Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela and Bhabru Edict of Asoka

SR No.: 006726
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shashi Kant
Publisher: D K Print World
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 196
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 112

86 The Häthigumpha Inscription and the Bhabru Edict the villages and asks them mainly to restrain their tongue.
The Upatisapasine has been identified with the Sāriputta Sutta of the Suttanipāta.' Here again the Buddha prescribes a code of behaviour for the bhikkhus and forewarns them of the difficulties of their path.
The Lāghulovāde has been identified with the Rāhulovāda Sutta, also known as the Cūla Rāhulovāda or the Ambalathika Rāhulovāda, of the Majjhima Nikāya (Sutta No. 61). Musāvādam adhigicya helps in identification. Adhigicya has been equated with Sanskrit adhikrtya and is taken to mean 'beginning with or ‘regarding'. Asoka has not indicated the subject-matter of any other passage and it is difficult to comprehend the necessity that should have occurred to him for indicating the subject-matter in this case. It may be that in his time there were several Suttas known as Rāhuloväda and, therefore, a distinction had to be made by indicating its subjectmatter. The sermon begins with a denunciation of falsehood in every conceivable form. The Buddha exhorts Rāhula not to tell a lie even in joke. Thereafter he emphasises the need for critical examination of all bodily, vocal and mental acts.
The identification of Vinayasamukase has, however, been a matter of controversy. Smith and Senart4 identified it with the First Sermon of the Buddha, better known as the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta. A.J. Edmunds also was of the same view as he discovered in the Udāna, iii, that sämukkaṁsikā was used as an adjective of dhammadesanā. Kosambi was also later of the same view as he thought that perhaps vinaya could also mean‘instruction' and that the First Sermon could have hardly been ignored by Asoka.
1. Kosambi, ibid., Rhys Davids sought to identify it with certain passages
of the Vinaya, I. 2. Senart, ibid. 3. Smith, V.A., Oxford History of India, p. 109. 4. J.R.A.S., 1931, p. 387. 5. Kosambi, Dharmanand, Bhagavān Buddha, (Hindi, 1956), pp. 7-8.