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Other documents randomly have
different content
opposition to the Buddhists is vigorously expressed, and mention is
made of men with shorn heads and yellow garments.[767] The kings
are required to erect buildings in the cities and put Brahmans in
them to form societies for the study of the Veda; these the king is to
support with the exhortation that they must fulfil their duties.[768]
Hence it appears that the Brahmans considered it advisable to erect
Brahmanic monasteries in opposition to the viharas of the Buddhists,
and to support them at the cost of the state.
 FOOTNOTES:
[718] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 495 ff.
[719] "Mahabharata Çantiparvan," in Muir, loc. cit. 4, 263 ff.
[720] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 271 ff.
[721] W. von Humboldt, "Bhagavad-gita," s. 41, 57.
[722] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 153.
[723] Bhagavad-gita, 4, 7, 8.
[724] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 151 ff.
[725] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 156.
[726] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 172 ff.
[727] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 495 ff.
[728] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 165 ff.
[729] "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 27.
[730] On the variations in the different recensions of the
Ramayana in this narrative; see Muir, loc. cit. 4, 444 ff.
[731] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 178 ff.
[732] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 243 ff.
[733] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 182.
[734] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 259.
[735] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 229.
[736] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 216.
[737] Lassen's view inclines also to the supposition that Krishna's
deification belongs to the time after Buddha, "Ind. Alterth." 22,
822.
[738] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 184 ff.
[739] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 188 ff.
[740] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 205.
[741] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 203.
[742] Muir, loc. cit. 4, 191.

[743] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 474.

[744] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 152. M. Müller,
"Hist, of Anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 46. The name of the Sinha princes,
who ruled in Guzerat between 200 B.C. and 25 A.D. (Lassen, loc.
cit. 22, 929); Rudrasinha, Rudrathaman, Içvaradatta, prove that
the worship of Çiva was in vogue in this region at the time
mentioned. The coins of the Turushas exhibit Çiva and his bull,
while others bear Buddha's name; Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 842, 843.
The coins of the older Guptas exhibit Vishnu's bird Garuda, the
goddess Lakshmi, Vishnu's female side, who is churned out of the
sea of milk, Rama, and Sita, and Çiva's bull; Lassen, loc. cit. 22,
1111.
[745] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 3. Onesicr. fragm. 33, ed. Müller. Plut.
"Alex." c. 69.
[746] Cf. infra, p. 518. Curt. 8, 9. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 19.

[747] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 467.

[748] Burnouf, "Introd." p. 158. Lassen, loc, cit. 22, 467.

