Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s23.3

c11.s23.3

Tradition associates Aśoka with the viceroyalties of Taksha-śilā and Ujjayinī, and we know from the inscriptions¹ that these were held by princes of the royal family. The beginning of young Aśoka's viceroyalty of Ujjayinī was marked by romance ; when he halted at Vidiśā on his way to the provincial capital, he fell in love with Devi, the beautiful daughter of a merchant, and made her his wife; the two children born out of this marriage, a son and a daughter, were Mahinda and Saṅghamittā, who having renounced the world attained celebrity as the authors of the conversion of Ceylon to Buddhism². It is possible that Aśoka founded a Saṅghārāma and erected the stūpa at Sāñchī because of the pleasant associations he had with the birthplace of his beautiful Devi.