of the ancient Palibothra, the modern Patna, and finally at Mathiah and Radhya,[782] in the valley of the upper Gandaki on the borders of Nepal, we find inscriptions of this king. Some are hewn in the rocks, others engraved on separate monolithic pillars, about forty feet in height; pillars of the law they are called by him who erected them. Carefully rounded and smoothed they carry above the capital of beautiful pendent lotus leaves, on a square slab, lions of excellent execution, without doubt the symbol of the lion of the tribe of the cakyas, of cakyasinha, Buddha. Two pillars of this kind, the one entire the other broken, are at Delhi; the other four are at Allahabad, Bakhra, Mathiah, and Radhya. If Ac.o.ka caused inscriptions to be engraved at Peshawur, beyond the Indus, the regions which Seleucus had given up to Chandragupta must have been retained by Vindusara and Ac.o.ka. The inscriptions on the peninsula of Guzerat (they speak of buildings at cirinagara which Ac.o.ka had caused to be erected there by his viceroy Tuhuspa),[783] and those at Bhuvanecvara, on the mouths of the Mahanadi, as well as those on the borders of Nepal, prove that Ac.o.ka's dominion reached from the Himalayas to the mouths of the Narmada and Mahanadi. According to the tradition of Cashmere Ac.o.ka reigned over that land also, extended the metropolis, cirinagara, built two palaces there, caused a lofty Chaitya to be erected, and covered Mount cushkala near cirinagara with stupas.[784] The inscriptions of Ac.o.ka himself inform us that he carried on war against the land of Kalinga in the south of Orissa, on the lower course of the G.o.davari (p. 410), and subjugated the inhabitants to his power;[785] and that he ruled over the Gandharas, Cambojas and Yamunas, the Rashtrikas and the Petenikas.

Under the name of Cambojas are comprised the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus. To the south as far down as the Cabul, the Yavanas are evidently the Greeks, with whom Alexander had peopled the three cities called after him, which he founded in Arachosia (on the Arghandab and the Turnuk, where the modern Kandahar and Ghazna stand), and on the southern slope of the Hindu Kush at the entrance of the path leading to the north into Bactria.[786] The Rashtrikas are the inhabitants of the coast of Guzerat, the Petenikas are the inhabitants of the city and land of Paithana on the upper G.o.davari.[787] Hence the dominion of Ac.o.ka extended from Kandahar, Ghazna, and the Hindu Kush, as far as the mouth of the Ganges, from Cashmere down to the upper and lower course of the G.o.davari.

According to his inscriptions the influence of Ac.o.ka extended even beyond these wide limits. At the boundaries of the earth, so we are told, were to be found the two cures established by him, the cure for men and the cure for animals. Wherever healing herbs, roots, and fruit trees were not in existence, they were brought and planted by his order, and wells were dug by the wayside. This was done among the Cholas and Pidas, in the kingdom of Keralaputra, and on Tamraparni (Ceylon). Even Antiyaka, the king of the Yavanas, and four other kings, Turamaya, Antigona, Maga, and Alissanda, "had followed the precept of the king beloved of heaven," _i.e._ of Ac.o.ka.[788] The Cholas and Pidas lay to the south of the Deccan, the former on the upper Krishna, the latter on the Palaru. Keralaputra, _i.e._ son of Kerala,[789] is the ruler of the state founded by Brahmans on the southern half of the Malabar coast (p.

368). It is clear from this, no less than from the conquest of Kalinga by Ac.o.ka, how successful in the times of the earliest rulers of the house of the Mauryas, was the power of Arian India collected in that kingdom in forcing its way to the south, both on the coasts and in the interior of the Deccan; and at the same time these inscriptions confirm the statements of Singhalese tradition about the connection in which Ac.o.ka stood with this island. They also show us that Ac.o.ka not only maintained but extended the relations into which his grandfather had entered with the kingdom of the Seleucidae, and his father with the kingdom of the Ptolemies. Ac.o.ka is not only in connection with Antiyaka, _i.e._ with his neighbour Antiochus, who sat on the throne from 262 to 247 B.C., and with Turamaya, _i.e._ with Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 B.C.), but also with Antigonus Gonnatas of Macedonia (278-258 B.C.), with Alissanda, _i.e._ Alexander of Epirus (272-258 B.C.), and even with Magas, king of Cyrene. The Seleucidae, it is true, had reason to keep on a good footing with the powerful king of India; and the Ptolemies took a lively interest in the trade of India and Egypt. But the kings of Macedonia, Epirus, and Cyrene were unconcerned with such matters. It is mere oriental extravagance that Ac.o.ka causes these princes to obey his commands, though the fact that Ac.o.ka is acquainted with Epirus and Cyrene shows how greatly the horizon of the Indians had extended since the time that Alexander trod the Panjab. Not merely were these lands of the distant west known, Ac.o.ka was in connection with them. Amba.s.sadors were sent to their princes and are said to have received the a.s.surance that no hindrance would be placed in the way of the preaching of the doctrine of Buddha.[790]

