King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

B. Later DevelopmentsWe have looked so far at a number of differences between theMahāvaṃsa and the Aśokāvadāna versions of the Aśoka legendand seen several factors operating in these two texts andaffecting the way in which they present the story. On the onehand, different attitudes towards kingship have caused differentrenditions of Aśoka’s acts of merit in a past life. On theother hand, the Mahāvaṃsa’s concern with exalting Sri Lanka,its Buddhism and its royalty, has brought about a differencein accounts of the Bodhi Tree and the relics. Finally, a differencein interest in the “rūpalogical” and the “dharmalogical”dimensions has led to differences in details in the story of theeighty-four thousand stūpas or vihāras.A similar analysis, with different conclusions as to detailsperhaps, could no doubt be made of other contemporaryrenditions of the Aśoka legend, such as those found in theDīpavaṃsa and the A-yü wang chuan. What I would rather dohere, however, is look at somewhat later traditions. Obviously,the stories we have examined thus far did not cease developingwith the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāvaṃsa; they continuedto be reworked in subsequent Buddhist literature in Sri Lankaand in India, as well as in Southeast Asia, Tibet and China. Inthe second part of this paper, therefore, we will need to examinein detail some of these later stages of the tradition and seewhat more they can tell us about the ongoing and evolvingimage of Aśoka.1. The Gift of Dirt ReconsideredWe emphasized, in our initial discussion of Aśoka’s gift of dirt,the negative connotations of this ambiguous act, and showed162