Asokas mission to Ceylon and some connected problems

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Asoka's mission to Ceylon and some connected problems

By JYOTIRMAY SEN

The Indian Historical Quarterly,

Vol. 4:4 , 1928

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p. 667

There is yet considerable difference of opinion
regarding the date and the process of the conversion
of Ceylon to Buddhism, and scholars are not wanting
who hold that although Ceylonese Buddhism is an
undeniable fact it is difficult to believe that it
was the work of Asoka, and that Mahendra and
Sanghamitra were ever historical persons entrusted
with the mission. V. A. Smith(1) cites the authority
of Oldenberg(2) to show that the entire account as
given in the Ceylon chronicles is a myth and that the
inscriptions of Asoka are silent about Ceylon.
Buddhism certainly was introduced into Ceylon at an
early date, but the process was much slower than it
is generally represented to have been.
Subsequently this opinion seems to have been modi-
fied when, in the Early History of India (4th Ed.,
1924, pp. 193, 195), it is admitted that Asoka is
responsible for the conversion of Ceylon, but it took
place late in his reign. This conclusion is
apparently based on the following assumptions:-

(1) Asoka's inscriptions, particularly R.E., II
and XIII, while mentioning the foreign missions of
the great Buddhist Emperor of India, are absolutely
silent about Ceylon and Mahendra and Sanghamitra.

(2) Asoka mentions Tamraparni in the above two
Rock Edicts, but it is to be taken as meaning the
river of that name which flows through the Tinnevelli
district in the extreme south of the peninsula.(3)

(3) It is difficult to believe that Mahendra
came flying through the air, "as flies the king of
swans," and that his first discourse converted the
king and forty thousand of his subjects.(4) It is
rather more natural to suppose that as Asoka's
mission to the Tamil countries
---------------------

1 Ind. Ant. 1918, pp. 48-9 ; Asoka (R. I. Series,
1919) pp. 47-8.
2 Intro. to the Vinayapitakam, by Oldenberg, vol. I,
pp. lii-lv.
3 Imp. Gaz. of India (1908), sub. voc. Tambraparni,
pp. 215-16 ; Hultzsch, JRAS.(1910), p. 1310, n.4.
Hultzsch, Corpus Ins. Ind. (vol. I), p. xxxix ;
p.3, n. 10. Although he revises his opinion
and takes Tamraparni to mean Ceylon, he still
maintains that it was the name of a river in
S. India. Apparently he keeps the problem open.
4 V. Smith, Asoka, p. 50.

p. 668

was quite successful, as testified by the Chinese
travellers of the 5th and 7th centuries, Mahendra
took ship at some port in southern India and adopted
steps for the conversion of Ceylon.(1)
The fact that we do not find in the inscriptions
of Asoka any mention of Mahendra and Sanghamitra is
in no way surprising. Asoka's inscriptions are very
terse; they do not give us any names, either of the
prince governors or officers or the Buddhist sages
who found favour with him, and even the Emperor's
name occurs in only one inscription (Maski). In R.E.,
XIII where the foreign missions are mentioned, they
are not associated with any names save that of
Piyadasi, and therefore it is but natural that even
if they include the Ceylonese mission it would not
give us the names of persons who conducted the
movement. An argumentum silentio is no argument,
and we cannot infer from it the non-existence of
Mahendra and the impossibility of the Ceylonese
mission. Moreover, the names of Mahendra and
Sanghamitra were certainly more important and
venerable to the monks of Ceylon than to Asoka
himself, and while R.E., XIII speaks only of the
foreign missions and not of the missioners, the
monkish chronicles give a detailed account of these
missions and of the missioners associated with
them.(2)
Regarding the contention whether the inscriptions
of Asoka refer to Ceylon, it is easier to be precise.
The pivot of controversy is the word 'Tambapanni'
occurring in R. E., XIII in connection with the
foreign missions, 'Tambapanni,' no doubt, may mean
the Tinnevelli district in the extreme south. But it
is a modern identification,(3) and we are not sure if
that was the name of the river in the Asokan age. If
we are to arrive at a proper identification, we must
know what country in the days of Asoka was called by
that name. Here both indigenous and foreign sources
come to our aid.
----------------------
1 V. Smith, Asoka, pp, 48-50.
2 Geiger, Mahavamsa, p.82.
3 Imp, Gaz. of Ind. (1908), pp, 215-16.