The inscriptions of Ac.o.ka contradict the tradition which represents him as becoming a convert to the doctrine of Buddha in the third year of his reign. It is possible that he may have shown himself favourable to the Buddhists a few years after his accession; but it is clear from the inscriptions at Delhi that he did not openly profess their doctrine till after long consideration, and the inscriptions at Girnar inform us that he took this step in the tenth year after his consecration, _i.e._ no doubt, after his accession, consequently in the year 254 B.C., and that he did not take it without special regard to the ancient religion and the Brahmans. The king, we are told in that inscription, was no longer given up to the chase of animals, but to the chase of the law, to making presents to Brahmans and cramanas, to searching out and proclaiming the law. This conversion is said to have been announced by sound of drum, with trains of festal cars, elephants, and fires; many divine forms were also displayed to the people.[791] In an edict published two years later Ac.o.ka gives command that in the kingdom which he has conquered and the territories in union with him a.s.semblies shall be held in every fifth year, at which the laws are to be read and explained: obedience to father and mother, liberality to the nearest relations and friends, to Brahmans and cramanas, economy, avoidance of calumny and the slaying of any living creature; after this confessions were to be made.[792] These are, as we have seen, the fundamental ethical rules of the Enlightened.

In Buddha's doctrine good actions come from the feelings and heart; the right feeling of the heart is to show sympathy and pity to all living creatures, and to alleviate their lot. This precept also Ac.o.ka was at pains to fulfil; in all his inscriptions he calls himself not Ac.o.ka but Devanampraiya Priyadarcin, _i.e._ the man of loving spirit beloved by the G.o.ds.

Though the doctrine of Buddha had received a firm basis immediately after the death of the master by the collection of his sayings, and the rules of ethics and discipline had been gathered together at greater length and in an authentic form at the synod of Vaicali in 433 B.C., different tendencies and views inevitably arose among the believers as time went on. Some kept strictly to the sayings of the master, the principles of the synod; others commented on the traditions, and deduced consequences from the principles given. The speculative basis of the doctrine gave sufficient occasion to further research and meditation, and hence to the formation of different schools, which as they rose became rivals. The school of the Sautrantikas acknowledged only the authority of the sutras, the sayings of the master collected at the first synod, and abandoned any independent speculation. The school of the Vaibhashikas, _i.e._ the school of dilemma, drew speculative consequences from tradition, and ascribed canonical value to philosophical treatises (_abhidarma_), which were thought to come from the immediate disciples of Buddha, more especially from his son Rahula and from cariputra. To these were added serious disputes on the discipline. The Bhikshus of Vaicali who had been excluded from the community of the faithful by the second synod, are said to have adhered to their explanation of the discipline, and to have supported it by corresponding principles. This teaching of theirs, and the more lax observance of duties, they naturally explained to be the true doctrine of Buddha, and found adherents. At any rate we may easily see, that in the first half of the third century two hostile parties stood opposed in the Buddhist Church, the orthodox party, the party of the Sthaviras, and their opponents, who were denoted by the name Maha-Sanghikas, _i.e._ adherents to the great a.s.sembly. The more lax discipline which they preached, the more convenient mode of life which they permitted, are said to have brought numerous followers to this party. Brahmans are said to have taken the yellow robe without seeking for consecration, to have settled themselves in the monasteries, and filled everything with confusion and heresy.[793] It is, no doubt, credible that when Ac.o.ka had openly gone over to the doctrine of Buddha, when he caused it to be preached with the authority of the state, and gave valuable gifts to the clergy, Brahmans would enter the viharas for other than spiritual reasons. We may further concede to tradition that it was Maudgaliputra, the head of the Ac.o.karama, the monastery founded by Ac.o.ka at Palibothra, who caused a new synod to be a.s.sembled in order to establish the discipline and put an end to disputes. That such a synod did meet in the year 247 B.C. is proved by a letter which Ac.o.ka sent to this meeting in the seventeenth year of his reign at Palibothra; it has been preserved for us in the inscription of Bhabra (p. 525). "King Priyadarcin"--so the letter runs--"greets the a.s.sembly of Magadha, and wishes it light labour and prosperity. It is well known how great is my faith and reverence for Buddha, for the law and the community (_sangha_). All that the blessed Buddha has said, and this alone, is well said. It is for you, my masters, to say what authority there is for this; then will the good law be more lasting. The objects which the law comprises are the limits prescribed by the discipline, the supernatural qualities of the Aryas, the dangers of the future (_i.e._ of regenerations in their various stages), the sayings of Buddha, and the sutras of Buddha, the investigation of cariputra and the instructions of Rahula with refutation of false doctrine: this is what the blessed Buddha taught.

