The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.56

c30.56

Benevolent institutions on the Asokan model, for the benefit of travellers, the poor, and sick, were established throughout the empire. Rest-houses (*dharmsālā*) were built in both the towns and rural parts, and provided with food and drink, physicians being stationed at them to supply medicines to the necessitous without stint. The king also imitated his prototype in the foundation of numerous religious establishments, devoted to the service of both the Hindu gods and the Buddhist ritual. In his closing years the latter received the chief share of the royal favour; and numerous monasteries were erected, as well as several thousand *stūpas*, each about 100 feet high, built along the banks of the sacred Ganges. These latter structures doubtless were of a flimsy character, built chiefly of timber and bamboos, and so have left no trace; but the mere multiplication of *stūpas*, however perishable the materials might be, was always a work of merit. Although Buddhism was visibly waning in the days of Harsha and Hiuen Tsang, the monks of the order were still numerous, and the occupants of the monasteries enumerated by the pilgrim numbered nearly two hundred thousand.¹ A monastic population of such magnitude offered abundant opportunities for the exercise of princely liberality.