A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.s3.70.2

c8.s3.70.2

Now the first Aśoka is represented to have reigned 18 years after the Council (100 anno Buddhæ), and if we cast up these 118 years, the 22 years of Aśoka's sons, the 22 years of the Nine, the 24 years¹ of Chandragupta, the 28 years of Binduśara, and the 4 years which elapsed before Aśoka's inauguration², we find that Aśoka's inauguration would fall just 118 years after the second Council, 218 years after Buddha, or 325 B. C. The Council of this real Aśoka was held in the 17th year of his reign, or 235 after Buddha. Mahendra, the son of Aśoka, proceeded to Ceylon in the next year, or 236 years after Buddha; and in this manner the arrival of Mahendra in Ceylon, and the inauguration of Devânâmpriya Tishya as King of Ceylon, are brought together in the same year. It is true that in order to achieve this, it has become necessary to add a first Aśoka³, of whom the Northern Buddhists know nothing; it has become necessary to admit another Moggaliputto, and another Council, all equally unknown except in the traditional chronology of Ceylon. The Northern Buddhists know but one Aśoka, the grandson of Chandragupta; they know but one Council, besides the Assembly following immediately on the death of Buddha, viz. the Council of Pāṭaliputra under Dharmāśoka, and this they place 110 years after Buddha’s Nirvāṇa.¹ Piṇḍola, a contemporary of of Buddha, was seen as an old man by Aśoka. But who was to contradict the Ceylonese historians?