These subjects comprised by the law it is my wish that the initiated men and women hear, and ponder continually, and also the faithful of both s.e.xes. This is the fame on which I lay the greatest weight. Hence I have caused this letter to be written to you which is my will and my declaration."[794]

Tradition tells us that at this synod the question was put to every Bhikshu: "What is the doctrine of Buddha?" and all who did not answer it satisfactorily or answered it in a sectarian sense, to the number of 60,000, were expelled from the community of the faithful. Then Maudgaliputra selected a thousand out of the number of the orthodox Bhikshus, men distinguished by virtue and true knowledge of the holy scriptures, that he might with them re-establish the purity of the sutras and the Vinaya, _i.e._ the rules of discipline. We cannot doubt that the synod at the Ac.o.karama had revised the collection of sayings and rules of discipline established by the first two councils in order to excise interpolations and cut off false requirements; but this revision did not exclude extensions and additions which had been made in order to fill up in something more than a negative manner the ground occupied by the errors and heresies that had crept in. By this council, no doubt, the speculative part of the doctrine of Buddha received its first canonical basis. This may be inferred both from the mention of the investigation of cariputra and the instructions of Rahula in the letter of Ac.o.ka to the a.s.sembly, and from the statement that the president of this council, Maudgaliputra, had founded a new school in order to unite the doctrines of the Sthaviras and the Mahasanghikas.[795] What we possess of the canonical writings of the Buddhists does not go back in form or condition beyond this synod; yet it has been already remarked that in the sutras we can distinguish the older nucleus from the additions made to it, and retained or first added in the redaction of the third council. The a.s.sembly is said by the Singhalese to have occupied nine months in this new settlement of the canonical writings of the 'triple basket' (_sutras_, _vinaya_, _abhidarma_).

Ac.o.ka was in earnest with the doctrine of Buddha. "The man of loving spirit, beloved of the G.o.ds," we are told in the inscriptions at Girnar, "causes the observance of the law to increase, and the king's grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson will cause the law to increase, and continuing stedfast down to the end of the Kalpa in law and virtue will observe the law."[796] "In past days the transaction of business and the announcement of it did not take place at all times. Therefore I did as follows. At any hour, even when recreating myself with my wives in their chamber, or with my children, when conversing, riding, or in the garden, Pratidevakas (men who announce) were appointed with orders to announce to me the affairs of the people, and at all times I pay attention to their affairs."[797] "I find no satisfaction in the effort to accomplish business; the salvation of the world is the thing most worth doing. The cause of this is the effort to accomplish business.

There is no higher duty than the salvation of the whole world. My whole care is directed to the discharge of my debt to all creatures, that I may make them happy on earth, and that hereafter they may gain heaven.

For this object I have caused this inscription of the law to be written.