'The Tamils 1800 years ago' by V, Kanaka Sabhai,
p. 23, The river Tamraparni became important in later
times. Its old name, in Tamil, was 'Sembil.'
In the Beginnings of S. Ind. Hist. by S. K.
Aiyangar, pp. 62-3 a passage is quoted from the
Ramayana to prove the existence of the river in S.
India; but as the author admits, the passage in
question may be comparatively modern.

p. 669

In the chronicles of Ceylon we get a full account
of the names which the island was known. In the days
of the three former Buddhas the island had the names
of Ojadipa, Varadipa and Mandadipa.(1) At the time of
Buddha, and consequently of Vijaya, the port of
landing and the city founded near it, was called
Tambapanni.(2) At the time of Vijaya's successor
Panduvasadeva the port was called 'Tammena'.(3) It
was also called Tammapanni in the days of Mahendra
and consequently of Asoka, and the island was so
called because the dust of the place which stuck to
the hands and knees of Mahendra and his followers was
copper-coloured.(4) The name, therefore, was that of
the port and the city originally, but afterwards it
covered the whole island.

Foreign writers also speak of Ceylon under the
name of 'Taprobane'. In the 1st century A.C. Ptolemy
wrote: "Opposite Cape Kory, which is in India, is the
projecting point of the island of Taprobane, which
was called formerly Simoundou, and now Salike."(5) We may
remark here that Simoundou probably stands for
Mandadipa mentioned in the Ceylon chronicles. The
author of the Periplus,(6) belonging to the same
country as Ptolemy, says that the old name of the
island was 'Taprobane'.

These foreign accounts of the post-Asokan period
are also confirmed by an almost contemporary
account, that of Megasthenes. Megasthenes says that
"Taprobane is separated from the mainland by a river;
that the inhabitants are called Palaiogonoi, and that
their country is more productive of gold and large
pearls than India."(7) It is therefore reasonable to
hold that Tambapanni referred to in Asoka's R.E. II
and XIII stands for Ceylon and not for the Tamra-
parni river in Southern India (which is a
comparatively modern name) or the adjoining country.
----------------------
1 Dip., I, 73; IX, 20 ; Maha., XV, 59, 93, 127.
2 Dip., IX, 31; Rajavali, p. 16 (Gunasekara)
where it is called Tammanna-Tota.
3 Rajavali, p. 20. 4 Dip., IX, 30, 31.
5 M'Crindle's Ancient India as described by
Ptolemy, p. 247.
6 Schoff, p. 47.
7 M'Crindle's Ancient India as described by
Megasthenes and Arrian, p. 62.

The reference to Tamraparnika as a kind of gem in
Kautilya's Arthasastra (Book II, ch. XI) is not
relevant to our enquiry, as the problem of the age of
the treatise is still an open question.

I.H.Q., DECEMBER, 1928

p. 670

The Ceylonese story of Mahendra's aerial flight
to the island may be a little over-done, but it is
quite of a piece with other stories connected with
the foreign missions. Almost all the missioners are
said to have possessed "great magical powers," and
many of them, besides Mahendra, pass through the air
and perform other miracles,(1) The point, therefore,
is taken out of the argument of V.A. Smith that it
was from a southern port, and not directly, that
Mahendra went over to the island, On the other hand,
there are undeniable facts to show that Mahendra went
straight to Ceylon and that the Tamil country had
very little to impose, in matters of religion at
least, upon the neighbouring island. The arrival of
Mahendra was not, as Smith holds, synchronous with
the first intrusion of Buddhistic ideas, nor is it
tenable as Cunninghiam(2) supposes, that there was no
intercourse between India and Ceylon before Mahendra
In spite of their legendary character, the Ceylon
chronicles enable us to arrive regarding the matter
under enquiry at some general truths, which only
stiff scepticism can deny. In the Dipavamsa, mention
is made of the visits of the previous Buddhas,
Kakusandha, Konagamana and Kassapa. This may be a pure
fiction. But the account that Vijaya landed in Ceylon
and established the historical dynasty of the
island, that Panduvasadeva came from India to succeed
Vijaya, that he married a Sakya princess brought over
from India, that; Pandukabhaya built religious
edifices for Nirgranthas, Brahmanas, Parivrajakas and
Ajivikas, and that Devanampiya Tissa sent a mission
to Asoka who was Tissa's "dear ally" has a value of
its own when taken together, and it points
unmistakably to the conclusion that from the time of
Vijaya onwards there was a constant intercourse
between India and Ceylon, which might have influenced
the socioreligious ideas of the islanders so as to
make them afterwards amenable to the teachings of
Asoka.(3) That the way was gradually prepared for the
introduction of Buddhism is also borne out by the
inscriptions of Asoka. In R.E. II, Asoka says that
everywhere in his dominions and in the frontier
kingdoms of the Colas, Pandyas Keralaputras,
Satiyaputras, and of Tamraparni, as well as in those
of king Antiochus and his neighbours he had
established medical treatment of two kinds, that for
men and that for animals, We are fully aware of the
----------------------
1 Dip., VIII, 5-12; Maha., XII, II, 31.
2 Anc. Geo. of India, p. 561.
3 Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. III,
pp. 13, 14.