[749] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 714. Supra, p. 435.
[750] Nicol. Dam. Fragm. 143, ed. Müller.
[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] Lassen puts Yajnavalkya about the year 360 B.C., and
Patanjali, the author of the Yogaçastra, between 144 and 124
B.C., loc. cit. 12, 875, 999, and 22, 516. We must also agree with
Lassen, that in the theory which Mandanis developes from
Onesicritus (frag. 10, ed. Müller), the principles of the Yoga can
be traced. The opposition also in which this Mandanis places
himself to Calanus, the adherent to strict asceticism, is in favour
of the view. As Panini also mentions the Yoga (Lassen, loc. cit. 12,
878), it was in existence towards the end of the fourth century. In
the same way I can only agree with Lassen 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 Açoka and his immediate successors
could not give any room for the Brahmans to hope for assistance
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.
AÇOKA 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 assistance 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 Açoka, 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 Çravasti, who had come to Palibothra, was
thrown at Açoka'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. Açoka 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 Açokarama-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), Açoka
caused to be taken away; only the part which the Koçalas 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 Açoka 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 Açoka'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 Açoka, who alone had been spared, became a Bhikshu,
and entered the Açokarama.[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 assembled
in council the orthodox and heterodox Bhikshus. When the purity of
the sacred law had again been established by the assembly,
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]
Mahadharmarakshita into the land of Maharashtra (the upper
Godavari); Dharmarakshita into the land of Aparantaka,[777] Çona
and Uttara into the gold-district of Suvarnabhumi; Madhyama and
Kaçyapa 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 Açoka 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 (Açoka)
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 Açoka 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. Açoka 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 assembly of the Aryas.[780]
Such is the account of Açoka 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 Bhuvaneçvara, 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 Çakyas, of Çakyasinha, 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 Açoka 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 Açoka. The inscriptions on the
peninsula of Guzerat (they speak of buildings at Çirinagara which
Açoka had caused to be erected there by his viceroy Tuhuspa),[783]
and those at Bhuvaneçvara, on the mouths of the Mahanadi, as well
as those on the borders of Nepal, prove that Açoka's dominion
reached from the Himalayas to the mouths of the Narmada and
Mahanadi. According to the tradition of Cashmere Açoka reigned
over that land also, extended the metropolis, Çirinagara, built two
palaces there, caused a lofty Chaitya to be erected, and covered
Mount Çushkala near Çirinagara with stupas.[784] The inscriptions of
Açoka himself inform us that he carried on war against the land of
Kalinga in the south of Orissa, on the lower course of the Godavari
(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 Godavari.[787] Hence the dominion of Açoka
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 Godavari.
According to his inscriptions the influence of Açoka 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 Açoka.
[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 Açoka, 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
Açoka stood with this island. They also show us that Açoka not only
maintained but extended the relations into which his grandfather
had entered with the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, and his father with
the kingdom of the Ptolemies. Açoka 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 Seleucidæ, 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 Açoka causes these
princes to obey his commands, though the fact that Açoka 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,
Açoka was in connection with them. Ambassadors were sent to their
princes and are said to have received the assurance that no
hindrance would be placed in the way of the preaching of the
doctrine of Buddha.[790]
The inscriptions of Açoka 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
Çramanas, 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
Açoka gives command that in the kingdom which he has conquered
and the territories in union with him assemblies 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 Çramanas, 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 Açoka was at pains to fulfil; in all his
inscriptions he calls himself not Açoka but Devanampraiya
Priyadarçin, i. e. the man of loving spirit beloved by the gods.
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
Vaiçali 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 Çariputra. To these were added serious
disputes on the discipline. The Bhikshus of Vaiçali 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 assembly. 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 Açoka
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 Açokarama, the monastery founded
by Açoka at Palibothra, who caused a new synod to be assembled 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 Açoka 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 Priyadarçin"—so the letter runs—"greets the
assembly 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 Çariputra 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 sexes. 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 Açokarama 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
Çariputra and the instructions of Rahula in the letter of Açoka to the
assembly, 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 assembly 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).
Açoka was in earnest with the doctrine of Buddha. "The man of
loving spirit, beloved of the gods," 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 Açoka 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
Açoka 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 Açvatthas (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 Açvatthas quietly and without
disinclination; for this reason painless corrections and punishments
are prescribed for them."[799] Açoka 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 Çramanas;
at one time even in his, Priyadarçin'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
assemblies 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 Açoka 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 assertion 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 Açoka 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.
Açoka'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 Açoka 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 Açokarama 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 Açoka in the
twelfth year of his reign, and on the other that Açoka caused it to be
excavated in the nineteenth year of his reign.[806] At Kuçinagara, on
the place where the Enlightened slept never to wake again, the
Chinese traveller Hiuan-Thsang found a pillar of Açoka'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
Bhuvaneçvara refer to a stupa which Açoka built at Tosali in Orissa.
According to the account of Hiuan-Thsang stupas of Açoka 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
Açoka.[808] The inscriptions of Açoka 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 Bidiça (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 Açoka because relics are found in the neighbouring
stupas which the inscriptions state to be those of Çariputra 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 noble 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 Açoka'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 attitude, that a ruined temple of
Indra was restored at his command, for we have seen that
Buddhism adopted the ancient gods of the Brahmans as subordinate
spirits, yet as beings of a higher order, into its system. But in a part
of his edicts Açoka mentions the Brahmans even before the
Çramanas (in others the Çramanas have the first place); like the
Çramanas 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: "Priyadarçin, the king beloved by
the gods, 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 Açoka 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 classes. The care, which his grandfather
had already bestowed on husbandmen, Açoka 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 Kaçmiras 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 Kaçyapa 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 Kaçyapa, 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 Açoka, which was supported and advanced by Açoka's power and
his relation to the king of the island, Devanampriya-Tishya, the
successor of Vijaya, Panduvançadeva, 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. Açoka'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 assist
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 Açoka'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 Açokarama at Palibothra
belief in the Enlightened flourished in "Alassadda,"[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] "Mahavança," p. 21. Burnouf, loc. cit. 1, 364.
[770] "Mahavança," p. 34.
[771] "Mahavança," p. 26. Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 370, 515.
[772] Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 381, 382.
[773] "Mahavança," p. 26, 34.
[774] "Mahavança," p. 22, 23, 35, 39.

[775] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 22, 241, n. 4, 245.

