King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

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and he saw to it that his actions supported his new thinking,especially when he was dealing with Sri Lanka, which wasoutside his dominion (vijita).With regard to his relationship with Sri Lanka the Palichronicles have much to contribute. The Sinhalese literarysources maintain that Aśoka and Tissa were not only friendsbut they had been brothers in a previous birth. 23 Both the Paliand Sinhala sources maintain (despite the Indian non-Buddhisttradition) that they belonged to the Kshatriya caste, and further,that they had connections with the Sakyas to which theBuddha himself belonged. The Sinhala Bodhivaṃsaya says thatthe city of Moriya was founded by Sakyan princes and to theirKshatriya clan was born Chandragupta, the grandfather ofAśoka. According to the same source Aśoka married Vedisā,a princess of the Sakyan clan. 24 Pali chronicles such as theDīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa state that the Viceroy Aśokafell in love with the beautiful Devī, the daughter of a localmerchant. Two children, a son named Mahinda and a daughternamed Saṅghamittā, were born to them. 25 The Sakyan connectionof Devī related in the Mahābodhivaṃsa is almost certainlya fabrication of a later tradition which the author himselfadopted in his work as an attempt to connect Mahindawith the family of the Buddha. However, Vidisa was an importantcentre of Buddhism during Aśoka’s time. Devī also builta vihāra there.According to the Mahāvaṃsa, Mahinda was just twentyyears old when he was ordained in the sixth regnal year ofAsoka. 26 According to the same source, Asandhimittā wasAśoka’s chief queen. She died five years before his death, afterwhich Tissarakkhā became the chief queen. 27 This queen issupposed to have injured the Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya. 28121
5. The Sri Lanka-Kalinga TieThe political relationship between Sri Lanka and India duringthis period is very important in order to assess the religiousdevelopments in the years that followed. The conquest ofKalinga by Aśoka probably had a political impact on Sri Lankabecause of the ethnic relationship between the two countries.It seems probable that Sri Lanka’s political and cultural relationshipswith the Kalingas at the time would have encouragedboth Aśoka and Tissa to develop a close and friendlyalliance. There is no reference to the Kalinga war in the SriLankan chronicles. Rock Edict XIII of Aśoka clearly states thatthe war took place in the ninth regnal year of Aśoka, probably260 B.C. Before the Kalinga war there would have been a constantinflux of Kalinga immigrants to Sri Lanka. This numberwould have increased during the war because of the miserycaused to the people and the loss of human life. The missionaryactivities of the Elder Mahinda and the diplomatic mission ofthe two kings succeeded without any problem because of thecommon cultural ties between the two states.It is now known that the language and script of the earlySinhalese and Kalingas during the Aśoka-Tissa reign havemuch in common. This made it possible for the religious missionariesto undertake a responsibility which required thatthey enter into direct dialogue with the royalty and the commonman. The presence of a large number of immigrants fromthe northeastern part of India at the time in the “realm of thekings” (rajaraṭa) in Sri Lanka may have been the main factor.Further, if we assume that there was a large Sinhala populationof Kalinga origin in Sri Lanka at this time, then it might be heldthat Aśoka, troubled by a guilty conscience over the massacre122
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King Asoka and BuddhismHistorical &
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Buddhism / Indian History / Asian S
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ContentsThe Contributors ..........
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3. The Gathering of the Relics ....
