Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s10.15

c12.s10.15

The credit of the initiative in this direction is attributed by the Ceylonese chronicles to Tissa Moggaliputta. In the inscriptions Aśoka speaks of the missions as his own. To whomsoever the initiative might have been due, either to Tissa Moggaliputta, as the tradition claims, or to Aśoka himself under the inspiration of the Saṅgha, it is quite conceivable that after the reorganisation of the Magadhan church in the third council and with the co-operation of the emperor himself, efforts were made to carry Buddhism to distant countries. The success of the first missionary activity might not have been very large so far as the foreign countries were concerned but within the Maurya empire they must have been crowned with immense success. The epigraphic records and Buddhist monuments of the post-Aśokan times bear clear testimony to it.