Asoka the Buddhist Emperor of India
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ASOKA THE BUDDHIST EMPEROR OF INDIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY HUMPRHEY MILFORD PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY ASOKA'S PILLAR AT LAURIYA-NANDAXGARH Frontispiece} ASOKA THE BUDDHIST EMPEROR OF INDIA VINCENT A. SMITH, C.I.E. M.A. (DUEL. ET OXON), HON. LITT D. (DUBLIN) INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE RETIRED, M.R.A.S. Author of The Early History of India, &c. THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M CM XX PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION DURING the ten years elapsed since the publication of the second edition of this book knowledge of the subject has made material advances. I have read everything printed that could be of use and am in a position to offer considerable improvements in the versions of the inscriptions, which are now fully understood, with small exceptions. Chapters IV and V have been rewritten, continuous comments on each document or group of documents being substituted for footnotes. The Maski Minor Rock Edict, the latest addition to the collection of edicts, which alone gives Asoka's name, is duly noticed, and the Gora- thagiri labels on the Barabar rocks have not been overlooked. The corrections in Chapters I to III are mostly consequential on the revised interpretation of the in- scriptions, but some are required by archaeological discoveries, while others merely set right sundry minor slips or errors, or effect necessary changes in references. I do not see any reason to change my scheme of chronology, although it may be open to slight revision at some future time. The Biblio- graphical Note has been enlarged. The alterations in Chapters VI and VII are few and unimportant. The war has delayed the completion and publication of the long expected critical edition of the inscriptions by Professor E. Hultzsch. The loss arising from the delay has been neutralized to a large extent because the learned professor published his principal emenda- tions in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society from time to time. V. A. S. November, 1919. 2004675 EXTRACT FROM PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION A VOLUME on Asoka Maurya by Professor Rhys Davids was intended to be the first of the 'Rulers ' of India series, but unfortunately circumstances pre- vented the fulfilment of that intention, and the series was closed leaving vacant the niche destined for the great Buddhist emperor. With the approval of Pro- fessor Rhys Davids I have undertaken the preparation of a supplementary volume giving in a popular form the substance of what is known concerning the Maurya empire. The chapter entitled 'The History of Asoka' will be found to differ widely from all other publications, such as Cunningham's Bhilsa Topes, which treat of that topic. I have tried to follow the example of the best modern historians, and to keep the legends separate from what seems to me to be authentic history. Among the legends I have placed the stories of the conversion of Ceylon and of the deliberations of the so-called Third Council. All the forms of those stories which have reached us are crowded with absurdities and contradictions from which legitimate criticism cannot extract trustworthy history. In dealing with the vexed question of transliteration I have shunned the pedantic atrocities of international systems, which do not shrink from presenting Krishna in the guise of Krsna, Champa as J5fampa, and so on. The consonants in the Indian words and names in this book are to be pronounced as in English, and the vowels usually as in Italian. The short unaccented a has an indistinct sound as in the word ' woman.' are other Long vowels marked when necessary ; diacritical marks have not been used in the text. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE HISTORY OF ASOKA . .11 CHRONOLOGY OF THE MAURYA PERIOD . 72 II. EXTENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE . 75 III. THE MONUMENTS 107 INSCRIBED PILLARS OF ASOKA . .146 IV. *THE ROCK EDICTS 149 V. THE PILLAR AND MISCELLANEOUS INSCRIPTIONS 198 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 227 VI. THE CEYLONESE LEGEND OF ASOKA . , .231 VII. THE INDIAN LEGENDS OF ASOKA .... 