Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c23: Appendix A. The Results of Aśoka's Propaganda in Western Asia

Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c23

Language: English

Appendix A. The Results of Aśoka's Propaganda in Western Asia

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¹ Mainly an extract from an article published in the *Buddhistic Studies* (ed. B. C. Law).

The vast region beyond the western frontiers of India came within the geographical horizon of Buddhist writers as early as the *Bāveru Jātaka*, and possibly the *Sussondi Jātaka*, and its princes figure not inconspicuously in Buddhist inscriptions of the third century B.C. The records of Aśoka show that the eyes of the imperial missionary of Magadha were turned more to the West than to the East; and even the traditional account of early Buddhist proselytising efforts given in the chronicles of Ceylon,² does not omit to mention the country of the Yonas where Mahārakkhita "delivered in the midst of the people the '*Kālakārāma suttanta*,' in consequence of which a hundred and seventy thousand living beings attained to the reward of the path (of salvation) and ten thousand received the *pabbajjā*." It will perhaps be argued that the Yona country mentioned in the chronicles is to be identified with some district in the Kābul valley, and is not to be taken to refer to the realm of "Antiochos,³ the Yona king, and the kings, the neighbours of that Antiochos, namely, Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander," mentioned in the second and the thirteenth rock edicts of Aśoka. Rhys Davids, in fact, is inclined to regard the declaration in these edicts about the success of Aśoka's missionary propaganda in the realms of Yona princes as mere "royal rhodomontade". "It is quite likely," says he, "that the Greek kings are only thrown in by way of make-weight, as it were; and that no emissaries had been actually sent there at all."¹ Sir Flinders Petrie is, however, of opinion that in the Ptolemaic Period Buddhism and Buddhist festivals had already reached the shores of Egypt. He infers this from Indian figures found at Memphis. An epigraph from the Thebaid mentions as the dedicator "Sophon the Indian".²

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² *Mahāvaṁśa*, Ch. XII.

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³ Dr. Jarl Charpentier has contributed a paper to *A Volume of Indian Studies presented to Professor E. J. Rapson* in which he revives the suggestion of Prinsep (Hultzsch, *Aśoka*, xxxi) that "Aṁtiyaka" referred to by Aśoka is Antiochos Soter (c 281-61), and not his son Antiochos Theos (261-46). But his theory requires that Chandragupta ascended the throne in 327-25 B.C., that he was identical with Xandrames and that the story of his visit to Alexander (recorded by Justin and Plutarch) is a myth. The theory is opposed not only to the evidence of Justin and Plutarch, but to the known facts about the ancestry of Chandragupta. Unlike Xandrames, Chandragupta is nowhere represented as of barber origin. His paternal ancestors are described as rulers by Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist writers alike.

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¹ *Buddhist India*, p. 298.

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² Mahaffy, *A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty*, 155 f.

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Alberuni,³ writing in the eleventh century A. D. says, "In former times Khurāsān, Persis, Irāk, Mosul, the country up to the frontier of Syria, was Buddhistic, but then Zarathustra went forth from Ādharbaijān and preached Magism in Balkh (Baktra). His doctrine came into favour with king Gushtasp, and his son Isfendiyād spread the new faith both in East and West, both by force and by treaties. He founded fire-temples through his whole Empire, from the frontiers of China to those of the Greek Empire. The succeeding kings made their religion (i.e., Zoroastrianism) the obligatory state-religion for Persis and Irāk. In consequence the Buddhists were banished from those countries, and had to emigrate to the countries east of Balkh ......Then came Islam." The above account may not be correct in all its particulars. The statement that Buddhism flourished in the countries of Western Asia before Zoroaster is clearly wrong. But the prevalence of the religion of Śākyamuni in parts of Western Asia in a period considerably anterior to Alberuni and its suppression by Zoroastrianism and Islam may well be based upon fact. The antagonism of Buddhism to the fire-cult is hinted at in the *Bhūridatta Jātaka*.⁴ It has even been suggested that Zoroastrian scriptures allude to disputes with the Buddhists.⁵

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³ Sachau, *Alberuni's India*, Vol. I, p. 21.

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⁴ No. 543.

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⁵ Sir Charles Eliot, *Hinduism and Buddhism*, III, 450.

