The Date of Buddhas Death, as Determined By a Record of Asoka.

·期刊原文
The Date of Buddhas Death, as Determined By a Record of Asoka.

BY J.F. Fleet, I.C.S.(Retd.), Ph.D., C.I.E.
Journal of The Royal Asiatic Society
p. 1-26

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p. 1

There is a certain rock edict of Asoka, regarding
the interpretation and application of which no final
result has as yet been arrived at. That this has been
the case, is due chiefly to an unfortunate initial
mistake, which introduced a supposed word, taken to
mean "two and a half," into the reading of a passage
of primary importance which mentions a certain period
of years. It was subsequently fully admitted that a
misreading had been made. But the effect of that
misreading remained. And, like similar mistakes in
other matters, the initial mistake made here left an
influence which neither the scholar who made it, nor
subsequent inquirers, could shake off.

Within the limits of space available in this
Journal, it is not practicable to handle the edict as
fully as could be wished. I hope, however, to be able
to shew, with sufficient clearness, what the purport
of the record really is, and the extent to which we
are indebted to previous inquiries for assistance in
arriving at its true meaning.

For some of the readers of this Journal, the
chief interest of the matter will probably lie in its
bearing on the question,

p. 2

not yet settled, of the date of the death of Buddha.
But it involves also other points of leading
interest, in connection with Asoka.

The edict in question has been found, in somewhat
varying versions which illustrate two redactions of
it, in Northern India at Sahasram, Rupnath, and
Bairat, and in Mysore at Brahmagiri, Siddapura, and
Jatinga-Ramesvara. The records at the last three
places include also a second edict, which has not yet
been found in Northern India. With that, however, we
are not here concerned. Of the edict with which we
are concerned, the Bairat, Siddapura, and
Jatinga-Ramesvara versions are so fragmentary as to
be of but little use. Of the remaining versions,
those at Rupnath and Brahmagiri are the best
preserved and the most complete. As will be seen, the
Brahmagiri record is of extreme importance in more
respects than one, in addition to giving us the
place, Suvarnagiri, which I shall identify further
on, where Asoka was in religious retirement when he
issued the edict; and it is very fortunate that we
have the facsimiles of it, and of the Siddapura and
Jatinga-Ramesvara records, published with Dr.
Buhler's article in the Epigraphia Indica, vol. iii,
1894-95, pp. 134 to 142, which were made from the
excellent inked estampages supplied by Dr. Hultzsch,
the Government Epigraphist; if we had not those
facsimiles, we might still have been without an
accurate knowledge of the contents of those records,
and perhaps without a recognition of the point which
settles one of the important questions decided by the
edict. But the Sahasram record, though considerably
damaged, is of extreme value in connection with at
any rate one important passage. The matter is decided
by the three texts at Sahasram, Rupnath, and
Brahmagiri. And it is necessary to consider only them on
this occasion. In respect of the Bairat, Siddapura, and
Jatinga-Ramesvara texts, it is here sufficient to say
that they do not contain anything militating, in any
way, against the results established by the other
three texts.

It is to be premised that the edict is a lecture
on the

p. 3

good results of displaying energy in matters of
religion. The whole text of it is more or less of
interest. But it is sufficient for present purposes
to give two extracts from it.

Before, however, going any further, it must be
stated that, in the earliest discussions of the
contents of this edict, doubts were expressed as to
whether it should be understood as a Buddhist or as a
Jain manifesto, and as to whether it was issued by
Asoka or by some other king. But it is not necessary
to revert to those questions, except in so far as the
varying opinions, as to the sectarian nature of the
record, have borne upon some of the proposals made
regarding the interpretation of certain words in it.
It is quite certain that the edict was issued by
Asoka. And, whatever may be the religion which Asoka
professed originally, it is quite certain that he was
converted to Buddhism, and that this edict is a
Buddhist proclamation. This is made clear by the
so-called Bhabra edict, which, addressed to the
Magadha Samgha or community of Buddhist monks and
nuns of Magadha, speaks, in the most explicit terms,
of the respect paid, and the goodwill displayed, by
"the king Piyadasi," that is Asoka as He of Gracious
Mien, to "the Buddha, the Faith (Dharma), and the
Order (Samgha)."

