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AUGUST, 1891.)
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
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it developed in later times. It appears to us as a purely moral doctrine, paying little attention to particular dogmas or to abstract theories, little embarrassed with scholastic or monkish elements having but little tendency to insist on the divergencies which separated it from neighbouring religions, ready to accept consecrated terms and forms when they did not offend its moral ideal, and as yet without texts fixed by writing, or, we may be sure, a regularly defined canon. As far as we are in a position to judge, the character of the texts enumerated by Piyadasi at Bhabra, entirely agrees with such a stage of Buddhism.
One other remark also has its value. Nowhere, amongst the rewards which he offers in the future for virtue, does Piyadasi make any allusion to nirvana. It is always svargs of which he speaks (Ed. VI, IX; Dh., Det. Ed., I). Doubtless the king may have deliberately preferred to choose a term familiar to all intellects, and more conveniently suited to all doctrines. But, in spite of all, this absolute silence appears to me to be significant, as clearly indicating an epoch anterior to the metaphysical and speculative developments of the Buddhist religion.
The history of Buddhism implies, if I am not mistaken, a period, still near its source, marked by a popular character, less determined in its dogmas, less isolated in its legends, in which the essential originality of the doctrine had room to manifest itself freely, an originality which is founded on the pre-eminence attributed to the due carrying out of moral duties over the execution of liturgical forms and practices. Such a period appears to me to be a kind of necessary historical postulate, and I think that the inscriptions of Piyadasi preserve for us not only & trace, but direct evidence of it.
Things soon changed their aspect; and the peculiar features of this ancient epoch were quickly lost by tradition. This follows from the few comparisons which we have been able to make, between the evidence of the monuments, and the data given by literature. The very character and person of Asoka have undergone, both in legend and in chronicle, alterations analogous to the evolution which followed his time.
Asoka became in them a type without individuality and without life, his history a subject for edifying legends, and his name & peg on which to hang theories of moral development. His early life has been extravagantly blackened, to serve as a counterfoil to the virtues which inspired him after his conversion. He has been depicted at the end of his career as entirely under the feet of the clergy, as a sort of maniac in almsgiving, and as an ideal of monkish perfection, which, however admirable it may appear to Hindús, cannot seduce us to similar applause. His inscriptions furnish no confirmation whatever of these statements. Prof. Kern, 101 influenced by the legends, considers that towards the end of his life Piyadasi showed himself to be intolerant and a bigot. He discovers in his last edicts the expression of an actual fanaticism, and maintains that the tone and course of ideas suggest that the intellect of the prince must have deteriorated, and that, while all the edicts bear more or less traces of a troubled mind, the last ones are specimens of insensate babbling, 102 This judgment is based on the false idea that the Edict of Sahasrâm belonged to the final period of the reign of Piyadasi, and I confess that, so far as I am concerned, I can discover no pretext for such vehement conclusions. But Prof. Kern is, in general, very hard on the poor Piyadasi. When he considers that the 13th edict, the one which deals with the conquest of Kalinga, leaves on the mind an impression of
hypocrisy',103 I cannot refrain from fearing that he is yielding to a bad opinion preconceived against a king whose clericalism annoyed him.
The character of Piyadasi has generally been more favourably appreciated. It cannot, I think, be denied, without injustice, that he exhibits, in his edicte, a spirit of moderation, a moral elevation, a care for the public good, which merit every praise. He possessed from his birth a taste for enterprise and energetic qualities, borne witness to by the conquest of Kalinga. Did his oonversion injure the native vigour of his temper? The thing is the more possible, as being the 102 Kern, II, p. 807, n.
202 Ibid. p. 319.
28 [bid. p. 816.