247 APPENDIX 268 INDEX 269 ILLUSTRATIONS 1. THE PILLAR AT LAURIYA-NANDANGARH . Frontispiece 2. INSCRIPTION ON THE RUMMINDEI PILLAR . p. 221 MAP. THE EMPIRE OF ASOKA, 250 B.C.. At end If it be true, as seems probable, that the Parkham statue is a contemporary portrait ot King Ajatasatru, the patron of Buddha in the sixth century B. c., and that the Patna statues are similar portraits of his successors, Kings of Magadha in the fifth century B. c., our ideas concerning the evolution of Indian sculpture require reconstruction. See Jayaswal, Green, Arim Sen, M. M. Haraparshad Sastri, and others in J. B. 0. Res. Soc., vol. v., part iv, December, 1919. V.A.S. Feb. I, 1920. CHAPTEE I THE HISTORY OF ASOKA WHEN Alexander, invincible before all enemies save death, passed away at Babylon in June. B. c. 323, and his generals assembled in council to divide the empire which no arm but his could control, they were compelled perforce to decide that the distant Indian provinces should remain in the hands of the officers and princes to whom they had been entrusted by the king. Two years later, when an amended partition was effected at Triparadeisos in Syria, Sibyrtios was confirmed as governor of Arachosia (Kandahar) and Gedrosia (Makran), the provinces of Aria (Herat) and Drangiana (Sistan) being assigned to Sta.sander the Cyprian, while Bactriana and Sogdiana to the north of the Hindu Kush were bestowed on Stasanor of Soli, another Cyprian. Oxyartes, father of Alexander's consort, Roxana, obtained the satrapy of the Paropani- sadai, or Kabul territory, the neighbouring Indian districts to the west of the Indus being placed in charge of Peithon, son of Agenor, whom Alexander had appointed ruler of Sind below the confluence of the rivers. Probably Peithon was not in a position to hold Sind after his master's death. Antipater, who arranged 12 ASOKA the partition, admitting that he possessed no force adequate to remove the Rajas to the east of the Indus, was obliged to recognize Omphis or Ambhi, king of Taxila, and Pdros, Alexander's honoured opponent, as lords of the Panjab, subject to a merely nominal 1 dependence on the Macedonian power . Philippos, whom Alexander had made satrap of that province, was murdered by his mercenary troops early in B. c. 324, and Alexander, who heard the news in Karmania, was unable to do more than appoint an officer named Eudemos to act as the colleague of King Ambhi. Eudemos managed to hold his ground for some time, but in or about B. c. 317 treacherously slew his Indian colleague, seized a hundred and twenty elephants, and with them and a considerable body of troops, inarched 2 off to help Eumenes in his struggle with Antipater . The departure of Eudemos marks the final collapse of the Macedonian attempt to establish a Greek empire in India. But several years before that event a new Indian 1 'For it was impossible to remove (jLteraKii/fjo-m) these kings without royal troops under the command of some distinguished ' general (Diodorus Sic. xviii. 39). 2 The partition of Triparadeisos is detailed in Diodorus Siculus, xviii. 39. His statement that the country along the Indus was assigned to Poros, and that along the Hydaspes to Taxiles (soil. Ambhi) cannot be correct, and the names of the kings seem to have been transposed. The departure of Eudemos is related, ibid. xix. 14. He is said to have seized the elephants after the death of Alexander, 'having treacherously slain Poros the king.' But there is first for a various reading irp3>Tov (' ') ns>pov (' Poros '). HIS HISTORY 13 power had arisen which could not brook the presence of foreign garrisons, and probably had destroyed most of them prior to the withdrawal of Eudemos. The death of Alexander in June, B. c. 323, must have been known in India early in the autumn, and it is reasonable to suppose that risings of the natives occurred as soon as the season for campaigning opened in October, if not earlier. The leader of the movement for the liberation of his country which then began was a young man named Chandragupta Maurya, who seems to have been a scion of the Nanda dynasty of Magadha, or South Bihar, then the premier state in the interior. With the help of an astute Brahman counsellor named Chanakya, who became his minister, Chandragupta dethroned and slew the Nanda king, exterminating his family. He then ascended the vacant throne at Pataliputra the capital, the modern Patna, and for twenty-four years ruled the realm with an iron hand. If Justin may be believed, the usurper turned into slavery the semblance of liberty which he had won for the Indians by his expulsion of the Macedonians, and oppressed the people with a cruel tyranny. Employing the fierce and more than half-foreign clans of the north-western frontier to execute his ambitious plans, he quickly extended his sway over the whole of Northern India, probably as far as the Narbada. Whether he first made himself master of Magadha and thence advanced northwards against the Macedonian garrisons, or first headed the risings in the Panjab, and then with the forces col- lected there swooped down upon theGangetic Kingdom, 1 4 ASOKA 1 does not clearly appear . There is, however, no doubt about the result of his action. Chandragupta became the first strictly historical emperor of India and ruled the land from sea to sea. Seleukos, surnamed Nikator, or the Conqueror, by reason of his many victories, had established himself as Satrap of Babylon after the partition of Tripara- deisos in B.