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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1905.
Attention should be directed specially to the Shwezadi pagoda in the Ruby Mines District, which, according to Mr. Taw Sein-Ko, is indicated by its shape and architecture as being really ancient. Perhaps exact local investigation might fix the approximate date of the building. It may be very old, and yet more recent than Asôka by many centuries. His name is so familiar to all Buddhists, and so frequently associated with all sorts of places, that the mere popular belief connecting him with a pagoda in a remote district of Upper Burma has very little significance. Sir R. Temple points out (ante, Vol. XXII. p. 346), that "form alone can never be relied on for estimating the age of a pagoda in Burma, because of the tendency to go back to the old types," and cites examples of modern buildings in the most approved ancient form. So far as present information goes, I do not find in the Burmese traditions and monuments any substantial support for the statement of the Ceylonese chroniclers that Buddhism was introduced into Pegu and Moulmein by the missionaries dispatched during the reign of Asoka.
Professor Kern, working on purely literary lines, felt grave suspicions concerning the authenticity of the Ceylonese story of the conversion of Pegu.
"The Simhalese," he writes, "mention several other apostles, as Rakkhita, Rakkhita the Great, "Dhammarakkhita the Greek, and Dhammarakkhita the Great, the similarity of whose names is apt "to move suspicion, although we have no right to deny the existence of those persons altogether. "Still more suspicious is the duumvirate Sona-Uttara, that went to Suvarnabhumi, the Gold-land, and "there, after clearing the country from Pisäcas, delivered many from bondage. Whether this "duumvirate be identical with the Thera Sonottara or simply Uttara, living in the time of Duttha"Gamani, is doubtful.10... The duumvirate Sona and Uttara is unknown to the N. Buddhists, "unless we choose to identify Uttara with Dharmottara who founded two sects, the Tamragäțiyas and "Sankrantikas; a really unique performance. Whether the Arhat Uttara, who is represented as living "in the East, should be considered to be one and the same person is doubtful.
"Such and similar accounts, to be gathered from various sources, have a value of their own, "inasmuch as they reflect the state of mind of their framers and upholders; as historical documents "they must be handled with the greatest precaution."
" He who ordained the Yuvaraja Tisya, the younger brother of Asoka; Mahav. p. 36; Bodhiv. 106. "Dipav. 1. o. Curiously enough Sopa in Prakrt means "gold," and Uttara is "North"; often the Gold country is said to lie in the North.
"10 Dipav. xix. 6; Mahav. 172 #,
"1 Wassilief B. 41; 42; 113; 118; 150; 233.
"3 Tar. 3; 8; 291; 299."(Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, 1896, p. 117.)
Most European historians of Buddhism having been accustomed to treat the Mahavamaa and Dipavamsa as the primary authorities for the story of the development of the Buddhist church during the reign of Asôka, it is difficult to induce scholars to shift their point of view, and to recognize frankly the immeasurable superiority of the contemporary inscriptions as historical material. The earliest of the Ceylonese chronicles was compiled about six centuries after the time of Aśoka, and it is impossible to imagine that tradition should not have corrupted the exact trath during so long a period. The traditions embodied in the books of the monasteries of Ceylon undoubtedly include a considerable amount of solid historical fact, but that substratum is overlaid with much rubbish, and it is not always easy, or even possible, to disentangle the true from the false. The testimony of the Asôka inscriptions is free from this kind of difficulty, and the documents, as a whole, produce an impression of honesty and veracity, comparing very favourably with the bombastic utterances of later monarchs. Facts vouched for by the inscriptions of Asôka may, therefore, be accepted without question, because the testimony is good on the face of it, and no better can be looked for. When the evidence of the inscriptions differs from that of later literary traditions, the epigraphic authority should be preferred without hesitation.
