Tribes in Ancient India c6.30

c6.30

Turning from legend or semi-legend to fact, we note that in the days of Aśoka and some of his immediate successors, Gandhāra was one of the most flourishing seats of Buddhism. We learn from Rock Edict V that Aśoka appointed *Dharma-mahāmātras* (high officers in the department of dharma or religious conduct) to further the welfare and happiness of the Gandhāras.¹ Fā-Hien, the Chinese pilgrim, who visited India at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., relates that Gandhāra was the place where Dharmavivardhana, son of Aśoka, ruled. Here the Buddha, when a Bodhisattva, was supposed to have given his eyes for another man.² Buddhist scholastic philosophy reached its culmination in the fifth century A.D., at the time when two famous Gandhārans, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, flourished. Asaṅga, at first an adherent of the semi-orthodox Mahīsāsakas, later became a great teacher of Yogācāra. Vasubandhu likewise became a convert to Mahāyānism; he was celebrated as the author of the *Abhidharmakoṣa*. Other notable Buddhist scholars who made Gandhāra, and particularly its capital Takṣaśilā (Taxila) famous throughout India were Dhammapāla,³ Yasadatta,⁴ and Aṅgulimāla.⁵ For legendary accounts of Gandhāra as associated with Buddhism, see, e.g. *Gandhāra Jātaka*, *Sāsana-vaṃsa* (P.T.S., p. 12), *Divyāvadāna* (Cowell and Neil, pp. 60-1).