[776] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 246.

[777] Lassen, loc. cit. 12,649 and 22, 248 regards Aparantaka as
the western border land of India.
[778] "Mahavança," p. 78 ff.
[779] "Mahavança," p. 26.
[780] "Açoka-avadana," in Burnouf, loc. cit. p. 415, 426; for these
Aryas see above, p. 471.
[781] In opposition to Westergaard, who thinks it necessary to
put Açoka's accession back to the year 272 B.C., I can only agree
with Von Gutschmid that the statements of the Buddhists on the
subject require at the most the year 265 B.C. "Zeitschrift D. M. G."
18, 373. On the other hand, from the reasons given above (p.
443), I cannot put Chandragupta's accession at Magadha before
315 B.C. If, therefore, the 52 years which the Buddhists give to
Chandragupta and Vindusara are to be maintained, Açoka
ascended the throne in 263 B.C. On the other hand, the Brahmans
only allow 25 years to Varisara, as they call Vindusara; and
according to this the accession of Açoka must have taken place in
the year 266 B.C.
[782] Cunningham, "Survey," 1, 68 ff; 244 ff.

[783] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 281.

[784] "Raja Tarang." ed. Troyer, 1, 101 ff.

[785] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 272.

[786] Droysen, "Hellenismus," 2, 611.

[787] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 251.

[788] Inscriptions of Girnar, and Kapur-i-Giri, in Lassen, loc. cit.

22, 253.

[789] In Ptolemy Κηροβόθρης, Lassen, loc. cit. 11, 188.

[790] The inscriptions of Açoka date from various years, or at any
rate mention regulations from various years; they speak of the
tenth, twelfth, thirteenth, nineteenth, twenty-third, twenty-sixth,
and thirty-first years after the coronation. According to the
Singhalese the coronation did not take place till the fourth year
after Vindusara's death. The inscriptions in which the Greek kings
are mentioned date from the thirteenth year after the coronation,
i. e. from the sixteenth or seventeenth year of the reign. The
festival of the complete adoption of the law of Buddha by Açoka
would thus have taken place in the thirteenth year of the reign,
i. e. 251 B.C. If the statement of the Singhalese ("Mahavança," p.
22) were correct, that Açoka's consecration did not take place till
the fourth year of his reign, which is quite contrary to Indian
custom, and seems to have arisen from the desire to make the
coronation synchronise with the conversion to Buddhism
(according to the "Açoka-avadana," Açoka put on the royal head-
dress at the moment when Vindusara died, Burnouf, loc. cit. 364),
there would be a chronological difficulty. Alexander of Epirus died
about the year 258 B.C.; Magas of Cyrene in that year;
consequently both were dead in the thirteenth year after the
coronation, the seventeenth year of Açoka, if he ascended the
throne in the year 263. The Buddhists have already told us that
Açoka showed himself favourable to their religion in the third year
after his accession, though it was not till the year 254 or 251 that
he formally went over. Hence, arrangements may have been
made even earlier with the kings of the West in favour of the
spread of Buddhism, and they may have been first mentioned in
251 or 247 B.C. Von Gutschmid, "Z. D. M. G." 18, 373. He might
also mention kings of the distant West with whom he had had
dealings, though they were dead, especially if he was without
intelligence of their death.

[791] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 238.

[792] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 239.

[793] "Mahavança," p. 38. Köppen, "Rel. des Buddha," s. 154 ff.
[794] Burnouf, "Lotus de la bonne loi," p. 725, 727. Cf.
"Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 251. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 3,
172.
[795] Köppen, loc. cit. s. 182.

[796] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 238.

[797] Girnar, 6: in Lassen, 22, 267, n. 1.

[798] Girnar, 6: in Lassen, 22, 267, n. 1.

[799] Delhi, 2: in Lassen, 22, 268, n. 2.

[800] Delhi, 2: in Lassen, 22, 272, n. 5.

[801] Inscription at Delhi, Lassen, 22, 272.

[802] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 250.

[803] Inscriptions at Girnar, 6 and 8.

[804] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 270.

[805] Now Buddhagaya to the north-east of the modern Gaya;

Cunningham, "Survey," 1, 6, 10 ff.
[806] Cunningham, loc. cit. 1, 40 ff.
[807] On the elephant pillars at Sankisa, Cunningham, loc. cit. 1,
271.

[808] Hiuan-Thsang, in Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 280.

[809] Cunningham, "J. R. As. Soc." 13, 108 ff.