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owing to the inability of certain s
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1Aśoka — The Great UpāsakaRICHA
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Buddhism which Aśoka announced in
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not only urges diligence on others,
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84,000 monasteries and as many stū
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e Aśoka, a layman, who tests monks
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eousness can hardly have been Buddh
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Notes1. P.H.L. Eggermont, The Chron
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2Aśoka and Buddhism as Reflectedin
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elation to Brahmanism. There was ce
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the correct doctrine. What is of si
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is the nearest that we get in the i
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days remains unclear unless the com
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since he showed them the way and th
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the importance of trade, the first
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accordance with dhamma was preferab
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in Kalinga, is interestingly omitte
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was largely absent. The phrase that
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That the larger corpus of edicts we
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3Emperor Aśoka and Buddhism:Unreso
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to punish them for their crimes, so
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Aśokan scholars since the 1830’s
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Pandukabhaya had built them a resid
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The Mahāmātras stationed at Kauś
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The Sri Lankan Pali records, which
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problem. Nor would there be a diffi
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17 th Gets concerned over indiscipl
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to gratify ambition and enrich the
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whose central theme is the conquest
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are altogether silent on a Kalinga
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All men are my children. Just as, i
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within his dominions. The frontier
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tendents of matters relating to the
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edicts addressed to the Saṅgha; a
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evidence of Aśoka’s own lithic r
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all these sermons could be describe
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Page 86 and 87: the other peoples dwelling about th
Page 88 and 89: earlier, the creation of the new ca
Page 90 and 91: five Greek kings among themselves a
Page 92 and 93: gratitude, amounting at times to sh
Page 94 and 95: e inconsistencies begin to make sen
Page 96 and 97: onistically with a brahmin exponent
Page 98 and 99: 3 rd ed. rev. (New Delhi: Governmen
Page 100 and 101: far been found, the latest being th
Page 102 and 103: made, it rendered subsequent steps
Page 104 and 105: its Culture, 2nd. ed. rev. (Colombo
Page 106 and 107: The central theme in the majority o
Page 108 and 109: on a statement made by I-tsing 5 th
Page 110 and 111: confused accounts of the Sanskrit S
Page 112 and 113: the Vinaya. Some of them tended the
Page 114 and 115: In the foregoing data we have two i
Page 116 and 117: Aśoka cannot be expected to decide
Page 118 and 119: and while Aśoka who meted out such
Page 120 and 121: (2) Aliyavasāni (P. Ariyavaṃsān
Page 122 and 123: to it as sambuddhasamayaṃ, “the
Page 124 and 125: 5Aśoka and the Emergence of a Sinh
Page 126 and 127: 5. the Mahābodhivaṃsa (10 th or
Page 128 and 129: 3. The Mission to Sri Lanka: Brief
Page 130 and 131: was planted in the Mahāmegha Park
Page 132 and 133: disbelieve these events associated
Page 136 and 137: at Kalinga, would have paid special
Page 138 and 139: missionaries to propagate the Buddh
Page 140 and 141: To the first question the answer is
Page 142 and 143: fore Mahinda Thera’s Buddhist mis
Page 144 and 145: and the countries they visited. 47
Page 146 and 147: order. 55 Their son Sumana was a me
Page 148 and 149: it to wither away. But Aśoka manag
Page 150 and 151: Notes1. G.P. Malalasekera, ed. Va
Page 152 and 153: ical and Social Studies, Vol. I, No
Page 154 and 155: 6Images of Aśoka:Some Indian and S
Page 156 and 157: legends and stories that were told
Page 158 and 159: Sanskrit avadānas each have their
Page 160 and 161: who pointed out the honey store bec
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Page 164 and 165: the end of Aśoka’s life, it is o
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Page 168 and 169: elics of the Buddha for redistribut
Page 170 and 171: the glory of Sri Lanka and on its p
Page 172 and 173: Secondly, related to this are the d
Page 174 and 175: It is clear, then, that this is a t
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Page 178 and 179: eborn as a god in one of the heaven
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Page 182 and 183: monarch bested by a nāga, nor, out
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as Japan were inspired to emulate i
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ConclusionWith this Lokapaññatti
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6. A.L. Basham, “The Rise of Budd
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y dint of his military power. This
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43. Strong, p. 192. Upagupta has al
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62. T.W. Rhys Davids, E. Carpenter,
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sequently carried on in the histori
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Aśoka remained largely a name in t
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of Jalauka’s name in other record
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the Sanskrit original is no longer
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Upagupta commanded immense venerati
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(5) His conversion to Buddhism is a
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whose noble fame travelled far and
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surrounded by a coating of inventio
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missionary role claimed by Aśoka i
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Aśoka and, by implication, these m
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of forbearance and light punishment
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from the pens of many an intellectu
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ascribed to Aśoka ideas and deeds
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the only scholar of the West to dis
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such a way that no heretical monks
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(2) that he used Buddhism — or ra
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in this by the fact that these sect
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of the land’s greatest moments in
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ecame infinitely more spiritual. Bu
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frontier areas as a reaction agains
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Present-day India has been so impre
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3. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Age of th
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y V. Sirinivasa Sarma (Delhi: Banar
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Pali et Traduction, L’Ecole fran
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I have drawn closer to the Sangha a
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The chronological constraints have
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MapsAśoka’s Indian Empire235
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