King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

eousness can hardly have been Buddhist monks, because theemperor protected all faiths and used dhamma to mean somethingmuch more generally acceptable than Buddhist doctrine.He argues that the lists of destinations in the Buddhist sourceson the one hand and the inscriptions on the other are discrepant,though they overlap; that some of them were alreadyfamiliar with Buddhism by that date; and that the dates tooare discrepant.Erich Frauwallner, on the other hand, accepts the Buddhistaccount in most particulars. 41 But he identifies it with Aśoka’sembassies and thus holds the emperor directly responsible. Hefurther argues that the missions set out from Vidisā in centralIndia, where the missionaries’ remains were found. He identifiesthe geographical names in Theravādin sources with someof those in the inscriptions, and glosses over the difficulty ofthe date.On the whole I side with Frauwallner. The geographicalidentifications are too uncertain to help us. While Lamotte isright to point out that some of the areas visited, notably Kashmir,had Buddhists already, that does not disprove that missionscould be sent there. The chroniclers, as so often happens,had no interest in recording a gradual and undramatic process,and allowed history to crystallize into clear-cut episodeswhich could be endowed with edifying overtones; but thisoversimplification does not prove that clear-cut events neveroccurred. We know from the inscriptions that they did. Thereis a discrepancy of about five years in the dates; as the dates ofAśoka’s embassies are certain, within a year or two, I suggestthat we must not flinch from concluding that on this point theBuddhist sources are slightly out. Maybe Frauwallner is alsoright about where the missions left from, for the Sri Lankan11