[810] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 965.

[811] Burnouf, "Lotus de la bonne loi," p. 762. Lassen, loc. cit. 22,
276, 277.

[812] "Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 72.1

[813] Cunningham, "J. R. As. Soc." 13, 112 ff.
[814] Supra, p. 370, 371. In consequence of the difference
explained above (p. 320, n.) the Singhalese place his reign 62
years too early, from 307 to 267 B.C.
[815] Mutu Coomara Dathavança. Köppen, "Rel. des Buddha," s.
517 ff.
[816] "Mahavança," p. 171.
[817] Stan. Julien, "Hiuen-Thsang," p. 373.
 CHAPTER X.
RETROSPECT.
The Arians in India at an early time developed important spheres of
human nature into peculiar forms. In that tribal life, by no means
feeble of its kind, which they lived in the land of the Panjab, they
worshipped the spirits of fire, of light, of water; with deep religious
feeling they invoked these helpers, protectors, and judges, with
earnestness, zeal, and lively imagination. The movements of the
emigration and conquest of the Ganges, the acquisition of extensive
regions, led them forward on new paths. The emigrant tribes grew
into nations; greater monarchies grew up in the conquered
territories. The achievements of the forefathers were sung in heroic
minstrelsy before the princes and their companions, the wealthy
warriors, the priests, and the minstrels separated themselves from
the peasants. The contrast between the new masters of the valley of
the Ganges and the ancient population assisted in intensifying the
distinction of orders among the Arians. The fear of the spirits of
night and drought, the conception of the struggle of good and evil
spirits, gave way before the abundance and fertility of these new
possessions. In the land of the Ganges the sensuous perception of
nature passed into fantastic ideas; the climate inflamed the
susceptible senses of the nation, while at the same time it checked
bodily activity and invited to contemplativeness. In opposition to the
multitude of the ancient divine forms and the gorgeous variety of the
new impressions of nature, rose the impulse to find the unity of the
divine essence, the need of combination. Abstraction reacted on
imagination, the spirit on the senses. The spirit in prayer, the holy
spirit, and the world-soul, that mighty breath which the Brahmans
seemed to find behind the changing phenomena of nature, were
amalgamated by the priesthood, and elevated to be the highest
deity: Indra, Varuna, Mitra must give way to Brahman as the nobles
gave way to the priests. Together with the new deity, who was at
the same time the order of the world, the Brahmans won for
themselves the first position in the state.
The theory of the emanation of the world from Brahman established
for ever the arrangement of the castes by the different participation
of the various orders in Brahman—an arrangement which otherwise,
being the result of natural changes, would in turn have been
removed in the course of development. The law and the state were
arranged on the plan of the divine order of the world which had
assigned to every being his duties. With the emanation of beings
from Brahman came the demand for their return thither, and the
doctrine of regenerations, which were to cleanse the creatures
rendered impure by their nature and their sins till they attained the
purity of the world-soul. As Brahman was essentially conceived as
not-matter, not-nature, a severance of nature and spirit, a contrast
of the natural and the intellectual man was set up, which
subsequently became the turning-point in the religious and moral
development of the Indians. Ethics passed into asceticism, the
courage of battle into the heroism of penance. But man could not
rest content with the avoidance of sensuality or the mortification of
the flesh. It was not enough to torment and crush the body, the
Ego, the consciousness, must pass into Brahman. But, inasmuch as
Brahman was all things and again nothing definite, it possessed no
quality to be apprehended by thought; and along with the
annihilation of individual being absorption in this impersonal deity
required the surrender of the consciousness and perception of self,
of the Ego in order to obtain a passage into this substance. Thus the
crushing of the body by a pitiless asceticism, the destruction of the
soul by meditation without any object, became the highest
command, the ethical ideal of the Indians; the devotion natural to
their disposition became a self-annihilating absorption into a soul-
less world-soul. The energy of the Indians began to consume itself
in this contest; it was applied to the conquest of the appetites, the
crushing of the body, the annihilation of the soul. Under the most
smiling sky, in the midst of a luxuriant vegetation, was enthroned a
melancholy, gloomy, monastic view of the absolute corruption of the
flesh, the misery of life on earth.
The theory that every creature must fulfil the vocation imposed upon
it at birth, the commands of submissive observance of duties and
patient obedience placed absolute and despotic power in the hands
of the kings the more firmly because they also undermined activity
and independence of feeling; and owing to the extent of the
ceremonial, the usages of purification and penance, and the awful