p. 671

existence of diplomatic relations between the Maurya
sovereigns and the kings of Syria which might have
facilitated Asoka's philanthropic measures. Is it too
much to hold, in a similar strain, that in the case
of Ceylon also there had been, from an earlier time,
relations of some sort with the Magadha house?
Asoka's R.E. II does not mean the introduction of
Buddhism, but of the Buddhistic idea of kindness and
non-killing, which paved the way for the introduction,
later on, of Buddhism proper, as recorded in a
subsequent edict, R.E. XIII.
Nor, in the absence of any positive proof, can it
be maintained that it was from the Tamil country that
Mahendra went over to the island. In fact, there are
traditions which cannot be altogether neglected,
pointing to the conclusion that Asoka's missions were
not as successful in the Tamil country as in Ceylon,
that Ceylon maintained a cultural integrity of its
own and to some extent influenced, rather than
being itself influenced by, the religion of the
mainland.
The story of the famine of 12 years in the time of
Candragupta Maurya, during which a section of the
Jaina community under Bhadrabahu migrated to Southern
India, is associated with the abdication of
Candragupta Maurya and his death at Sravana-Belgola
in Belola in Mysore.(1)
It shows that Jainism in Southern India was
older than the Buddhism of Asoka by at least half a
century. In the days of Asoka, the older religion
might have been pushed back by Buddhism, but that the
latter was not a popular cult and did not have a
permanent hold on the country is evident from the
subsequent history of the South. In Hemacandra's
Parisistaparvan (XI, 89-102) it is related that
Samprati, the successor of Asoka and a zealous
convert to the Jaina faith, sent missionaries to the
Andhras and the Dramilas, brought the uncivilised
nations under the influence of Jainism and made the
southern country fit for the settlement of Jaina
monks. That this story is not a pure fiction but has
a substratum of truth is amply borne out by the fact
that notwithstanding Asoka's Buddhistic propaganda
the southern nations ultimately gave up Buddhism and
came to cherish the Digambara Jainas and the Saiva
religion.(2) At
----------------------
1 Lewis Rice, Mysore and Coorg from the Inscrip-
tions, pp. 4 ff. V. Smith, Early History of
India, 4th Edition, pp. 154, 458.
2 S.K. Aiyanger, Beginnings of South Indian
History, pp. 99, 100. The Mauryas were in
hostile occupation of forts on the

p. 672

the time of Hiuen Tsang, in the Cola country and the
country round about Madura the few Buddhist
monasteries were in a ruinous condition;(1) in the
Pandya and Pallava countries there were numerous
Hindu gods and Jaina temples and ascetics. Not only
this, the Buddhism of Southern India owed a great
deal to Ceylon, and Conjeeveram was long a Buddhist
centre which kept up intercourse with both Ceylon and
Burma.(2)
Having established the hypothesis(3) that
'Tambapanni' of the Asokan edicts is no other
than Ceylon, and that Ceylonese Buddhism was not a
graft from the Southern Indian stock but a direct
import from the north, it would be well for us now to
attempt to find out the date of the conversion of
Ceylon.
References to Tambapanni are found only in R.E.s
II and XIII. Of these, as we have seen, R.E. II
concerns itself with the provision of medical
treatment in the foreign countries, and not with the
introduction of Buddhism. The conversion of these
countries was a later achievement for which the way
was prepared by Asoka's philanthropic activities in
these regions. Hence it follows that R.E. XIII was
later in date than R.E. II, and in fact, it is more
reasonable to hold that the edicts of Asoka are not
complete sets, as Senart indicates,(4) but rescripts
incised at different times, either singly or in
groups as occasions arose.(5) This conclusion is
strengthened by the following facts among others:
(1) Referring to the Kalsi rock, Hultzsch (Corpus,
XI) admits that as the last portion of the ins-
cription is written in a bolder type and
----------------------
northern border of the Tamil land, and hostility
between Southern Hinduism and Northern Buddhism led
to the expulsion of the northerners when the
paramount power weakened.