Nor is it necessary to review certain
disquisitions which have been given with a view to
bringing the supposed purport of the edict,
particularly in the matter of two stages in the
religious career of Asoka, into harmony with the
assertions, or supposed assertions, of the Southern
tradition as represented by the Dipavamsa and the
Mahavamsa. Those disquisitions were wide of the mark;
the tradition and the record having, in reality, no
chronological details in common, except in respect of
the number of years that elapsed from the death of
Buddha to the abhisheka or anointment of Asoka to the
sovereignty. And Dr. Buhler, at a later time, in
cancelling the misreading on which he had acted,
practically withdrew (see IA, xxii, p. 300) at any
rate "one half of the historical deductions,"--
though he somewhat inconsiderately did not specify
exactly which

p. 4

half, -- which he himself had given at great length
(IA, vi, pp. 151 to 154, and vii, pp. 148 to 160) in
his original examinations of the Sahasram and Rupnath
records.

We are concerned with only the readings and
interpretations of certain words in two passages in
the edict. And, in giving the texts of those two
passages, I of course follow, as closely as possible,
the latest published readings of each version of the
edict. But I supplement those readings by anything
which I myself can gather from those reproductions of
the originals which are real facsimiles, or can
suggest with confidence in any other way.

It will be convenient to deal first with a
passage which stands in the Sahasram record near the
end, and in the other two records at the end, of the
edict.

Of this passage, we have the following texts. In
all essential details, I adhere exactly to the
decipherments of the individual syllables made by Dr.
Buhler (IA, xxii, 1893, p. 303, and EI, iii, 1894-95,
p. 138) and M. Senart (IA, xx, pp. 155, 156, and JA,
1892, i, p. 487). But I differ from those scholars in
a detail of analysis in the Rupnath record, regarding
which reference may be made to also page 13 below. We
must not take sata-vivasa as a compound. It must be
taken as two separate words. The word sata, = sata,
the base, means 'hundreds, centuries;' just like the
nominative plural sata, = satani, of the Sahasram
record. And, in conformity with a common method of
expression in Hindu dates, in translating which we
have to supply the word 'of' in order to obtain a
grammatical rendering, the two words sata and sata
are in apposition, not with only the word duve,
'two,' and the numerical symbol for 200, but with the
words and the numerical symbols which mean 256;
though, of course, the intended purport is, not 256
centuries, but two centuries and fifty-six. years.
The texts are:--

Sahasram, lines 6,7:--Iyam [cha savane (read
savane)] vivuthena duve sa-pamnalati sata vivutha ti
200 50 6.

Rupnath, lines 5, 6:- Vyuthena, savane kate 200
50 6 sata vivasa ta (or ti).

p. 5

Brahmagiri, line 8: --Iyam cha sava[ne]
sav[a]p[i]te vyuthena 200 50 6.

In the words iyam cha savane, savane, "and this
same precept, " of the Sahasram and Brahmagiri
versions, and in the simple savane, "the precept" or
"(this same) precept, " of the Rupnath version,
reference is made to an earlier passage in the edict,
of which the general tenor is:-- "And to this same
purpose this precept has been inculcated: Let both
the lowly, and those who are exalted, exert
themselves!;"(1) because, as the preceding context
explains, even a lowly man, who exerts himself, may
attain heaven, high though it is.

