King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

elics of the Buddha for redistribution and re-enshrining inhis 84,000 stūpas, he encountered no difficulty at all in gatheringthe shares from the first seven droṇa stūpas, but then hearrived at the nāga king’s palace at Rāmagrāma. 34Here, the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāvaṃsa once againdiverge. In the Aśokāvadāna, the nāgas inform Aśoka that theywant to go on worshipping their share of the relics and sorefuse to hand it over to him. Aśoka, realizing that he cannotoutmatch the nāgas in their devotion and offerings, agrees tothis and departs empty-handed. As a verse in the text puts it:Today at Rāmagrāma the eighth stūpa standsfor in those days the nāgas guarded it with devotion.The king did not take the relics from therebut left them alone, and, full of faith, withdrew. 35In the Mahāvaṃsa, on the other hand, a rather different scenarioemerges. Aśoka still comes away from Rāmagrāma (Pali:Rāmagāma) empty-handed, but for a very different reason.He is reminded by the monks that this eighth share of relicshad been set aside by the Buddha for enshrinement by KingDuṭṭhagāmaṇi of Sri Lanka, and, not wishing to violate theBlessed One’s decree, he leaves them alone. The text is quiteexplicit about this:Lying on his deathbed the Master of the world spoke thus toSakka, the king of the gods, so that with his relics he mightbring to pass salvation for the world: “O king of the gods, of theeight doṇas of my bodily relics, one doṇa, adored in Rāmagāma,shall be borne thence into the kingdom of the nāgas, where itwill be adored until it shall come to be enshrined in the GreatThūpa of the island of Lanka.”Then the far-seeing and most wise Thera Mahākassapa,mindful of the coming division of the relics by King Aśoka, hada great and well-guarded treasure of relics placed near Rājagaha,155