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MAY, 1903.)
TIBETAN AFFINITIES OF THE LIOHOHHAVIS.
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Samprati, his grandson, who, becoming the patron of the Jains church, followed the example of his grandfather, by issuing the rock-edicts.
Now since the Grecian Sandracottus synchronises with Asoka, who was once deputed by Bindusara to Taxila to quell a rebellion, we can safely identify him with the latter. For Chandragupta, literally the moon-protected, appears to be a title, just like the one we have in the Gupta dynasty. The Rájávali-Kathé reoords that Kankla, A bôka's son, had the title of Chandragupta ; and in the Tibetan tradition we find that several kings of the Maurya dynasty had this surname.
I need not enter into the controversy of the so-called identity of Priyadarsi of the pillar and rock-ediots with Aboka in this brief paper. But I may remark that there are great differences in the incidents in the lives of the two kings. Firstly, why should not the author of the edicts proclaim them in his well-known name of Aboka, which is not found in even one instance? The first (Upásaka) conversion of king Priyadarsi occurred in the 9th year after his coronation'; wbile in the case of Asoka, it was in his fourth regral year. Priyadarsi undertook
his dharma-ydtrd to the Magadha Samgha (religions assembly), being his second conversion, in - the 11th year of his reign; while Aboka received Mogalipatra and held the Third Buddhistic Council in his 17th regnal year, and altogether retired from the world and became an ascetic in the 35th year, two years before he died. Abiks appears as a Buddhist; while Priyadarsi was equally respectful towards the Sarmaņas and the Brahmaņas. No Orientalist has yet proved that Priyadarai was a proper name and not a title, monopolized by the Maurya emperor Abôka alone. I need not go further into details, but conclude with slating my strong conviction that the Pillar-edicts belonged to Aboka, and the Rock-edicts to Sampräti, who was contemporary with the five Yona Kings, of the then divided Greek empire.
TIBETAN AFFINITIES OF THE LICHCHIAVIS.
BY VINCENT A. SMITH, M.A., 1.C.S. (RETD.). All students of ancient Indian history are familiar with the name of the Lichohhavis, the ruling tribo or clan in the Vrijji country, of which Vaisali was the capital. Several facte indicate a close connection between Tibet and the Lichchbavis, and give probability to the theory that the Liohohhavis were really a Tibetan tribe which settled in the plains during prehistorio times. .
According to one tradition the first Tibetan monarch was descended from Prasd najit. king of Kosala, the contemporary and friend of Gautama Buddha, According to another form of the legend, the Sakya race, to which the Buddha belonged, was divided into three branches, represented respectively by 'sakyamuni, or Gautama Buddha, Sakya the Lichchhavi, and Säkya the mountaineer - Sakya the Lichchhavi being the progenitor of the Tibetan kings. But, as Mr. Rockhill (The Life of the Buddhz, p. 203) points out, legends of this kind have little value.
Mach more significant are the undoubted similarities between the customs of the Tibetans and those of the Lichchhavis, which are recorded in the important matters of sepulture and judicial procedure.
The horrible custom of exposing the dead to be devoured by wild animals was oommon to Vaiskli and Tibet. When the Bodhisattva (Gautama) was at Vaisáli, he is related to have observed a cemetery under & clump of trees and to have questioned the Rishis, who explained:
"In that place the corpses of men are exposed to be devoured by the birds; and there also they collect and pile up the white bones of dead persons, as you perceive; they burn corpses there also, and preserve the bones in heaps. They hang dead bodies also from the trees;