May they continue long, and may my grandson and great-grandson also strive after the salvation of the whole world. This it is difficult to do without the most resolute effort."[798] In other inscriptions Ac.o.ka declares it to be his glory that he has administered justice properly, and inflicted punishment with gentleness; as we have seen, the book of the law required that it should be administered with severity. The growth of the law, king Ac.o.ka says, is brought about by submission to it, and the removal of burdens. "My Rajakas (overseers) are placed over many hundreds of thousands of my people, and their corrections and punishments are inflicted without pain. More especially I would have the Rajakas transact business in the neighbourhood of the Acvatthas (fig-trees), and bring happiness and prosperity to the people. I would have them be friendly, ascertain misfortune and prosperity, and speak to the people, as the law directs, saying: Receive with favour the law that has been given and established. In such a way are my Rajakas established for the good of the people, that they may transact their business in the neighbourhood of the Acvatthas quietly and without disinclination; for this reason painless corrections and punishments are prescribed for them."[799] Ac.o.ka further informs us that in the war against the Kalingas he neither carried away the prisoners nor put them to death.

For many offences he had abolished capital punishment. In the thirty-first year of his reign he appears to have abolished it altogether. The criminals condemned to death, he tells us in an inscription, must to the day of their death give the gifts that relate to a future life, and fast.[800] According to the teaching of Buddha no animal is to be put to death. In earlier times, we are told in Buddha's inscriptions, for many centuries the killing of living things and the injuring of creatures had increased, as well as contempt for relations, and disregard for Brahmans and cramanas; at one time even in his, Priyadarcin's, kitchen a hundred thousand animals were daily slaughtered for food. Now this was abolished. He absolutely forbade the slaying of certain animals, and everywhere introduced the two cures for sick men and animals, caused shelters to be erected for men and animals, fig-trees and groves of mangoes to be planted, wells to be dug on the highways, and resting-places for the night to be built.[801] Himself anxious to follow the law of Buddha, he wished it also to be spread abroad and practised in his kingdom among his subjects. We have already mentioned the a.s.semblies held at his command every fifth year, at which the chief rules of morals were taught to the people. In addition he nominated Dharmamahamatras, _i.e._ masters of the law, for the cities of his kingdom, the lands of the Vratyas (p. 388), and the territories dependent on him, whose duty it was to forward the reception and observance of the law. According to the inscriptions there were magistrates of this kind even at the court, to "divide gifts to the sons and other princes for the purpose of the observance of the law," and these magistrates had to perform the same duties in the chambers of the queens.[802]

What the tradition of the Buddhists tells us of the inexhaustible liberality of Ac.o.ka is exaggerated beyond all measure. The strangest statement of all, that he presented his kingdom to the Bhikshus, seems to find some sort of confirmation in the a.s.sertion of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian, who was on the Ganges towards the year 400 A.D. He tells us that he had seen a pillar at Palibothra on which the inscription related that Ac.o.ka had presented all India, his wives and his servants, thrice to the Bhikshus, and had only retained his treasures, in order to purchase again these gifts. If this was really stated in the inscription, the matter can only have had a symbolical meaning; the king in this expressed figuratively his submission to the law of Buddha, and recognised it as his duty to allow the initiated, the representatives and preachers of this law, to suffer no want. Ac.o.ka's extant inscriptions prove that he not only exhorted his subjects to give (p. 530), but made presents to the Sthaviras, and commanded his masters of the law to divide gifts.[803] How eagerly he strove to realise Buddha's precept to be helpful to every one, is proved by a sentence in the inscriptions of Dhauli in which the king says: "Every good man is my descendant."[804]

However foolish may be the tradition that Ac.o.ka built 84,000 stupas and as many viharas, it is true that he did erect numerous buildings which were mainly intended to glorify the Enlightened. Mention has already been made of the Ac.o.karama at Palibothra, and tradition is not wrong in saying that the king honoured the places at which Buddha stayed by the erection of monuments. Of his buildings at Gaya we have, it is true, only the remains of pillars and other ruins.[805] Some miles to the north of Gaya, on the bank of the Phalgu, in the rocks of the heights now called Barabar and Nagarjuni, are artificial grottoes. They are hewn in the granite, simple in plan and moderate in dimensions, but of very careful execution. The inscription on one tells us that it was consecrated by Ac.o.ka in the twelfth year of his reign, and on the other that Ac.o.ka caused it to be excavated in the nineteenth year of his reign.[806] At Kucinagara, on the place where the Enlightened slept never to wake again, the Chinese traveller Hiuan-Thsang found a pillar of Ac.o.ka's with inscriptions.[807] The number of the monasteries or viharas in the territory of Magadha was so great that the old name of the country was changed for a name derived from them; it was called the land of monasteries: Vihara (Behar). The inscriptions already mentioned at Bhuvanecvara refer to a stupa which Ac.o.ka built at Tosali in Orissa.