1 Watters, Yuan Chwang, vol. II, pp. 224, 228.
2 Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, vol. I, p. xxv.
3 My conclusions have been confirmed, although
in an indirect way, by Soma Sundara Desikar's
article, the Mauryan Invasion of Tamilakam (IHQ.
, vol. IV, no. I, pp. 135 ff.).
4 Ind. Ant., 1891, pp. 236ff.
5 H.K. Dev quoted in D. R. Bhandarkar's Asoka,
pp.47, 47 n.1 266ff. Prof. Rhandarkar began
with a correct assumption but ended with the
conclusion that the dates in the different
Rock Edicts refer to the events narrated and
not to the actual engraving, and that the
whole set was engraved as one document late in
his reign.

p. 673

a separate face of the rock is utilised, this last
portion probably was of a later date.
(2) Portions of the 13th Edict of the Shah-
bazgarhi group were traced out on the back of the
main rock (Corpus, XII).
(3) Tile Dhauli rock does not contain Edicts ,XI
to XIII of the Girnar version, but compensates for
them by two separate edicts (Corpus, XIII).
(4) The Mansera group is engraved on three
boulders; the 13th and the 14th are incised on the
third boulder (Corpus, XII, XIII).
(5) At Jaugada the main set is inscribed in
two tablets, and a third tablet contains the two
additional edicts and are enclosed in a separate
frame (Corpus, XIV).
(6) The Delhi-Topra pillar is unique of its kind,
because it alone gives the seventh and the most
important edict. But the concluding portion of this
last edict runs all round the pillar (Corpus, XVI).
This shows that probably it was incised last, at a
later date, and therefore, for want of space, which
was originally calculated to contain six and not
seven edicts, the last one was made to run round the
whole shaft.
(7) The three Minor Rock Inscriptions of the
Mysore State (Siddhapura, Brahmagiri and Jatinga-
Ramesvara) contain an extra edict which is not
found in the northern versions.
(8) The Girnar R.E.s are all separately
engraved and separated by horizontal lines, The
reason probably is that as each edict was written, it
was thought fit by the engraver to mark off the
preceding one by a line.
(9) Each edict begins with the word 'Devanampiya'
and gives a separate sentiment. It is a
self-contained whole, and the connection between the
edicts in one inscription is more accidental than
real. It is quite possible that there should not be
any incongruity in the edicts being placed together,
as the ideas of Asoka are everywhere almost the same,
all pertaining to the Dhamma he inculcated.
(10) The edicts of Asoka give different dates
in one and the same inscription. Nowhere is a data given which
may be regarded as the date of the entire
inscription. Either a single edict or a group of
edicts is dated out of the whole set, and therefore
there were different engravings at different times
with dates.
If we assume, therefore, that the edicts in
each inscription were not inscribed as a complete
set, but at different dates on different occasions,
we shall not be wrong if we assign the R. E.s
specially to