The passage with which are dealing says, in the
Rupnath version that that precept was made or
composed, and in the Brahmagiri version that it was
caused to be heard, announced, preached, or
inculcated, by someone who is mentioned in the
Rupnath version by the mord vyutha, and in the
Brahmagiri version by the word vyutha. In the
sahasram version, there is a reference of evidently
the same kind to the precept, and to the person, who
is mentioned therein by the word vivutha; but the
word meaning 'made; composed,' or 'inculcated,' was
omitted, and has to be understood. And with these
statements there are connected, in the Rupnath and
Brahmagiri versions some numerical symbols, and in
the Sahasram version both numerical symbols and
words, which mean 'two hundred and fifty-six.'(2)

Of this passa,ae there have been two main lines
of interpretation, each with its separate branches.

Dr. Buhler, who first brought the contents of the
edict to public notice, in 1877, maintained, from
first to last, that the words and numerical symbols
are a date, and that the passage means that the edict
was promulgated when 256 complete years had elapsed,
and in the course of the 257th
------------------------------
1. It has not always been recognised that this
precept is complete as given in translation above.
But, that that is distinctly marked by the word
ti, =iti, which stands in four of the versions in
which the passage is extant, has been pointed out
by Dr. Buhler in EI, iii, p. 142, 8.
2. We need not trouble ourselves on this occasion
with the exact analysis and disposal of the word
sa-pamnalati, `fifty-six.'

p. 6

year, after the death of Buddha. Originally (IA, vi,
pp. 150, 159 b),while deriving the vivasa of the
Rupnath record from vivas, 'to change an abode,
depart from; to abide, dwell, live; to pass, spend
(time),' he connected the vivutha of the Sahasram
record, and the vyutha of the Rupnath record, with
vivrit, 'to turn round, revolve; to turn away,
depart; to go down, set (as the sun).' Subsequently
(IA, vii, p. 145 b) , he accepted the correct
derivation, pointed out by Professor Pischel (see
page 20 below), of also vivutha and vyutha from
vivas. But he was still able to retain for vivuthena
and vyuthena, and to adopt for the vyuthena of the
Brahmagiri record, his original rendering "by the
Departed," in the figurative sense of "the Deceased,"
as an appellation of Buddha. In the Sahasram record,
he took vivutha, as the Pali nominative plural
neuter, equivalent originally to vivrittani but
subsequently to vyushitani, 'passed.' In the Rupnath
record, he read sata-vivasa as a compound, and took
it as an ablative dependent upon the number 256.
Finding in sata a substitute for the Pali satthu, a
corruption of the Sanskrit sastri, which does occur
freely as an appellation of Buddha as "the
Teacher,"(1) he took sata-vivasa as equivalent to
satthu-vivasa, sastri-vivasat; and he rendered it as
meaning "since the departure," in the figurative
sense of the death, "of the Teacher," that is of
Buddha. And thus he arrived at the following
translations:--

Sahasram: -- "And this sermon (is) by the
Departed. "Two hundred (years) exceeded by fifty-six,
256, have "passed since" (IA, vi, 1877, p. 156 b).

Rupnath:-- "This sermon has been preached by the
"Departed. 256 (years have elapsed) since the
departure of "the Teacher" (IA, vi, 1877, p. 157a).

Brahmagiri:-- "Aand this sermon has been preached
by "the Departed, 256 (years ago)" (EI, iii, 1894-95,
p.141).
-------------------------
1. For instance, in the Suttanipata, verse 31, "be
thou our Teacher, O great Sage!," verse 545, "thou
art Buddha, thou art the Teacher" (ed. Fausboll,
pp. 5, 98), and in the Dipavamsa, 1, 17, 35; 2, 20
(ed. Oldenberg, pp. 14, 16, 22), and in the
Mahavamsa (Turnour, p. 3, line 12, p. 4, line 13,
p.7, line 6).

p. 7

In agreement with Dr. Buhler there was, in the
first place, General Sir Alexander Cunningham. He did
not attempt any independent examination of the
difficult expressions in the edict. But he had
detected and deciphered, before anyone else, the
numerical symbols in the Sahasram record (Inscrs. of
Asoka, 1877, p. 2, No. 8) .(1) and he, also,
recognised in them a date, reckoned from the nirvana
of Buddha.