consequences of their neglect, the people became accustomed to
think more of the next world than of this. As heaven alone was their
home, the Indians had scarcely a real world, or practical objects
which it was worth while to strive after. Without purpose or activity
they were perpetually changing, they obeyed an oppressive and
exhausting despotism, which the theory of the Brahmans justified as
divine, and provided with the most acute regulations for the
maintenance and extension of its power. Thus the most beautiful
and luxuriant land on earth seemed really to become a vale of
misery.
The scholasticism of the Indians concentrated their efforts on
framing ever new conceptions of the categories of spirit and nature,
of matter and the Ego, which perpetually changed without ever
breaking loose from them. Their philosophy gained no object beyond
establishing more firmly their hypothesis, separating ever more
widely nature and spirit, body and soul, the fleshly and the
supernatural, and rooting more deeply a perverse view of nature. No
doubt the appetites compensated themselves for the pain and
privation of penances, for the torments of asceticism, in luxurious
enjoyment; the imagination sought relief from the necessity of
thinking of Brahman and nothing but Brahman in painting a motley
world of spirits beside and below Brahman, by confounding heaven
and earth, by the restless invention of grotesque charms and
miracles, by brilliant pictures on a measureless scale. In the same
way the reason compensated itself for its exclusion from philosophy
and the compulsion exercised upon it by the most acute distinctions;
yet no healthy advance could be made by the alternation of
asceticism and enjoyment, by oscillation between hollow
abstractions and unbridled imagination, the most irrational view of
the world and the most subtle reflections.
Full of compassion for the sorrows of the multitude, distressed at the
sight of the oppression under which the people lay, repelled by the
cruel asceticism, the pride and exclusive scholasticism of the
Brahmans, Buddha undertook to provide the people with alleviation
and bring help to their pains. With him the world is Evil, and
regeneration is the eternity of evil. In order to escape this, as he
was himself confined to the current view of the world and
philosophical systems, he could only overthrow Brahman along with
the gods; he could merely recommend the restraint of the appetites
and desires, patient suffering and renunciation, flight from the world
and the Ego, and in the last instance a more complete annihilation of
the Ego. It was nevertheless a great gain that the body need no
longer be tormented and destroyed, that the difference of the castes
was thrown into the background, that the contempt of the higher
born for the lower was laid aside. In the place of an exclusive sense
of caste came equality and brotherly love; tolerance and gentleness
in the place of ceremonial; expiations and penances were
superseded by a rational morality, and beneficial sympathy with all
creatures. To counteract the new doctrine which threatened the
entire position obtained after long struggles by the Brahmans, the
latter allowed the idea of Brahman to fall into the background, in
order to restore to the people the worship of living personal deities;
they were at pains to show that their deities also had the weal and
woe of mankind at heart; and if on the one hand they increased the
merit of asceticism and its requirements, they reduced on the other
the value of good works; they attempted to amalgamate Brahman
and the theory of the Buddhists by new speculations, and by means
of a simple asceticism and a mystical act of the spirit, to obtain
readmission into the highest being, and reunion with the world-soul.
But even Buddhism provided its doctrine, and its scepticism which
denied everything beside matter and the Ego, with a form of
worship, not in the pilgrimages only, and the worship of the relics of
the Enlightened, but also in the apotheosis of the teacher, and his
elevation above the gods of the Brahmans.
While the doctrines of the Brahmans and Buddhism strove with each
other, the extension of the Aryas in the south and the occupation of
the coasts of the Deccan went steadily on, and the first shock which
an external enemy brought upon India, the attack upon and
reduction of the land of the Indus by Alexander the Great, after the
most vigorous resistance, exercised the most beneficial influence on
the states of India. Chandragupta succeeded not only in breaking
down the rule of the foreigner over the Indus, but in uniting the
territory of India from the Indus to the Gulf of Bengal, from the
Himalayas to the Vindhyas, into one mighty kingdom. His grandson
extended his kingdom over Surashtra, Orissa, Kalinga; in the south
his influence extended beyond the Godavari. From this throne, three
hundred years after the death of the Enlightened, he announced his
conversion to his faith, and proclaimed his rules as laws of the state.
This seemed to be the dawn of a happy day for India. The
combination of all the tribes could not but secure the independence
of the country; the oppression of the hereditary despotism seemed
to be softened by the prescripts of a rational morality; a brisk trade
