The Chronology of India, from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century c5.39

c5.39

A.B. 219 cur. Aśoka crowned at Pāṭaliputra, according to the *Mahāvaṃśa*, in the fourth year of his reign, and 218 years after Buddha's death. The *Mahāvaṃśa* assigns to Aśoka a reign of thirty-seven years; the year 257 A.B., in which, according to Bühler, the Rupnāth and Sahasrām edicts are dated, would correspond, therefore, to the last of his reign. The chief events mentioned in his edicts are:—Aśoka's conquest of Kalinga in his ninth year (Rock Edict xiii); his institution, in the eleventh year, of an annual progress throughout his dominions in search of religious truth; his solemn adoption, in the thirteenth year, of the Dhamma or Sacred Law, and the order for its propagation by his officials on their annual tours through their districts (Rock Edict iii); and the appointment, in his 259 fourteenth year, of the Dhammamahāmātras or Superintendents of the Sacred Law. His conversion to Buddhism is assigned by the *Mahāvaṃśa* to his fourth year, but on the evidence of the edicts it may have occurred as late as the twenty-ninth year of his reign.