Page Text
________________
APPENDIX A.
THE RESULTS OF Asoka's PROPAGANDA IN WESTERN Asia.
The vast region beyond the western frontiers of India came within the geographical horizon of Buddhist writers as early as the Bāveru Jātaka, and possibly the Sussondi Jātaka, and its princes figure not inconspicuously in Buddhist inscriptions of the third century B. C. The records of Asoka show that the eyes of the imperial missionary of Magadha were turned more to the West than to the East; and even the traditional account of early Buddhist proselytising efforts given in the chronicles of Ceylon,' does not omit to mention the country of the Yonas where Mahārakkhita "delivered in the midst of the people the Kālakārāma suttanta, in consequence of which a hundred and seventy thousand living beings attained to the reward of the path (of salvation) and ten thousand received the pabbajja." It will perhaps be argued that the Yona country mentioned in the chronicles is to be identified with some district in the Kabul valley, and is not to be taken to refer to the realm of "Antiochos, the Yona king, and the kings, the neighbours of that Antiochos, namely, Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander,” mentioned in the second and the thirteenth rock edicts of Asoka. Rhys Davids, in fact, is inclined to regard the declaration in these edicts about the success of Asoka's
1 Mainly an extract from an article published in the Buddhistic Studies (ed. B. C. Law).
2 Mahāvamsa, Ch. XII.
3 Dr. Jarl Charpentier has contributed a paper to A Volume of Indian Studies presented to Professor E. J. Rapson in which he revives the suggestion of Prinsep (Hultzsch. Asoka, xxxi) that "Amtiyaka' referred to by Asoka is Antiochos Soter (c. 281-61 ), and not his son Antiochos Theos (261-46). But his theory requires that Chandragupta ascended the throne in 327-25 B.C., that he was identical with Xandrames and that the story of his visit to Alexander (recorded by Justin and Plutarch) is a myth. The theory is opposed not only to the evidence of Justin and Plutarch, but to the known facts about the ancestry of Chandragupta. Unlike Xandrames, Chandragupta is nowhere represented as of barber origin. His paternal ancestors are described as rulers by Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist writers alike,
| SR No. | 032292 |
| Book Title | Political History Of Ancient India |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Hemchandra Raychaudhari |
| Publisher | University of Calcutta |
| Publication Year | 1950 |
| Total Pages | 714 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 17 MB |