In his interpretation and application of the
passage, Dr. Buhler had the full support of Professor
Max Muller, who in 1881 wrote:-- "After carefully
weighing the "objections raised by Mr. Rhys Davids
and Professor "Pischel against Dr. Buhler's
arguments, I cannot think "that they have shaken Dr.
Buhler's position. I fully "admit the difficulties in
the phraseology of these inscriptions: but I ask, Who
could have written these inscriptions, " if not
Asoka? And how, if written by Asoka, can the "date
which they contain mean anything but 256 years "after
Buddha's Nirvana?" (Sacred Books of the East,

----------------------
1. I would like to suggest to certain European
scholars that, instead of citing Sir A.
Cunningham's volume on the records of Asoka, and
my own volume on the records of the Early (or
Imperial) Gupta Kings and their Successors, as
"CII, vol. i," and "CII, vol. iii, " meaning
thereby vols. i, and iii, of the "Corpus
Inscriptionum Indicarum,"-- a method of referring
to them which does not indicate much, if anything,
of value,-- it would be more useful to cite them,
by distinctive titles, as Inscriptions of Asoka
(or Asoka Inscriptions) and Gupta Inscriptions, or
as Inscrs. of Asoka (or Asoka Inscrs.) and Gupta
Inscrs., or, if an absolute abbreviation is
desired, as "C.AI," and "F.GI." These two works
are the first and third volumes, nominally, of a
series which has never gone any further, and, it
is feared, is not likely to do so. And it has been
a matter for regret that they were ever numbered
as volumes of such a series. Even the intended
second volume of that inchoate series has never
appeared, though, it is believed, the preparation
of it had been undertaken by someone before the
time when the preparation of the volume on the
Gupta Inscriptions devolved upon me as Epigraphist
to the Government of India, 1883 to 1886. It was
cotemplated that that second volume should
contain the "Inscriptions of the Indo-Scythians,
and of the Satraps of Surashtra" (see Inscrs. of
Asoka, Preface, p.1). It was understood by me that
all the materials for it, then known, had been
collected; and, in fact, most of the intended
Plates seem to have been actually printed off (see
JRAS, 1894, p. 175). And consequently, having
plenty of travelling and other work to do in
connection with my own volume when I was in
Northern India, I did not lay myself out to obtain
fresh ink-impressions and estampages of the
records of the other series, though I did secure a
few such materials, in the cases both of them and
of the Asoka records, as opportunity served. I
have often, since then, regretted the omission;
especially because a few of the materials then
extant do not exist, except at the bottom of the
sea, in the wreck of the P. and O. steamship
"Indus," on the north-east coast of Ceylon (see
ibid.).

p. 8

vol. x, 1881, Dhammapada, Introd. p. 41, and second
edition, 1898, Introd. p. 49).

And more recently he received the full support of
Professor Kern, who in 1896 wrote:-- "We believe also
"that the figures 256, notwithstanding all
objections, are "really intended as a date of the
Lord's Parinirvana" (Manual of Indian Buddhism, p.
115).

And he received also partial support from
Professor Rhys Davids (Academy, 14th July, 1877, p.
37, and Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon, 1877,
p. 57 ff.; see also page 14 below), and from
Professor Pischel (Academy, 11th August, 1877, p.
145; see also pages 18, 20, below), and from M. Boyer
(JA, 1898, ii, p. 486; see also page 15 below).

