JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. i. THE DATE OP BUDDHA'S DEATH, AS DETERMINED BY A RECORD OF ASOKA. BY J. F. FLEET, I.C.S. (RETD.), PH.D., C.I.E. HERE is a certain rock edict of Asoka, regarding the interpretation and application of which no final result has as yet been arrived at. That this has been the case,, is due chiefly to an unfortunate initial mistake, which intro- duced a supposed word, taken to mean " two and a half," into the reading of a passage of primary importance which mentions a certain period of years. It was subsequently fully admitted that a misreading had been made. But the effect of that misreading remained. And, like similar mistakes in other matters, the initial mistake made here left an influence which neither the scholar who made it, nor subsequent inquirers, could shake off. Within the limits of space available in this Journal, it is not practicable to handle the edict as fully as could be wished. I hope, however, to be able to shew, with sufficient clearness, what the purport of the record really is, and the extent to which we are indebted to previous inquiries for assistance in arriving at its true meaning. For some of the readers of this Journal, the chief interest of the matter will probably lie in its bearing on the question, J.B.A.S. 1904. 1 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 07:38:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00031361 2 THE DATE OF BUDDHA'S DEATH not yet settled, of the date of the death of Buddha. But it involves also other points of leading interest, in connection with ASoka. The edict in question has been found, in somewhat varying versions which illustrate two redactions of it, in Northern India at Sahasram, Rupnath, and Bairat, and in Mysore at Brahmagiri, Siddapura, and Jatinga-Ramesvara. The records at the last three places include also a second edict, which has not yet been found in Northern India. With that, however, we are not here concerned. Of the edict with which we are concerned, the Bairat, Siddapura, and Jatinga-Ramesvara versions are so fragmentary as to be of but little use. Of the remaining versions, those at Rupnath and Brahmagiri are the best preserved and the most complete. As will be seen, the Brahmagiri record is of extreme importance in more respects than one, in addition to giving us the place, Suvarnagiri, which I shall identify further on, where Asoka was in religious retirement when he issued the edict; and it is very fortunate that we have the facsimiles of it, and of the Siddapura and Jatinga-Ramesvara records, published with Dr. Biihler's article in the Epigraphia Indica, vol. iii, 1894-95, pp. 134 to 142, which were made from the excellent inked estampages supplied by Dr. Hultzsch, the Government Epigraphist; if we had not those facsimiles, we might still have been without an accurate knowledge of the contents of those records, and perhaps without a recognition of the point which settles one of the important questions decided by the edict. But the Sahasram record, though considerably damaged, is of extreme value in connection with at any rate one important passage. The matter is decided by the three texts at Sahasram, Rupnath, and Brahmagiri. And it is necessary to consider only them on this occasion. In respect of the Bairat, Siddapura, and Jatinga-Ramesvara texts, it is here sufficient to say that they do not contain anything militating, in any way, against the results established by the other three texts. It is to be premised that the edict is a lecture on the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 07:38:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00031361 FROM A RECORD OP ASOKA. o good results of displaying energy in matters of religion. The whole text of it is more or less of interest. But it is sufficient for present purposes to give two extracts from it. Before, however, going any further, it must be stated that, in the earliest discussions of the contents of this edict, doubts were expressed as to whether it should be understood as a Buddhist or as a Jain manifesto, and as to whether it was issued by Asoka or by some other king. But it is not necessary to revert to those questions, except in so far as the varying opinions, as to the sectarian nature of the record, have borne upon some of the proposals made regarding the interpretation of certain words in it. It is quite certain that the edict was issued by Asoka. And, whatever may be the religion which Asoka professed originally, it is quite certain that he was converted to Buddhism, and that this edict is a Buddhist proclamation. This is made clear by the so-called Bhabra edict, which, addressed to the Magadha Samgha or community of Buddhist monks and nuns of Magadha, speaks, in the most explicit terms, of the respect paid, and the goodwill displayed, by " the king Piyadasi," that is As"oka as He of Gracious Mien, to " the Buddha, the Faith (Dharma), and the Order (Samgha)." Nor is it necessary to review certain disquisitions which have been given with a view to bringing the supposed purport of the edict, particularly in the matter of two stages in the religious career of Asoka, into harmony with the assertions, or supposed assertions, of the Southern tradition as represented by the Dipammsa and the Mahavamsa. Those disquisitions were wide of the mark; the tradition and the record having, in reality, no chronological details in common, except in respect of the number of years that elapsed from the death of Buddha to the abhisheka or anointment of Asoka to the sovereignty. And Dr. Biihler, at a later time, in cancelling the misreading on which he had acted, practically withdrew (see IA, xxii, p. 300) at any rate " one half of the historical deductions,"— though he somewhat inconsiderately did not specify exactly which Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 07:38:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00031361 4 THE DATE OF BUDDHA'S DEATH half,— which he himself had given at great length (IA, vi, pp. 151 to 154, and vii, pp. 148 to 160) in his original examinations of the Sahasram and Rupnath records. We are concerned with only the readings and inter- pretations of certain words in two passages in the edict. And, in giving the texts of those two passages, I of course follow, as closely as possible, the latest published readings of each version of the edict. But I supplement those readings by anything which I myself can gather from those reproductions of the originals which are real facsimiles, or can suggest with confidence in any other way. It will be convenient to deal first with a passage which stands in the Sahasram record near the end, and in the other two records at the end, of the edict. Of this passage, we have the following texts. In all essential details, I adhere exactly to the decipherments of the individual syllables made by Dr. Biihler (IA, xxii, 1893, p. 303, and El, iii, 1894-95, p. 138) and M. Senart (IA, xx, pp. 155, 156, and JA, 1892, i, p. 487). But I differ from those scholars in a detail of analysis in the Rupnath record, regarding which reference may be made to also page 13 below. We must not take sata-vivdsd as a compound. It must be taken as two separate words. The word sata, = Sata, the base, means ' hundreds, centuries;' just like the nominative plural sata, = Satdni, of the Sahasram record. And, in conformity with a common method of expression in Hindu dates, in translating which we have to supply the word 'of in order to obtain a grammatical rendering, the two words sata and sata are in apposition, not with only the word duve, 'two,' and the numerical symbol for 200, but with the words and the numerical symbols which mean 256; though, of course, the intended purport is, not 256 centuries, but two centuries and fifty-six years. The texts are :— Sahasram, lines 6, 7:— Iyam [cha savane {read savane)] vivuthena duve sa-parimalati sata vivutha ti 200 50 6. Rupnath, lines 5, 6:— Vyuthena savane kate 200 50 6 sata vivasa ta (or ti). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Warwick, on 21 May 2018 at 07:38:25, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00031361 FKOM A RECORD OF ASOKA. 0 Brahmagiri, line 8:— Iyam cha sava[ne] sav[a]p[i]te vyuthena 200 50 6. In the words iyam cha sdvane, sdvane, " and this same precept," of the Sahasram and Brahmagiri versions, and in the simple sdvane, " the precept" or " (this same) precept," of the Rupnath version, reference is made to an earlier passage in the edict, of which the general tenor is:— " And to this same purpose this precept has been inculcated: Let both the lowly, and those who are exalted, exert them- selves !; " 1 because, as the preceding context explains, even a lowly man, who exerts himself, may attain heaven, high though it is.