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Art. XXX.—The Identity of Piyadasi (Priyadarśin) with Aśoka Maurya, and some connected Problems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In my paper entitled “ The Authorship of the Piyadasi Inscriptions” the question of authorship was treated on the assumption that the place of Piyadasi in history was unknown. This mode of treatment was adopted because I desired to examine afresh, and with perfect impartiality, the commonly accepted identification of Piyadasi with Aśoka Maurya. Before I undertook that examination I did not feel absolute certainty that the doubts as to the identification long ago expressed by Professor H. H. Wilson and recently again put forward by Bābū P. C. Mukherjī might not have some basis in fact. The problem of the Aśoka chronology is involved with the question of the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and nearly the whole of the chronology of the history of ancient India depends upon the determination of the date of Asoka. For these reasons I felt compelled, in order to satisfy my own mind, to thoroughly examine the evidence for the identification of Aśoka with Piyadasi, and to see whether or not it is open to any doubt. The result of the examination is that to my mind no doubt is any longer possible respecting either the identity of Aśoka Maurya with Piyadasi, or respecting the approximate dates of the accession both of Aśoka and of his grandfather Candragupta. By “approximate dates” I mean dates with a margin of possible error not exceeding two years.
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References
page 827 note 1 Ante, p. 481.
page 828 note 1 “ The result is that the Dîpavaṃsa—be it in that very version which we possess or in a similar one—was written between the beginning of the fourth and the first third of the fifth century. We do not know as yet the exact date of the composition of the Mahâvaṃsa, but if we compare the language and style in which the two works are written there will scarcely be any doubt as to the priority of the Dîpavaṃsa.” (Oldenberg, “ The Dîpavaṃsa,” Introd., p. 9.)
page 829 note 1 The translation is in accordance with the text, which seems to be here faulty.
page 829 note 2 Oldenberg, “ The Dîpavaṃsa,” pp. 146–193; sections vi, 1, 2, 12–15, 18, 23, 24; vii, 8, 14–16, 18; xv, 88; xvi, 5.
page 830 note 1 See “ Report on Explorations in the Nepalese Tarāi,” by Bābū P. C. Mukherjī, with Prefatory Note by V. A. Smith, now in the press. The notiees. of the stūpa published by Dr. Fugrer are fictions.
page 831 note 1 “India, which after Alexander's death, as if the yoke of servitude had been shaken off from its neck, had put his prefects to death. Sandrocottus was the leader who achieved their freedom,” etc. (Justin, xv, ch. iv, transl. by McCrindle in “ The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great,” p. 327.)
page 832 note 1 The common reading Alexandrum in Justin's text, which makes nonsense, has been rightly corrected to Nandrum by Gutschmid (Rhein. Mus., 12, 261; quoted by McCrindle, op. cit., p. 327, note).
page 833 note 1 Bhagwān Lāl Indrajī and Buhler in Ind. Ant., vii, 262.
page 834 note 1 Owing to a clerical error in the text, the Mahāvaṃsa is usually quoted as stating that the reign of Candragupta lasted thirty-four years. The blunder is corrected by the commentary, as pointed out by Professor Rhys Davids (“ Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon,” p. 41, note).
page 836 note 1 Pliny, Solinus, and Strabo, as translated by McCrindle in “ Ancient India,” pp. 7, 14, 20. Strabo calls the son of Candragupta by the name Amitrochades, or, in another passage, Allitrochades. The first form of the name is probably a transliteration of the Sanskrit compound amitraghāta, ‘ slayer of foes,’ which must have been a title of Bindusāra, son of Candragupta. Similarly, Aśoka in his inscriptions uses his title Piyadasi, ‘ the Humane,’ and not his personal name.
page 837 note 1 The chronological argument is an elaboration of that given by M. Senart in “Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi.”
page 839 note 1 The Nine Nandas are mentioned in the Mahāvamsa, as translated by Wijesiṁha. Tumour omits the word Nanda. The Dīpavaṁsa (v, 97–99) mentions only the ten sons of Kālāśoka, and omits the second period of twenty-two years.
