King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

the Sanskrit original is no longer extant, its actual title is notknown but it has been called a “Book on King Aśoka.” Weknow it from two Chinese translations: A-yü-wang chuang (i.e.Aśokāvadāna) by the Parthian Fa-k’in (281 – 306 A.C.) and A-yüwang-ching (i.e. Aśokarājasūtra) by Sanghabhadra or Sanghabhatain an abridged version in 512 A.C. This was the main sourcefor the cycle of Aśoka legends in the Divyāvadāna, consistingof Pāṃśupradānāvadāna, Kuṇālāvadāna, Vitaśokāvadāna andAśokāvadāna. The Divyāvadāna, in Buddhist Sanskrit proseinterspersed with verse, contains older parts datable as earlyas the first century A.C. and later parts which could be as lateas the fourth century.Two more works in Sanskrit can claim antiquity. The laststory (No. 100) of the Avadānaśataka would belong to the secondcentury A.C. as it was translated into Chinese by mid-thirdcentury. The Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā of Kumāralāta was, in all probability,composed in the third century even though some considerthe author to be a contemporary of Aśvaghoṣa and datehim in the first century.It is significant that all these works are Avadānas, and thatmeans they belong to a class of pious literature glorifyingdeeds of self-sacrifice and piety of saints whether religious orlay. The word avadāna according to Maurice Winternitz meansa “noteworthy deed, sometimes in a bad sense, but generallyin the good sense of a heroic deed,” with the Buddhists, “a religiousor moral feat” and then also the “story of a noteworthydeed or feat.” Such a “feat” may consist of the sacrifice of one’sown life, but also merely a gift of incense, flowers, ointments,gold and precious stones or the erection of sanctuaries (stūpas,caityas and so on). 19 One should not expect accurately recordedhistorical information in such a form of literature, whose sole189