The other main line of interpretation starts from
the point that the passage does not present any word
meaning `years;' and for the most part it takes both
the words vivutha and vivasa as nominatives plural,
in apposition with the number 256. The separate
branches of this line of interpretation have been as
follows:--

Professor H. Oldenberg, on the possibility of
vivutha, vyutha, and vivasa, being derived from the
root vas, 'to shine, become bright' (class 6,
uchchhati), with the prefix vi, thought that the
passage might perhaps mean:-- "This is the teaching
"of him who is there illumined; 256 beings have
appeared "in the world illumined." But he was more
disposed to take the second part of the passage as
meaning "256 beings "have departed (into the realm of
liberation, into Nirvana)," and as indicating that
that number of Buddhas had, up to then, appeared in
the course of world-periods. And so he rendered the
whole passage (somewhat freely in respect of its
second part) as probably meaning:-- "This teaching
was "preached by the Departed; the number of the
Departed, "who have taught on earth, is 256" (ZDMG,
xxxv, 1881, p. 475).(1)
-----------------------
1. Being not acquainted with German, for my knowledge
of the exact purport of this article by Professor
H. Oldenberg, referred to again further on in
connection with the other extract with which we
have to deal, I am indebted to Mr. Thomas, who has
very kindly supplied me with a translation of it.

p. 9

M. Senart, by whom this line of interpretation
has been most prominently represented, and who
arrived at his conclusions independently of Professor
Oldenberg, took a somewhat different view. His
process (Inscrs. de Piya., ii, 1886, pp. 182-189, and
IA, xx,, 1891, pp. 160-162) may be epitomised thus.
He took the verb vivas in its ordinary meaning of 'to
be absent, to depart from one's home or country.'
From that he deduced for vivutha, vyutha, and vyutha,
the meaning of 'a messenger.' With the idea thus
obtained, he compared the missionaries who in the
time of Asoka, according to the Mahavamsa (Turnour,
p. 71, Wijesinha, p. 46, and see Dipavamsa,
Oldenberg, p. 159), the Thera Moggaliputta sent out
to various countries to propagate the religion of
Buddha. And he thus arrived at the meaning of
'messenger, missionary, as denoting the persons who
were chargred by Asoka with the duty of putting the
edict in circulation and spreading it abroad. Like
Dr. Buhler, he read the sata-vivasa of the Rupnath
version as a compound. But, like Professor Pischel
and Professor Oldenberg, he took the sata of this
compound, and the sata of the Sahasram version as
representing respectively the base and the nominative
plural of sattva, in the sense of `a living being, a
man.' He took the vivasa of sata-vivasa of the
Rupnath version, and the vivutha of the Sahasram
version, not as ablatives singular, but as
nominatives plural. And he thus arrived at
translations which may be rendered as follows:-

Sahasram:- "It is by the missionary that this
teaching " (is spread abroad). Two hundred and
fifty-six men have "gone forth on missions" (Inscrs.
de Piya., ii, 1886, p. 196, and IA, xx, 1891, p.
165).

Rupnath:--"It is through the missionary that my
"teaching is spread abroad. There have been 256
settings " out of missionaries" (Inscrs. de Piya.,
ii, 1886, p. 196, and IA, xx, 1891, p. 165).

Brahmagiri:- "This teaching is promulgated by the
`missionary. 256" (JA, 1892, i, p, 488).

Mr. Rice, in bringing to notice the Mysore
records, sought

p. 10

to open out a new branch of this line of
interpretation, by rendering the passage in the
Brahmagiri record as meaning:-- "And this exhortation
has been delivered by "the vyutha (or? society) 256
times" (Report dated February, 1892, p.5). If that
were really the meaning, we could only have wound up
the inquiry by commiserating the individual, or the
society, for having had to reiterate so often the
same so short address. But we need not refer to that
proposal again. As has already been pointed out by M.
Senart (JA, 1892, i, p. 485), Mr. Rice's rendering
was based upon nothing but the pure mistake of
taking, as representing the Sanskrit suffix sas, such
and such a number of times,' the se of the words se
hevam, "even thus," which introduce the second edict
in the Mysore records. And the rendering has been
judiciously abandoned by Mr. Rice in handling the
record again on a recent occasion, when he has
presented the passage as meaning: -- "And this
exhortation ws delivered "by the Vyutha (or the
Departed) 256 (? years ago);" to which he has
attached footnotes to the effect that "the Departed"
means Buddha, and, in respect of the number 256, that
"no one has succeeded in discovering exactly what
"these figures refer to" (Ep. Carn., xi, 1903,
translations P. 93).