According to the account of Hiuan-Thsang stupas of Ac.o.ka existed at his time in the Deccan among the Andhras and Cholas, the Kanchis and Konkanas; in Nagara he saw a stupa, and in Udyana a vihara of Ac.o.ka.[808] The inscriptions of Ac.o.ka at Girinagara show that he erected a large bridge there and other buildings. Hence there is no reason to doubt the construction of considerable buildings in Cashmere, ascribed to him by the tradition of the land. On the northern slope of the Vindhyas, to the east of Ujjayini, at Sanchi, in the neighbourhood of the ancient Bidica (now Bhilsa), there are nearly thirty stupas of very various sizes, standing in five groups. The longest of them rises on a substructure of more than one hundred feet in diameter to an elevation of sixty feet. The simplicity and unadorned dignity of the building mark this, the largest of the stupas, as also the oldest, and we may the more certainly regard it as a work of Ac.o.ka because relics are found in the neighbouring stupas which the inscriptions state to be those of cariputra and Maudgalyayana, the eminent disciples of Buddha; others again which are said to be the relics of Gotriputra the teacher of Maudgaliputra, who presided over the third synod.[809] The wall surrounding the great stupa presents an entrance through four n.o.ble portals of slender pilasters, united by cross-beams of singular workmanship. On the eastern gate there is found an inscription from the second century A.D. It is therefore possible that the outer wall dates from that time, though the inscription merely speaks of the presentation of a vihara situated there.[810]

However great Ac.o.ka's zeal for Buddha's doctrine might be, however numerous and splendid the buildings erected in honour of the Enlightened, he allowed complete toleration to prevail, partly from obedience to the gentleness which pervades Buddha's doctrine, but not less from motives of political sagacity. There was no oppression, no persecution of the Brahmans or their religion. It can hardly be called a proof of this feeling and att.i.tude, that a ruined temple of Indra was restored at his command, for we have seen that Buddhism adopted the ancient G.o.ds of the Brahmans as subordinate spirits, yet as beings of a higher order, into its system. But in a part of his edicts Ac.o.ka mentions the Brahmans even before the cramanas (in others the cramanas have the first place); like the cramanas the Brahmans are to be honoured and to receive presents. The inscription of Delhi declares that even those who are of another religion than the Brahmans and Buddhists are to live undisturbed; that all possessed sacred books and saving revelations. In one of the inscriptions at Girnar we are told: "Priyadarcin, the king beloved by the G.o.ds, honours all religions, as well as the mendicants and householders, by alms and other tokens of respect. Every one should honour his own religion, without reviling that religion of others. Only reverence makes pious. May the professors of every religion be rich in wisdom and happy through virtue."[811]

With all this toleration and gentleness there is no doubt that the reign of Ac.o.ka did the greatest service in promoting the spread of Buddhism through his wide kingdom. Whether and to what extent political motives could and did operate on his conversion we cannot even guess. In any case Buddha's doctrine released the ruler of the mighty kingdom from a very burdensome ceremonial; it put an end to the contrast in which the free life of the Indus stood to the restricted life of the Ganges; it counteracted the pride with which the Brahmans looked down on the not unimportant tribes on the Indus, placed the Arians on the Indus with equal rights at the side of the twice-born of Aryavarta, allowed the king to deal equally with all Aryas, all castes, and even with the non-Arian tribes of his kingdom; and not only permitted but commanded him to interest himself specially in the oppressed cla.s.ses. The care, which his grandfather had already bestowed on husbandmen, Ac.o.ka could exercise over a wider territory and with greater earnestness; and that he did this, as well as how he did it, has been shown by his inscriptions (p. 535).

