The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.55

c30.55

At this period the king began to show marked favour to the quietist teachings of Buddhism, first in its Hīnayāna, and afterwards in its Mahāyāna form. He led the life of a devotee, enforcing the Buddhist prohibitions against the destruction of animal life with the utmost strictness and scant regard for the sanctity of human life. ‘He sought’, we are told, ‘to plant the tree of religious merit to such an extent that he forgot to sleep and eat’; and forbade the slaughter of any living thing, or the use of flesh as food throughout the ‘Five Indies’ under pain of death without hope of pardon.