The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t4.6

c11.s3.t4.6

The latest writer on the subject Dr. R. C. Majumdar justly remarks²: "The story stands self-condemned. It is impossible to hold that thousands of heretics entered into the Saṅgha and were not detected for years; that the Uposatha ceremony was stopped for seven years even in his own ārāma in Pāṭaliputra and Aśoka did not know anything of it till at the end of that long period; and lastly that the name and fame of such a great Arhat as Tissa Moggaliputta is represented to be, could possibly remain unknown to Aśoka till the 18th year of his coronation.”¹