The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.44

c10.44

It is difficult to sympathize with the pleasure and delight of the brethren. The stern and fearless reprobation of a deed of exceptional atrocity which we should expect from a great moral teacher is wholly wanting in Buddha’s words, and is poorly compensated for by the politeness of a courtier. But, as stated above, it is difficult to accept the story of the parricide as historically true; and our doubts are not lessened when the Ceylonese chronicler asks us to believe that Ajātasatru was followed in due course by four other parricide kings, of whom the last was dethroned by his minister, with the approval of a justly indignant people. The fact that the history of Parthia presents a nearly exact parallel in the succession of three parricide monarchs is of little value in establishing the credibility of the Buddhist tradition.² Probably Ajātasatru, like many later Indian sovereigns, did not confine his royal favour to any one sect, but at different times patronized the followers of the ‘former Buddhas’ led by Devadatta, the adherents of Gautama’s reformed Buddhism, and the Jains. Later when in consequence of Asoka’s patronage Buddhism became pre-eminent in northern India, leanings towards Jainism became criminal in the eyes of ecclesiastical chroniclers, who were ready to blacken the memory of persons deemed heretical with unfounded accusations of the gravest character.