page 840 note 1 “ One hundred and sixty years after the utter passing away of the Blessed Buddha, when King Dharmâçoka was reigning in Kusumapura (i.e. Pâtaliputra).” (Bhavya, in Rockhill, “ The Life of the Buddha,” p. 182.) The translator is hardly justified in inserting the words “i.e. Kâlâçoka” after “ Dharmâçoka.”
page 841 note 1 Mahendra was the younger brother of the emperor according to the Indian tradition, which seems to me more probable than the Ceylonese version which describes him as the illegitimate son of Aśoka, and gives him a sister Sanghamitrā, ‘ the friend of the Order,’ as a colleague. I do not believe in Sanghamitrā.
page 841 note 2 The following four dates of Aśoka are found in the Chinese Tripiṭaka, namely, A.B. 116, 118, 130, and 218. The last-mentioned is derived from a Ceylonese source. With the pair of figures 116 and 118, compare the Ceylonese dates for the Council, 234 or 236. (I-tsing, ed. Takakusu, p. 14.)
page 842 note 1 “ Chips,” 2nd ed., i, p. 198.
page 842 note 2 The earliest account of this alleged Council is in the eleventh Khandaka of the Cullavagga, translated by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg in “ Sacred Books of the East,” vol. xx, Vinaya Texts, part iii, p. 370. The Ceylonese version of the tale is given by Hardy in “ Eastern Monachism,” pp. 173–177.
page 843 note 1 “ Sacred Books of the East,” Vinaya Texts, part iii, by Rhys Davids and Oldenberg, vol. xx.
page 845 note 1 The story of the revision of the Vinaya is, however, perhaps older than a.d. 400, because Fā-hien (chap, xxv), who dates the condemnation of the “ ten indulgences ” by the Vaisāli Council in a.b. 100, seems to affirm a revision of the Vinaya texts. Beal translates “ compared and collated the Vinaya Píṭaka, afresh.” Legge's rendering “ examined afresh and collated the collection of disciplinary books” means Eke same thing. Giles objects to the word ‘afresh,’ and translates “ examined and compared the Disciplines over and over again ” ; observing “that the text does not seem to imply more than that a search was made for the passages quoted by the Nonconformists.”
page 847 note 1 It is not to be confounded with the Kukkuṭārāma at or near Gayā. The metrical Aśokāvadāna professes to have been recited at the Kukkuṭa vihara in the garden called Upakaṇṭthikārāma on the bank of the Ganges at Pāṭaliputra. (Rājendralāla Mitra, “ Nepalese Buddhist Literature,” p. 6.)
page 848 note 1 “ Buddhism ” (S.P.C.K.), latest ed., 1899, p. 217.
page 250 note 1 The text reads “Nanda and Mahāadma,” with the word ‘king’ (rgyalpo) in the singular. The word ‘and’ is an obvious clerical error. According to the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata Purāṇas, Nanda Mahāpadma, the first of the Nanda dynasty, was the son of Mahānandin Saiśunāga by a Sudra woman, and from his time all the kings were Sūdras. The Vāyu and Matsya Purāṇas state that Mahāpadma reigned for eighty-eight years. The history of the Nandas has been hopelessly falsified.
page 851 note 1 Laidlay : “ Pilgrimage of Fa-Hian,” p. 248.
page 851 note 2 Quoted in Hardy, “ Eastern Monachism,” p. 188.
page 851 note 3 Professor Rhys Davids has suggested that the Kālāśoka of the Ceylonese may be intended as an equivalent for Nanda. (“ Buddhism,” p. 221.)
page 853 note 1 I use the word ‘ scriptures ’ merely as a convenient term without prejudice to the question whether or not the Buddhist books had been reduced to writing in the time of Aśoka.
page 855 note 1 Aśoka became a lay disciple (upāsala) in his ninth year; joined the Order (saṁghe upayātē) and assumed the monkish garb more than two and a half years later, and had despatched missionaries before his thirteenth year. These facts are established by the Thirteenth Eock Edict read with the Bairāt Edict, and by I-tsing's reference to statues of Aśoka in monkish garb (ed. Takakusu, p. 73). The interpretation of M. Senart that Aśoka merely visited the Assembly (saṁgha) is, I think, untenable. Of course, the monasticism of a reigning emperor must hare been of a very modified kind.