p. 674

different dates, Some of them were engraved in the
13th, and some in the 14th year after Asoka's
coronation. But the real difficulty lies with the
dating of the 13th R.E. which gives an account of
the foreign missions. Senart and others who have
taken the series as one document have unhesitatingly
assigned the edict in question to the 14th year--the
latest date in the inscription. Others,(1) while
regarding the entire series as one single document,
are of opinion that the actual engraving could not
have been done before the 28th regnal year, the year
in which Pillar Edict VII was issued. This sort of
argument raises three difficulties.
(1) It is difficult to understand why Asoka,
contrary to his usual practice, should postpone the
actual engraving of this set of edicts till at least
14 years had elapsed after the occurrence of events
described by a majority of them.
(2) Granting that the date of the engraving
was not earlier than the 28th year, it does not
follow that R. E. XIII particularly, records events
which took place in that year or a little later. They
might have occurred very much later. In short, we are
again in a chronological difficulty, and it is
impossible to fix a date for the events discussed
within a reasonably short period. Again, the sponsors
of the above argument have been forced to take up
this position because they have taken R.E. II and
XIII to refer to the same events, and have hence come
to the conclusion that the entire series was engraved
at one and the same time, and that not earlier than
the 28th regnal year. They found it difficult to
explain the dates as given in R.E. III, IV and V. But
as I have pointed out, R. E. II is different from
R.E. XIII in its content, and, therefore, even
assuming that R. E. II was inscribed in the 13th
year, we shall not be wrong if we assign a later date
to R. E. XIII.
(3) Moreover, their argument rests on the assump-
tion that Pillar Edict VII is a resume of the acts of
Dhamma performed by Asoka till his 28th year. This
assumption, which is that of almost all scholars who
have dealt authoritatively with the subject, is, I
think, erroneous, and even if not wholly so, it is
dangerous to build chronological conclusions on an
uncertain piece of evidence.
(a) Rhys David's position is untenable. Unable
to account for the stupas and monasteries and the
missions to the Greek countries.
----------------------
1 Cf, Bhandarkar's Asoka, pp. 47 n. 1, 267-8.

p. 675

which he regards as "mere royal rhodomontade,"(1) he
says that Pillar Edict VII sums up all the other
measures he had taken for the propagation of the
Dhamma.(2) Grantingthe the Ceylonese version of the
missions to be correct, is it reasonable to hold that
Asoka himself should omit the foreign missions which
he mentions twice in R. E. II and XIII? Even the
Ceylonese mission is left out, which, according to
Rhys Davids, is a reality.
(b) V. Smith regards Pillar Edict VII as a
resume of measures taken by Asoka "within his
empire."(3) This interpretation is not warranted by
the edict, and is presumably set up to explain the
omission of foreign missions. He also contradicts
himself when he says that in Section III of his
analysis(4) there may be an allusion to the foreign
missions. If, again, the edict in question deals with
internal measures only, why does it omit altogether
the erection of the innumerable stupas and
monasteries which certainly formed an integral part
of Asoka's work in the line?
(c) Again, Pillar Edict VII need not be regarded
as a summary of Asoka's achievements in the
propagation of the Dhamma. If a summary was at all in
his contemplation, it should have been firstly exhoustive,
secondly written towards the close of his reign and not about
ten years earlier, thus omitting some of the most
important achievements with which he is credited.
That it is not exhaustive is clear from the fact that
it omits the erection of innumerable stupas and
monasteries which, according to the Ceylon
chronicles, were erected soon after his
conversion.(5) Hiuen Tsang mentions more than eighty
stupas and monasteries ascribed to Asoka, without
counting the legendary five hundred convents in
Kashmir and other large indefinite groups in other
countries.(6) If the number of these structures is
credible, we cannot by any stretch of imagination
confine them to the last ten years of Asoka. We
should, on the contrary, regard the erection of these
stupas and monasteries as covering the
----------------------
1 Rhys Davids, Buddhist India (1916), p. 298.
2 Ibid., p, 304
3 V. A. Smith, Asoka, p. 212.
4 Ibid., p. 209.
5 Dip., vi, 99; Maha., v, 79-80;also Divyavadana (tr.
Cowell and Neill), p. 379 This was also the
tradition current in Yuan Chwang's time. Watters,
Yuan Chwang, vol, II, pp, 91, 158.
6 V. Smith, Asoka, p, 109.

