Gilgit Manuscripts Vol 01

SR No.: 020346
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nalinaksha Dutt, D M Bhattacharya, Shivnath Sharma
Publisher: Government of Jammu
Total Pages: 266
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Catalogue
File Size: 20 MB

Page 26

5
BUDDHISM IN KASHMIR
15 (iv) Jalauka of the Kashmirian tradition.
Of the grandsons of Asoka, the names of only two have come down to us: -
(i) Sampadi or Visoka' (restored from Tibetan by Schiefner as Vitāsoka or Vigatāšoka), son of Kuņāla. He acted as Aśoka's treasurer and stopped the king's unending largess to the Buddhist Sangha and later on succeeded him.”
(ii) Daśaratha of the Purāņic tradition and Asokan inscrip tions, the patron of the Ājīvikas.
There is very little information about the succeeding rulers of the Mauryan line;" the last is said to be Brhadratha, whose assasinator is wrongly recorded in the Divyāvadāna (p. 433) as the last Maurya king.
The lavish gifts made by the Emperor on the various religious organisations and specially on the Buddhist Sangha met with a natural reaction in the hands of his successors. They discarded the religion and expressed their antipathy by embracing and supporting Jainism, Ājivikism and Sivaism to the exclusion of Buddhism.
1 Sec Mmk., p. 610; Schiefner, pp. 40, 48; Bu-ston, II, p. 118; Divyā., p. 430; Watters, II, p. 100; Raychaudhury, op. cit., p. 238; Przyluski, op. cit., p. 240.
2 Schiefner restores Vigatāśoka from Tib. 5 Ja which may as well be restored as Visoka as given in Mmk., p. 610.
Nanda (5995) is described as the grandson of Visoka and son of Sūrasena (not Virascna). See Mmk., p. 613; Watters, II, p. 97; Schiefner, p. 53.
3 According to Tāranātha, Asoka was succeeded by his grandson VisokaVisoka's son Sūrasena (or Virasena) - his son Nanda who was a contemporary of Pāṇini--then Mahāpadma (Schiefner, p. 52) whose contemporaries were Sthiramati, Bhadra and Vararuci.
Another tradition (see Schiefner, p. 287) Sampadi—Brhaspati — Vrșasena, Pusyavarman-Pusyamitra.
4 Sec Raychaudhury, p. 240.