The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t1: The Buddhist legends
The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t1
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The Buddhist legends
c11.s3.t1.1
Years ago Bühler wrote that in his view "a full explanation of Aśoka's Edicts can only be given with the help of the Brahmanical literature and by a careful utilization of the actualities of Hindu life. This conviction has forced me to demur against a specially Buddhistic interpretation of various words and terms.”¹ The subject then requires a careful and independent examination. In regard to the theory that Aśoka professed Buddhism, the Buddhist books are claimed to be the chief authority. Here are found stories and chronicles of Aśoka mostly legendary in character. According to V. A. Smith silly fictions “disfigure the Ceylonese chronicles of Aśoka, and disguise their solid merits and hence do not deserve serious criticism.”² Referring to the story of Māhinda or Māhendra, the younger brother of Aśoka, and his sister, Prof. Oldenberg remarks that “it has been invented for the purpose of possessing a history of the Buddhist institutions in the island, and to connect it with the most distinguished person conceivable—the great Aśoka.”³ A similar view is held by another scholar H. Kern whose special study of the Buddhist works is too well-known to need mention.⁴ In the course of his examination of the Buddhist Councils from the traditions of the Pāli Books, and after referring to the absurdities, inconsistencies and dogmatical and sectarian tendencies, imprinted in every page of the works, D. R. Bhandarkar has much justification for the opinion that “very little that is contained in these traditions may be accepted as historical truth.”⁵
c11.s3.t1.2
¹ *Ep Ind.*, Vol. II, p. 246. ² *Aśoka*, p. 19. ³ Intro. to the *Vinayapiṭakam*, p. 4 (ii). ⁴ *Manual of Indian Buddhism*, p. 110. ⁵ *Aśoka*, p. 96.
c11.s3.t1.3
Notwithstanding these downright and absurd mythological accounts that have gathered round the name of the celebrated Mauryan monarch they are taken for granted as a source of information for the history of Aśoka, and theories hardly tenable have been floated in the ever expanding ocean of oriental history. Nothing authentic is on record concerning these legendary chronicles, and any endeavour to utilise them for historical purposes is to get ourselves stranded on the shore of imaginary history.
c11.s3.t1.4
A calm but deep study of the Pāli Buddhism with its special reference to Aśoka leaves the reader with the impression that the whole thing is marred by glaring inconsistencies, and the views set forth are deeply sectarian and consequently one-sided. Materials culled from these fictions compiled centuries after Aśoka’s death can afford no tangible basis to build any historical edifice. Scholars have realised this difficulty though they still believe that these chronicles are materials for scientific history. If it be accepted that the legends do not carry much historical value, the inscriptions of Aśoka can alone be credited with trustworthiness.