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364
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1903.
ASOKA NOTES.
BY VINCENT A. SMITH, M.A., I.C.S. (RETD.).
I.-Mahendra, brother of Aboka.
The Indian tradition which represents Mahendra, the missionary to Ceylon, as the brother of the emperor Asoka, and not as his illegitimate son, which is the Ceylonese version, appears to me the more probable. Nobody knows the origin of the tradition embodied in the Pâli books, of which the oldest, the Dipavansa, dates probably from the fourth century A. D. The question of the credibility of the Ceylonese chronicles generally has been well treated by Mr. Foulkes in articles in this Journal, which have not received as much attention as they deserve, with the result that the chronicles must be accorded much less weight than it has been the custom to assign to them. My studies led me independently to the same conclusion.
The tradition that Mahendra was Aéôka's brother was learned by the Chinese pilgrims at Pâtaliputra, and it is more probable that the truth was preserved at Asôka's capital than in Ceylon. Fa-hien's date is nearly the same as that of the Dipavamsa. His statement that "King Asoka had a younger brother who had attained to be an Arhat, and resided on Gridhra-kuta hill, finding his delight in solitude and quiet" (Ch. XXVII., Legge) reads like genuine history. It is true that he adds a miraculous explanation of the construction of the stone cell occupied by the saint, but that cannot be regarded as discrediting the tradition of Asoka's saintly brother. Every structure in which exceptionally large stones are employed is invariably ascribed to supernatural agency.
The name of the emperor's brother, Mahendra, is supplied by Hiuen Tsiang (Beal, II., 246), who credits him with the conversion of Ceylon. In an earlier passage (II., 91) the pilgrim relates the legend of the stone-cell at Pâtaliputra, and in a third passage (II., 231) he states that the ancient monastery in the Malakuta country in the south of India had been "built by Mahendra, the younger brother of Aśoka-raja." It is clear therefore that both the Chinese pilgrims, who obtained their information both in Northern and Southern India, knew Mahendra only as the younger brother of Asôka. Neither of them had heard the Ceylonese story that Mahendra and his sister Sanghamitra were Aéôka's illegitimate children by a Setthi lady of Vedisagiri (or Chetiyagiri, according to Turnour's version). The name Sanghamitra; *friend of the Order,' has a made-up look, and I regard the whole legend of Sanghamitra's mission to ordain nuns in Ceylon as unhistorical.
Huien Tsiang's statement that a monastery in Southern India w built by Mahêndra, the emperor's younger brother, is, I believe, true. The missionary probably passed from Southern India to Ceylon.
The history of Tibet offers a parallel to the case of Mahendra,
King Ral-pa-chan, who was assassinated in A. D. 838, on account of his strictness in enforcing the clerical laws, was an ardent Buddhist, and "is said to have done much toward giving the priesthood a regular organization and hierarchy." His elder brother entered the priesthood, became a famous teacher, and wrote several stras. Save that Mahendra was Asôka's younger brother, the Tibetan case is a sufficiently close parallel, and offers an authentic instance of a sovereign's brother turning monk, and so far confirms the Indian version of Mahendra's mission.
1 The Vicissitudes of the Buddhist Literature of Ceylon,' ante, Vol. XVII. (1888), p. 100; Buddhaghosa, Vol. XIX. (1890), p. 105.
Malakúta seems to have included the whole of Southern India beyond the Kaveri (Hultzsch, ante, Vol. XVIII. p. 242).
Bookhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 225.