And, finally M. Sylvain Levi took up the matter
from another point of view in the JA, 1896, i, pp.
460-474. In the first place, he took certain words
which stand at the end of the second edict of the
Brahmagiri record, not as being Padena likhitam
lipikarena, and as meaning, according to Dr. Buhler's
rendering, "written by Pada the scribe," but as being
padena likhitam lipikarena, and as meaning "written
by the scribe in the pada-fashion, separating all
"the words" (loc. cit., p. 466); and he explained
that the text sent out from the chancellor's office
at Suvamnagiri to that at Isila bore that indication
in order to put the local writer on his guard against
any fancy for pedantry. He took the words vivuthena,
vyuthena, and vyuthena as denoting any of the
couriers or messengers by whom the edict was
circulated from place to place (ibid., p. 469 f.).
Following

p. 11

the reading of sata-vivasa as a compound, he took
sata as representing the Sanskrit smrita, in the
sense of `enunciated, mentioned,' and interpreted the
ablative vivasa, and the corresponding vivutha of the
Sahasram version, as denoting the despatch or
missive, the edict itself, with which the messengers
were entrusted, and rendered the phrases as meaning
"according to the aforesaid missive" (ibid., p. 472).
And, noting a habit which both the Buddhists and the
Jains had, of guaranteeing the integrity of their
texts by recording the number of syllables (aksharas)
which they contained (ibid., p. 472 f.), and finding
an approximation to the number 256 in certain parts
of each version of the edict, he explained the number
256 as indicating, not a date, but "simply the
official notation of the number of aksharas
"contained in the edict, in the form which it had
received "in the royal chancellor's office of
Pataliputra" (ibid, p. 474).

In respect of my own interpretation of this
passage I have to say, in the first place, that I
unhesitatingly endorse the view, originally
propounded by Dr. Buhler, that the number 256 is a
date.

It is true that the passage does not include any
word for `years.' And it would probably be difficult
to find many such instances, in which an omitted word
for 'years' is not replaced by some word meaning
'time,' in the epigraphic records of India; though M.
Boyer has apparently found two such instances,
referable according to the present understanding to
the first century B.C., in the epigraphic records of
Ceylon (JA, 1898, ii, pp. 466, 467). But the passage
does at any rate not present anything which excludes
the understanding that a date is meant. The vivutha
of the Sahasram record, and the vivasa of the Rupnath
record, may be taken as ablatives singular, masculine
or neuter, dependent upon the number 256, quite as
well as nominatives plural, masculine or neuter, in
apposition with that number; while, in the Brahmagiri
record there is no word at all, to give any
indication as to how the number 256 is to be applied.
And this latter fact is particularly instructive.
For,

p. 12

though an omission of a word meaning `years' is
easily intelligible and can be matched, and though it
is quite easy to comprehend how a simple statement of
figures could be at once recognised as a date even
without any word to indicate the starting-point of
the reckoning, it is at least very difficult to
understand, if `persons' of some kind or another were
intended, how the text could come to be left in such
a form as to give not the slightest clue as to the
nature of those persons, or to understand, if any
such detail was intended as the marking of the number
of `syllables,' why there is no similar entry at the
end of also the second edict in the Mysore records,
especially as it is there that there stand the words
which, according to one view, record a special
feature in the verbal construction of the original
text.

