Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s28: Buddhist Missions

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s28

Language: English

Buddhist Missions

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At the conclusion of the Council Moggaliputta Tissa sent *theras* to different countries to preach and establish the Dhamma in those lands. The names of the missionaries and the countries to which they were sent are as follows¹ :

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¹ DV. viii, MV. xii. Thomas accepts Waddel's identification of M. Tissa with Upagupta (CHI. i. p. 506) : but see Pryzluski ; *La Legende* Pt. I ch. 2.

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The *Dīpavaṃsa* mentions that besides Majjhima, the mission to the Himalayas included Kassapagotta, Dundubhissara, Sahadeva and Mūlakadeva. Some of these names figure in inscriptions on relic caskets from Sāñchī and its neighbourhood. But Mogaliputa of these inscriptions could not be Moggaliputa Tissa ,as was thought at one time, because he was the pupil of Gotiputa, the heir of Dundubhisara who may well be identical with the missionary of the Himalayan region just mentioned. The names Kassapagotta and Majjhima are also found on the caskets, and the former is styled 'Sava-Hemavata-ācāriya' ; there was a Hemavata school among the Theravādins, and it might have had its origin in the Himalayan region converted by Kassapagotta, whose name is placed first in *Dīpavaṃsa* in the list of missionaries to the Yakkhas of Himavanta. The inscriptions are clearly later than the age of Aśoka, but this may be due to a redistribution of the relics undertaken some time subsequent to the death of the *theras*¹. It is worthy of note that the name of a Yona (foreigner, Greek or Persian) *thera* is included among these early missionaries of the faith.

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¹ *Monuments of Sāñchi* i. pp. 291-4.

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This account of the missions given by the Ceylonese chronicles may be accepted as evidence that in the later years of his reign Aśoka continued to strive for the spread of Buddhism with the same zeal as before. The action taken earlier in the reign had resulted in the establishment of a net-work of missions within the empire and outside. In the Thirteenth Rock Edict Aśoka forswears war as a means of conquest, declares that the true conquest is conquest of Dhamma (Dhammavijaya) and then records :

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'And this (conquest) has been won repeatedly by Devānāmpriya both here and among all (his) borderers, even as far as at (the distance of) six hundred *yojanas*, where the Yona king named (Antiyoka) (is ruling), and beyond this Antiyoka (where) four kings (are ruling), (viz., the king) named Turumaya, (the king) named Antikini, (the king) named Maka, (and the king) named Alikasudara, (and) towards the south, (where) the Choḍas and Pāṇḍyas (are ruling) as far as Tāmraparṇi.

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'Likewise here in the king's territory, among the Yonas and Kambojas, among the Nābhākas and Nābhitis (Nabhapamtis), among the Bhojas and Piṭinikas, and the Andhras and Palidas, everywhere (people) are conforming to Devānāmpriya's instruction in morality.

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'Even those to whom the envoys of Devānāmpriya do not go, having heard of the duties of morality, the ordinances, (and)

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the instruction in morality of Devānāmpriya, are conforming to morality and will conform to (it)’.

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No tangible evidence is forthcoming to enable us to estimate the measure of success that attended the missions to foreign lands; some stones bearing the obviously Buddhist symbols of the wheel and trident have been found in Egypt, but in the absence of any inscriptions on them, their age must remain uncertain, and they may have nothing to do with the missions of Aśoka. But the discovery at Memphis of some of Indian figures made in moulds about 200B.C. may be more to the point¹. The conversion of Ceylon has been treated with epic fulness in the Ceylonese chronicles; but even here the details of the story are open to doubt. Devānāmpriya Tissa was the contemporary of Aśoka in Ceylon, and the two monarchs were friends ‘though they had never seen each other’. Soon after his accession Tissa sent an embassy to Aśoka; it was led by his nephew Ariṭṭha and carried valuable presents to Aśoka; the mission took a week for the journey by sea from Jambukola to Tāmralipti and another week from there to reach Pāṭaliputra. It was received with great honours, spent five weeks in the Mauryan capital, and then returned to Ceylon bringing as a return present ‘all that was needful for consecrating a king’ and the gift of the true doctrine in the form of a message telling Tissa that Aśoka had become a lay disciple in the religion of the Buddha and exhorting him to do likewise. Tissa consecrated himself a second time thereafter; Mahinda came one month later, says the *Dīpavaṃsa*. Some time later Ariṭṭha was despatched once more to Pāṭaliputra to fetch Saṅghamittā for the ordination of Queen Anulā and her companions, and a branch of the Bodhi-tree for being planted in Ceylon¹. Some modern writers are inclined to discredit the whole account, but there is nothing intrinsically improbable here, and Aśoka's reference to Tambapaṇṇi twice in his inscriptions shows that once more the chronicles are only embellishing historical occurrences.