with the West appeared to give the last blow to the exclusiveness
and rigidity of Brahmanism, and the religion of equality and brotherly
love seemed to assure the rise of a new social order and a free
movement of the intellectual powers of the people.
A sterner fate overtook the Indians. It is true that even at the time
of Açoka the powerful neighbouring kingdom of the Seleucidæ had
begun to fall to pieces; Parthia and Bactria had already attempted to
assert their independence, and though Antiochus the Great once
more succeeded in subjugating Bactria, and in the year 206 B.C.
appeared with a powerful army in the region of the Indus, Açoka's
son and successor Subhagasena (Polybius calls him Sophagasenus)
was able at the price of a number of elephants and some treasure to
renew the league which his grandfather Chandragupta had
concluded with the first Seleucus, the great-grandfather of
Antiochus.[818] The re-established authority of the Seleucidæ over
Bactria was of very brief continuance. It was not attacks from
without, but the dissensions of the grandsons of Açoka that rent
asunder the great Indian empire; the dynasty of the Mauryas fell. A
new race, that of the Çungas, ascended the throne of Magadha in
the year 178 B.C. with the kings Pushpamitra and Agnimitra, which
thirty years after had in turn to give place to the Guptas. Neither the
power of the Çungas nor that of the Guptas was sufficient to
maintain the national unity, and protect the regions of the West from
the foreigner. The Greek princes who ruled in Bactria conquered the
lands of the Indus—native Indian tradition presents us with armies
of Yavanas on the right bank of the Indus at this time[819]—and
established a Græco-Indian empire, which in the course of the
second century B. C. carried its arms to the Yamuna, and subjugated
Cashmere as well as Surashtra to its rule.[820] From the supremacy
of Greek princes and the Greek character India received various
impulses of the most lively kind, especially in architecture and plastic
art; the influence of the Greek models extends not only over the
Panjab but even to Cashmere. This dominion of the Greeks over the
west of India was succeeded by other foreign empires, that of the
Sacæ from Arachosia (Sejestan), that of the Tibetan nomads, the
Yuechis, the Indo-scyths from Bactria. If Buddhism had advanced to
Bactria under the Mauryas, elements of the religious views of Iran
now forced their way from Sejestan, the worship of the god Mithra,
on which they laid especial stress, by means of the Maga-Brahmans,
i. e. the Magian Brahmans, into the Panjab and Cashmere.[821] But
the land of the Ganges maintained its independence, the civilisation
of the Deccan was not interrupted, and the national forces still
sufficed to remove at length the power of the foreigner even in the
West.
For centuries after this date Buddhists and Brahmans stood side by
side in the Indian states of the West and East. Only the Guptas of
Magadha had worshipped Vishnu and Çiva;[822] the Sacan and Indo-
Scythian princes of the West were devoted to Buddhism. Yet
Buddhism was unable finally to triumph over the reformed doctrine
of the Brahmans, supported as this was by the worship of Vishnu or
Çiva and the speculation and mysticism of the Yoga. It had become
divided into sects, of which the bases were almost wholly of a
dogmatic character; they rested on the different philosophic
foundations of the system. But the adherents of these sects hated
each other more than they hated the Brahmans, and the ethics of
the Buddhists preached only obedience, patience, submission, and
retirement from the world. It was no more adapted than the ethics
of the Brahmans to supply new impulses to the volition and activity
of the Indians, and in the end the bright world of gods and spirits of
Brahmanism, the magic powers and miracles of their ancient saints,
exercised a greater power of attraction on the hearts of the Indians
than the simpler doctrine of the Buddhists. The Veda, the Epos, and
all tradition was on the side of the Brahmans. The genuine Kshatriya
could not be satisfied with Buddha's peaceful doctrine; the
Brahmans maintained their position as presidents at the funeral
feasts of the tribes, and common interests of a very practical nature
kept the sects and even the schools of the Brahmans more closely
together than was possible among the various divisions of the
Buddhists. When it had been shown that Buddhism was not strong
enough to overpower the old system, the Brahmans succeeded in
entirely overthrowing and expelling that religion. The faith of the
Enlightened maintained its ground in Cashmere and Ceylon alone.
Before its expulsion from its native home it had taken such firm root
in Nepal and Tibet, in further India and China, that it was able from
thence to humanise the manners of the nomads of Upper Asia, and
in the East to gain the most numerous adherents for the religion of
patience.
In the extent of their territory and the numbers of the population the
Indians possessed an adequate natural basis for periodical
regenerations. The despotic power which the princes had attained
not without the assistance of the Brahmans, and which had the
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