It is probably to Buddhist and Jain literature,
rather than to any epigraphic records, that me must
turn for similar instances of an omission of a word
meaning `years.' And, while it is not worth while to
spend time over a special search for such cases,--
inasmuch as the record has to be dealt with on its
own merits, and irrespective of the question whether
exact analogies can be found or not,-- I will quote
one instance from Buddhist literature, quite to the
point, which came under my observation accidentally,
in casually looking into the contents of a work which
I had seen described as being of importance for the
ecclesiastical history of Ceylon. The work in
question is the Sasanavamsa or Sasanavamsappadipika,
composed by a Burmese scholar named Pannasami who
finished it not very long ago; to be exact, in 1861.
Pannasami has recorded the date of the completion of
his work, in the common Burmese era commencing A.D.
638, in the following verse (ed. Mrs. Bode, 1897,
text p. 170):-- Dvi-sate cha sahasse cha tevis-adhike
gate(1) punnayam Migasirassa nittham gata va sabbaso.
And the translation is: -- " (This
Sasanavamsappadipika) verily attained completion in
all respects on the full-moon
--------------------
1. The metre in faulty in this pada. Pali authors,
however, seem to have never troubled themselves
about irregularities of metre.

p. 13

day of (the month) Migasira, when there had gone by
two hundred and a thousand and twenty-three."

Here we have an unmistakable instance, quite to
the point, of omission of a word for 'years' or
'time' in a passage recording a date.(1) To that I
have only to add the following remarks. The natural
appearance of the passage with which we are
concerned, is distinctly that of a date. Though the
other interpretations which have been proposed by MM.
Senart and Sylvain Levi, have been supported by
substantial arguments, they do not present any
meaning that can be recognised as following
naturally, without straining. And they are distinctly
wrong in taking the sata of the Sahasram record as
equivalent to satta, sattani, the nominative plural,
and the sata of the Rupnath version as equivalent to
satta, the base, of satta, =sattva, `being,
existence; a living or sentient being.' The word
satta, =sattva, is one in respect of which the people
who used the language or orthography of the Asoka
edicts, could not afford to follow the practice of
reducing double consonants to single ones, or, at any
rate, to use generally the word so reduced; because,
unless in any such phrase as sava-sata-hitaye,
sava-satanam hitaye, "for the welfare of all sentient
beings," the result, sata, would have been so liable
to be confused with sata, = sata, `hundred,' and
sata, =satta, =saptan, 'seven' and sata, = smrita,
'remembered, mentioned; thoughtful.' And, as has
already been intimated (page 4 above), both the sata
of the Sahasram record and the sata of the Rupnath
record mean 'hundreds, centuries:' in conformity with
a common method of expression in Hindu dates, in
translating which we have to supply the word 'of' in
order to obtain a grammatical rendering, they stand
in apposition, not with only the word duve, 'two,'
and the numerical symbol for 200, but with the words
and
----------------------
1. I may now add, in revising the proofs of my
article, another literary instance which, also,
has come to my notice casually. It is a passage in
a Jain pattavali, which places the destruction of
Valabhi and other occurrences such and such
numbers (of years) after the death of
Mahavira-Vardhamana by the words:-- sri-Virat 845
Valabhi-bhangah 826 kvachit 886 brahmadvipikah 882
chaitya- sthitih; see IA, xi, 1882, p. 252 b.

p. 14

the numerical symbols which mean 256; but of course
the intended purport is, not 256 centuries, but two
centuries and fifty-six years.

It is, in fact, an inevitable conclusion that the
number 256 is a date. And, following Dr. Buhler in
the second detail also, I fully agree with him that
that date was reckoned from the death of Buddha. But
I arrive at this result in a different way.

Now, in the first place, the passage mentions the
making or composing, and the inculcation, of a
religious precept by, plainly, a religious teacher,
whom it specifies by the words vivutha, vyutha, and
vyutha; and it places some event in the career of
that teacher, indicated by the ablatives vivutha and
vivasa, 256 years before the actual time at which the
edict was issued by Asoka.

The allusion can only be to one or other of the
two great ancient Hindu teachers, Buddha and
Mahavira-Vardhamana.(1) And,-- even setting aside the
facts, that, if tradition is true,
Mahavira-Vardhamana died at least 258 years before
the abhisheka or anointment of Asoka to the
sovereignty, and that this edict was certainly not
issued until long after the anointment of Asoka,-- it
is certain, for a reason already mentioned on page 3
above, that, whatever may be the religion which Asoka
originally professed, it was to Buddhism that he was
converted.