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¹ Aryan woman of the Punjab, seated figure in Indian attitude with the scarf over the left shoulder. ‘These are the first remains of Indians known on the Mediterranean. Hitherto there have been no material evidences for that connection which is stated to have existed, both by embassies from Egypt and Syria to India and by the great Buddhist mission sent by Aśoka as far west as Greece and Cyrene. We seem now to have touched the Indian colony in Memphis, and we may hope for more light on that connection which seems to have been so momentous for Western thought’. Petrie in *Man* VIII (1908) No. 71; See also Petrie—*Seventy years in Archaeology* p. 213 and *British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian research Account—Fourteenth year, 1908—Memphis* by Petrie (1908) ch. VIII. I owe these references to Prof. T. Balakrishna Nayar of Presidency College, Madras. For the Ptolemaic grave-stone with Buddhist symbols, wheel and *triratna*, see JRAS 1898, p. 875.

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¹ DV. XI 25-40 : XII 1-7 ; xv 74-95 ; XVI 1-7, 38-41 and XVII 81-87. The account of MV is much better arranged. XI 18-42, XVIII and XIX. I have omitted from my account all reference to the part of Sumana, the son of Saṅghamittā.

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After his conquest of Kalinga, the empire of Aśoka extended practically over the whole of India with the exception of the extreme south of the peninsula which according to the second Rock Edict was occupied by the independent states of Choḷa, Pāṇḍya, Satiyaputa and Keralaputa. Hiuen Tsang notices the existence of numerous stūpas ascribed to Aśoka all over India; this does not always help us to determine the limits of the empire. Towards the north and north-west the empire clearly reached much farther than the frontier of British India. The territory gained by treaty from Seleucus continued in the Mauryan empire, and Aśoka refers to Antiochus of Syria in a manner that implies that their territories were contiguous; thus the southern half of Afghanistan up to the Hindu Kush, and practically the whole of British Baluchistan was included in the empire which thus held the ‘scientific frontier’ which eluded the grasp of British rulers of India in the nineteenth century. Tradition is strong that Kashmir was under Aśoka's rule. Following earlier authorities, Kalhaṇa, the historian of Kashmir, records² that Aśoka built the town of Śrīnagarī besides a large number of stūpas and some shrines to Śiva, two of which were called Aśokeśvara after the king. Aśoka is said to have been followed in this region by his son Jalauka who expelled the mlecchas that had overrun the land and then continued the policy of his father and introduced wholesome administrative reforms. Pandrethan, a small village three miles above the modern city of Śrīnagar, is supposed to represent Kalhaṇa's Purāṇādhishṭhāna (ancient capital), a name used even in Hiuen Tsang's time for Aśoka's city. Kashmir was a stronghold of Śaivism in later historical times, and to this, rather than to any real leanings to Śaivism on the part of Aśoka, must be traced the notion that he built important Śiva temples in Kashmir. We have noted already that Kashmir and Gandhāra received one of the missions sent out for the spread of the Dhamma, and Hiuen Tsang, who saw four Aśoka stūpas in Kashmir, records several edifying legends of local import.

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² I 101-23. ed. Stein. Watters, Yuan Chwang i, 158-70 ; Beal, Life ch. 2 ; Albirūni (Sachau) i. 207.

Linked texts (4)

Rājataraṅgiṇī — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit
Dīpavaṃsa — Pāli
Mahāvaṃsa — Pāli
Sāñcī