King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

far been found, the latest being the Greek adaptation ofRE XII and RE XIII discovered at Kandahar in Afghanistanin 1963.11. For example, Vincent A. Smith rejected the Sri LankanPali sources using such expressions as the “the silly fictionsof mendacious monks,” “tales told by monkishromancers,” “grotesque and contradictory,” “overlaidwith superstitious imbecilities and distorted by sectarianand ecclesiastical bias,” “a tissue of absurdities,” “elaboratelyfalsified Chronicles of Ceylon,” and “not of doubtfulauthority but positively false.” Reviewing his Aśoka,Anagārika Dharmapāla said in 1906: “Notwithstandingthe malignant attacks on Ceylon Chronicles we are gratefulto Mr. Smith for the service he has rendered to thecause of oriental research in having compiled the twoworks ‘Aśoka, the Buddhist Emperor’ and the ‘Early Historyof India’: Return to Righteousness, edited by AnandaW.P. Guruge, (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs,1965), p. 784. Rhys Davids was specially evenhanded: notonly did he say that “No hard words are needed: andwe may be unfeignedly grateful to these students andwriters for having preserved as much as we can gatherfrom their imperfect records,” but he also characterizedthe critics of Sri Lankan Chronicles, adding: “It may behuman to kick down the ladder by which one has justclimbed up. But we need not do so, in this case, with toogreat violence. We may want it again. And it jars uponthe reader to hear the Chronicles called the ‘mendaciousfictions of unscrupulous monks.’ Such expressions areinaccurate: they show a grave want of appreciation of the87