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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
the Brahmans as the sole teachers of religious faith. It seems likely also that the same innovators discarded the ritual of the Vedas, and discontinued the adoration of the Hindu divinities, placing the observance of moral duties and the practice of a life of self-denial and restraint above the burthensome and expensive charges of formal worship. Their departure from the Brahmanical system started about the time ascribed to Sákya's teaching, became gradually developed as the organization of those by whom they were professed became more perfect, and by the middle of the third century before Christ, they may have enjoyed the patronage of Asoka, the Raja of Central India, as the Buddhist traditions maintain, and under his encouragement a convocation may have been held, at which the associated Buddhists commenced that course of propagation which spread their religion throughout India and beyond its confines to the north and to the south. I do not think that the difficulties which attend the identification of Asoka with Piyadasí have yet been cleared up, but we may admit that the edicts on the columns and the rocks were inscribed about the time of Asoka's reign, or in the third century before Christ. We may adunit also that they are intended to recommend Buddhism, but their tone is not that of a triumphant or exclusive form of belief, and the spirit of toleration which they breathe is an unequivocal proof of a nascent faith, a system that courts compromise rather than provokes and defies hostility. At this period we may conceive the marvels of Sákya's life and the more de