p. 676

whole reign, and even V. A. Smith believes that the
Asokarama or Kukkutarama was the first fruits of the
emperor's zeal as a convert.(1)
The foregoing considerations tend to show that
R. E. XIII need not necessarily belong to the I4th
year of Asoka's reign, nor should it be referred to
the last ten years on the basis of a wrong
interpretation of Pillar Edict VII. The date of the
foreign missions of Asoka, or properly speaking that
of R. E. XIII, is, therefore, to be found out in
other ways.
Here we are on uncertain ground, and we are
compelled to take some accounts and some arguments on
trust. The foreign missions figure prominently in the
Asokan edicts and the monkish chronicles of Ceylon,
and however prejudiced we may be regarding the
authenticity of the chronicles when they speak of
events prior to Asoka's time, we are perfectly
justified in regarding as facts of history the
account from the time of Asoka downwards, rejecting,
however,.the embellishments tending to make the whole
thing unreal. From henceforward we are strengthened
in our convictions by the concurrent testimony of the
Asokan monuments and the relic caskets of the Sanchi
Topes.(2) In the Ceylon chronicles these missions are
associated with the council of Pataliputra where
the resolve was made to make Buddhism, purged of its
impurities and heresies, a world religion. The
accounts of the Buddhist councils have been examined
threadbare by orientalists, and whatever doubt there
may be regarding the first two councils, there is
perfect unanimity regarding the historicity of the
Council of Pataliputra. The only systematic account
of this Council is given in the southern Buddhist
works. The Dip. (VII, 37, 44) states that the Council
took place in 236 A.B.; according to the Maha. (V,
280) it was held in the I7th year of Asoka. The date
of this Council has long been a subject of
controversy. Rhys Davids(3) and Kern(4) take for
granted the traditional date (18th year). A more
sceptical but, nevertheless, logical attitude is that
of V. Smith who says that it rests on tradition only,
and took place "at some
----------------------
1 Smith's Asoka; JRAS., 1901, p. 846 apparently on
the authority of Hiuen Tsang (Beal, Buddhist
Records of the Western World, vol. II, p. 95).
2 Copleston, Buddhism, pp. 179-180.
3 Buddhism, p. 224.
4 Manual of Indian Buddhism, p, 112.

p. 677

undetermined date."(1) But in the present case, as we
shall see, there is a substratum of truth underlying
the Ceylonese account.
Candragupta Maurya came to the throne in 325 B.C.
(2) He reigned, according to the unanimous testimony
of the Puranas and the Ceylonese and Burmese
traditions, for 24 years. Bindusara reigned for 25
years.(3) Therefore the year of Asok's accession is
276 B.C.(4) Now the set of dates of the Hellenistic
kings in R. E. XIII as given by Senart(5) places them
all between B.C. 260 and 258.(6) Therefore the date
of R. E. XIII, and consequently of the foreign
missions of Asoka, falls between the 16th and the
18th year of his reign. And this is in perfect
agreement with the Ceylonese date of the Council of
Pataliputra and the conversion of Ceylon by Mahinda.
My chronological argument leaves the pre-
sacramental years of Asoka altogether out of account,
as I believe all kinds of testimony run counter to
the Ceylonese tradition. In addition to the arguments
advanced by Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar,(7) it may be
remarked that Asoka, although full of remorse for the
Kalinga war and solicitous for the preservation of
human life, never alludes in any of his edicts to the
slaughter of his brothers before he came to the
throne. Moreover, there are gross inaccuracies in
the southern tradition tending
----------------------
1 JRAS., 1901, p. 853.
2 I adhere to the view of Senart (Inscriptions of
Piyadasi, Ind. Ant., 1891, pp. 236ff.), Jayaswal
(JASB., vol. IX, 1913, PP. 317ff.) and S. Pradhan
(Chronology of Ancient India, pp. 238-9), and I
shall adduce other arguments in favour of this
date in a subsequent paper.
3 I take the unanimous testimony of the Puranas, as
there is some difference in other accounts. The
Dip. ignores it; in the Maha. (V. 18) it is
28 years, whereas in the Burmese tradition it is
27 (Bigandet, The Life or Legend of Gautama, vol.
II, p. 128).
4 This is also the date arrived at on other grounds
by Jayaswal, JASB. (1913), PP. 317 ff.
5 Ind. Ant., 1891, pp. 236 ff.
6 Beloch's dates, as given in 'Griechische Geschi-
chte' and accepted by D.R. Bhandarkar in his Asoka,
p. 48, differ from Senart's mainly on account of
Alexander of Corinth superseding Alexander of
Epirus; and this identification has been broached
apparently to suit a different chronological
solution.
7 Asoka, pp. 9 ff.

I.H.Q., DECEMBER, 1928

p. 678

to make the whole story unreal. In the Maha. the
brothers of Asoka are numbered 90 at one time and 99
at another,(1) and in the Burmese account we find
Bindusara having 101 sons.(2)

----------------------
1 Turnour's Intro. to the Maha., pp.xlvi, xlvii.
2 Bigandet., vol.II, pp.128.