The words vivutha, vyutha, and vyutha, therefore,
must denote Buddha. And the word vivasa must mark
some event, used as the starting-point of a
chronological reckoning, in the career of Buddha.

Now, Professor Rhys Davids propounded the view
that, if the edict is really a Buddhist and not a
Jain proclamation,
--------------------------------
1. The validity of my general argument would not be
destroyed, even if hereafter there should be
established something which, I believe, is held to
have been demolished long ago; namely, that Buddha
and Vardhamana were originally one and the same
person, and were differentiated by the divergence
of rival sects, with the inevitable oriental
concomitant of the invention of separative details
of the most circumstantial kind, perhaps before,
perhaps only after, the time of Asoka. However, I
do not make any assertion in that direction; I have
not studied the point. I only hint at a
possibility, which must not be altogether ignored
even now.

p. 15

it is to be understood that the starting-point of the
reckoning of the 256 years was, not the death of
Buddha, but his vivasa in the sense of his nekkhamma,
abhinikkhamana, or abhinishkramana, -- "the Great
Renunciation,"-- when he left his home to become an
ascetic (Academy, 14th July, 1877, p. 37, and ACMC,
p. 58). And this same view has been adopted by M.
Boyer (JA, 1898, ii, p. 486).

But Professor Rhys Davids himself did not regard
with any favour (ACMC, p. 60),-- and apparently quite
rightly, -- the idea, entertained by someone else,
that the Jains had an era dating from the
abhinishkramana of Mahavira- Vardhamana, an event
quite as important to the Jains as the same event in
the life of Buddha could be to the Buddhists. And,
even irrespective of the point that the actual
departure from home would be denoted by the word
vivasana more correctly than by vivasa, whatever may
be the case in the Buddhist literature in general,--
whatever may be the statements which can be found
there, to surround the abhinishkramana of Buddha with
so great a halo of romance as to justify our speaking
of it as "the Great Renunciation,"-- there is nothing
in the Dipavamsa, or in the Mahavamsa, to indicate
that the Poranatthakatha, the Atthakatha-Mahavamsa or
Sihalatthakatha-Mahavamsa of the Mahavihara
monastery, the early work on which the Dipavamsa
and partially the Mahavamsa were based (Oldenberg,
Dipavamsa, Introd. p. 2 ff.),-- a work of quite
possibly the time of Asoka himself or nearly so,--
attached any importance at all, as an epoch-making
event, to the abhinishkramana of Buddha. In
connection with the Mahavamsa, we must bear in mind
a point, to which, it would appear, no attention has
as yet been paid, but which is of importance because,
in consequence of it, while we may criticise the
Mahavamsa by the Dipavamsa, we must not criticise the
Dipavamsa by the Mahavamsa. Mahanaman, the author of
the earlier portion, really known as the
Padyapadanuvamsa or Padyapadoruvamsa, of the
Mahavamsa, had opportunities, in consequence of the
intervening visit of Buddhaghosha to Ceylon from
Magadha, and of his own

p. 16

visit to Magadha which is proved by his inscription
at BodhGaya,(1) of introducing into his narrative
additional items of
---------------
1. I refer to one or other of two records edited by
me in Gupta Inscriptions, 1888, No. 71, p. 274,
and No. 72, p. 278 (see also IA, xv, 1886, pp.
356, 359). The inscription No. 71 is dated in the
year 269, in the month Chaitra; it mentions, in a
line of Buddhist disciples of Lanka (Ceylon),
Bhava, Rahula, Upasena (I.), Mahanaman (I.) ,
Upasena (II.), and Mahanaman (II.), a resident of
Amradvipa, and born in the island of Lanka; and it