The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t1.1

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