Tradition tells us that after the council of Palibothra, the Sthavira Madhyantika was sent into Cashmere and the land of the Gandharas to convert them, and the Buddhists could boast that the inhabitants of these districts received the law which Madhyantika preached to them; "that the Gandharas and Kacmiras henceforth shone in yellow garments (the colour of the Bhikshus), and remained true to the three branches of the law."[812] As a fact Cashmere became and remained a prominent seat of Buddhism. At the same time, according to tradition, Madhyama and Kacyapa were sent to convert the Himalayas. In one of the smaller stupas at Sanchi chests of relics were found, the inscriptions on which describe one as containing the remains "of the excellent man of the race of Kacyapa, the teacher of the whole of Haimavata;" the other as containing the remains of Madhyama.[813] The conversion of the island of Ceylon at the time of Ac.o.ka, which was supported and advanced by Ac.o.ka's power and his relation to the king of the island, Devanampriya-Tishya, the successor of Vijaya, Panduvancadeva, and Pandukabhaya--who reigned from 245 B.C.[814] to 205 B.C.--is a fact. Like Cashmere in the north, Ceylon became in the south a centre of the Buddhist faith, the mother-church of lower India and the lands of the East. It has been shown in detail above how the worship of relics arose among the Buddhists. Ac.o.ka's stupas exhibit it in the fullest bloom, and this form of worship is prominent in the tradition of the conversion of Ceylon.

Beside the branch of the sacred tree of Buddha, which took root in the Mahamegha-garden at Anuradhapura, Ceylon boasts since that time the possession of the alms-jar of Buddha and his right shoulder-bone, to which his water-jug was added, and five hundred years later his left eye-tooth. This had previously been among the Kalingas, then in Palibothra, whence it was taken back to the Kalingas, from whence it was carried to Ceylon, after escaping the attempts made by the Brahman king of Magadha to destroy it. Saved at a later time from the arms of the Portuguese, it is preserved at the present day as the most sacred relic of the Buddhist church, and carried yearly in solemn procession.[815]

Buddhism had removed the privilege of birth. As it summoned the men of all castes equally to liberation, so it did not confine its gospel to the nation of the Aryas. When it had broken through the limits of caste it broke for the first time in history through the limits of nationality. All men, of whatever order, language, and nation, are in equal distress and misery; they are brothers, and intended to a.s.sist each other as such. To all, therefore, must be preached the message of renunciation and pity, of liberation from pain and regeneration. The tradition of the Buddhists has already told us that after the third synod messengers of the new religion were sent into the western land to the Yavanas, and into the gold land; and Ac.o.ka's inscriptions showed us that he had entered into connections not only with his neighbour, Antiochus Theos, but also with the kings of Macedonia and Epirus, of Egypt and Cyrene, concerning the good law. It is not likely that Buddhism was preached in the West beyond the eastern half of Iran and Bactria; but it found adherents there. Tradition tells us that a century after the council in the Ac.o.karama at Palibothra belief in the Enlightened flourished in "Ala.s.sadda,"[816] by which is obviously meant one of the three Alexandrias founded by Alexander in the East, apparently the Alexandria on the southern slope of the Hindu Kush nearest to Cashmere. When in the seventh century of our era the Chinese Hiuan-Thsang climbed the heights of the Hindu Kush on his pilgrimage to Cabul and India, he found the inhabitants of the city of Bamyan high up in the mountains zealously devoted to the religion of the Enlightened; he found ten viharas and a large stone image of Buddha in the city, covered with gold and other ornaments.[817] On an isolated mountain wall in the midst of the mountain valley of Bamyan we find in a deep niche excavated in the wall a statue, now mutilated, 120 feet in height, and at a distance of two hundred paces, a second somewhat smaller statue of the same kind. In the broad lips and drooping ears of these statues our travellers seem to find portraits of Buddha. If this religion penetrated west of Cabul, in the Hindu Kush and to Bactria, it also extended from Cashmere to Nepal and Tibet, and from Ceylon struck root in lower India.

FOOTNOTES:

[769] "Mahavanca," p. 21. Burnouf, _loc. cit._ 1, 364.

[770] "Mahavanca," p. 34.

[771] "Mahavanca," p. 26. Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 370, 515.

[772] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 381, 382.

[773] "Mahavanca," p. 26, 34.