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Four centuries before Alberuni, Hiuen Tsang bore witness to the fact that Lang kie(ka)-lo, a country subject to Persia, contained above 100 monasteries and more than 6,000 Brethren who applied themselves to the study of the Great and Little "Vehicles". Persia (Po-la-sse) itself contained two or three *Saṅghārāmas*, with several hundred priests, who principally studied the teaching of the Little Vehicle according to the Sarvāstivādin school. The *pātra* of Sākya Buddha was in this country, in the King's palace.¹

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¹ Beal, *Records of the Western World*, Vol. II, pp. 277-78; Watters *Yuan Chwang*, II, 257.

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The Chinese pilgrim did not probably personally visit Persia. But no doubt need be entertained regarding the existence of Buddhist communities and *Saṅghārāmas* or monasteries in Irāṇ. Stein discovered a Buddhist monastery in "the terminal marshes of the Helmund" in Seistān.² Mānī, the founder of the Manichæan religion, who was born in A.D. 215-16, at Ctesiphon in Babylonia and began to preach his gospel probably in A.D. 242, shows unmistakable traces of Buddhist influence.³ In his book *Shābūrqān* (*Shapurakhan*) he speaks of the Buddha as a messenger of God. Legge and Eliot refer to a Manichæan treatise which has the form of a Buddhist Sūtra. It speaks of Mānī as the *Tathāgata* and mentions *Buddhas* and the *Bodhisattva*. In Bunyiu Nanjio's *Catalogue of the Chinese translation of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka*, App., II, No. 4, we have reference to a Parthian prince who became a Buddhist *śramaṇa* or monk before A.D. 148. In his *History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon*,⁴ Dr. Vincent Smith refers to a picture of a four-armed Buddhist saint or *Bodhisattva* in the guise of a Persian with black beard and whiskers, holding a thunderbolt (*vajra*) in his left hand, which has been found at a place called Dandān-Uiliq in Turkistan. Such figures are undoubtedly the products of a type of Buddhism which must have developed in Irāṇ, and enjoyed considerable popularity as late as the eighth century A.D. which is the date assigned by Dr. Smith to the fresco or distemper paintings on wood and plaster discovered at Dandān-Uiliq.

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² Sir Charles Eliot, *Hinduism and Buddhism*, III, 3.

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³ *Ibid*, p. 446; *The Dacca University Journal*, Feb., 1926, pp. 108, 111; *JRAS*, 1913, 69, 76, 81.

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⁴ P. 310.

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It is difficult to say to what extent Buddhist literature made its influence felt in Western Asia. Sir Charles Eliot points out the close resemblance between certain Manichæan works and the Buddhist *Suttas* and the *Pātimokkha*, and says that according to Cyril of Jerusalem, the Manichæan scriptures were written by one Scythianus and revised by his disciple Terebinthus who changed his name to Boddas.¹ He finds in this "jumble" allusions to Buddha Śākyamuni and the Bo-tree. It may further be pointed out that some *Jātaka* tales show a surprising similarity to some of the stories in the *Arabian Nights*. The *Samugga Jātaka*,² for instance, tells the story of the demon who put his beautiful wife in a box and guarded her in this manner in order that she might not go astray. But this did not prevent her from taking pleasure with others. The tale in all its essentials recurs in the *Arabian Nights*.³

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¹ *Cf.* McCrindle, *Ancient India as described in Classical Literature*, p. 185. "Terebinthus proclaimed himself learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and gave out that his name was no longer Terebinthus but that he was a new Buddha (Buddas) and that he was born of a virgin. Terebinthus was the disciple of Scythianus, who was a Saracen born in Palestine and who traded with India."

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² No. 436

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³ Burton, *The Book of the Thousand Nights*, I. 12ff; Olcott, *Stories from the Arabian Nights*, p. 3; Lane's *Arabian Nights*, pp. 8-9. A similar story is found in *Lambaka* X, *taraṅga* 8 of the *Kathā-sarit-sāgara*; Penzer, *The Ocean of Story*, Vol. V. pp. 151-52. "So attachment to women, the result of infatuation produces misery to all men. But indifference to them produces in the discerning emancipation from the bonds of existence."

Linked texts (5)

Jātaka — Pāli
Kathāsaritsāgara — Somadeva Bhaṭṭa, Sanskrit
Major Rock Edict II — Prakrit
Pātimokkha — Pāli
Major Rock Edict XIII — Prakrit