King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

Aśoka, as elaborated in the previous section, the Theravādinsconsidered him to be a part — indeed a very important part —of their ecclesiastical history. There was no need to glorifyhim with edifying tales of his deeds because he was not profferedas an example for emulation. So Theravadins had noavadānas (Pali: apādana) on him. 38 As Upagupta did not figureas a personage (certainly not a patriarch) in the Theravādatradition, Aśoka was not associated with Upagupta’s careerand achievements either. Thus whatever the Theravāda traditionhas recorded of Aśoka is history as the early monks knewand remembered it. Their objective being more historical in thiscase than religious, what they recorded was quite substantialand, as archaeological and epigraphical evidence have established,impressively reliable, in spite of inevitable religious elementslike accounts of past births. 39The main sources of the Theravāda tradition on Aśoka arean ancient commentary in Sinhala, 40 no longer extant but widelyquoted in later works; the two major Sri Lankan Chronicles,the Dīpavaṃsa (fourth century) and the Mahāvaṃsa (fifth/sixthcentury); the Samantapāsādikā — the Vinaya Commentary byBuddhaghosa (fifth century); Vaṃsatthappakāsinī or MahāvaṃsaṬīkā (circa tenth century); and a great number of Pali and Sinhalachronicles dealing with the history of relics, stūpas, theBodhi Tree, etc., loosely called the Vaṃsa literature. 41 Despitevariations in detail, all these contain a fairly consistent accountof Aśoka and his immediate predecessors. 42The initial reaction of the Western scholars to the evidencepresented by the Sri Lankan Pali sources was quite negative.As early as 1879 Herman Oldenberg said:The stories of the Sinhalese concerning Mahinda may containsome germ of historical truth. This germ, however, has been196