Asoka: The Buddhist Emperor of India

These fictions an extract from which will be found in a later chater do not deserve serious criticism and are sufficiently refuted by the testimony of the inscriptions which proves that the brothers and sisters of the king were still living in the middle of the reign and that they and all the members of the royal family were the objects of the sovereign's anxious 'solicitude'. [...] Other caskets bore the name of Majjhima 1. But when the chronicler ascribes to the monk Tissa son of Mogali all the credit for the organization of the missions and ignores Asoka we are clearly bound to apply the principle of preferring the authority of the contemporary inscriptions and to allow Asoka the honour of having personally organized ' Bhilsa Topes pp.287 289 3I7 l 1. xx. [...] We watch in the personal records drafted by himself the gradual growth of his sincere convictions and the orderly development of the policy which cosecrated his immense autocratic power and diplomatic influence as the sovereign of one of the greatest empires in the world to the service of the religion which had captured his heart and intellect. [...] XI—XIII of the series may be assigned to the same period which also witnessed the dedication of costly caves in the Barabar Hills near Gaya to the use of the non-Buddhist Ajivika ascetics and the institution of quinquennial official transfers for the purpose of public instruction in the Law of Piety 1. Officers of all ranks when serving in their several jurisdictions were directed to undertake [...] It is said in various traditions to have been concerned with the overthrow of heresy; and if there be any truth in that story the Sarnitth Edict and its variants may be regarded as embodying the resolution of the Council and may be dated in one or other of the years near the end of the reign 1. ' The value of the traditions of the Councils is discussed at length in the author's essay ' The Ident