Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 180

168
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ SEPTEMBER, 1933
The implication is that the privilege which was confined by the orthodox system to the land of India, the privilege of having the moral yuga, a privilege which is expressly denied by the orthodox system to the countries outside the limits of Bharatavarsa, was made available, and demonstrably so, by the emperor to all, even to the Mlecchas.3
There was justification put forward here along with an open avowal of a non-Vedic or anti-Vedic system of religion, though at his coronation Aśoka must have taken the oath to protect and follow the ancient orthodox religious system.
Aśoka's Originality and Greatness.
Aśoka thus stood before his countrymen as the holy Indian emperor from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean-from Ceylon to Greece and Egypt-and as having brought about a new ethical order, and this also amongst those whom the sastras of his country had regarded as spiritually disenfranchised by the very law of primeval creation. The Buddha opened up Buddhism and sannyâsa to the whole of the non-Brahman Hindu community; Aśoka opened his Dharma to the whole of humanity. Without Aśoka, Buddhism would have remained an intra-mural religion confined to India, a Hindu religious system confined to the Hindus, just like Jainism. Probably it did not occur to the Buddha to make Dharma available to the Mlecchas. The conception of a world-religion and enfranchisement of the whole world enabling the whole world-Indian and non-Indian alike-to partake of the truth, the positivism, of Buddhism, a truth which Aśoka valued as the highest truth, was the originality of Aśoka, not of the Buddhist Church as he founded it. He truly became an allworld conqueror, the Dharma-cakrvartin cver the known world. He, in the words of his race, caused the initiation of a new manvantara, a new kalpa, in the world. He expressed the hope that this new order (his Dharma) would last for a long kalpa, sincerely bequeathing it to posterity by the testament of his inscriptions.
(b) Jambudvipa.
The name Jambudvipa is found in Buddhist Pâli sutras as well as in Sanskrit literature. Its earliest definition in Sanskrit is to be found in the Mahabharata and then in the Matsya Purana (c. 250 A.D.) They, however, avowedly borrow the geographical matter from the earlier edition of the Purana text. The geographical material of the Puranas is of a very early date, which we shall presently see, and is probably even more important than the historical.
Jambudvipa, according to the description therein given, comprised almost the whole of Asia. It is wrong to translate it by India.' I have pointed out above, on the basis of the inscriptions, that Asoka's Jambudvipa included a much larger area than India, i.e., than India-cum-Afghanistan. Now let us take the data of the Matsya.
(a) India Proper is called by it Manavadvipa (Ch. 113. 9-17), which some Puranas call Kumaridvipa, named after Kumari, a name which survives in our present day' Cape Comorin.' It gives the measurement of this dvipa from Kumârî to the source of the Ganges."
3 There are four yugas in Bharatavarga-MBh., Bhisma, X. 3; Visnu P., II. 3. 19. वह स्वर्गापवर्गार्थं प्रवृतिरिह मानुषे। Matrya, 113. 14.
यतो हि कर्ममूरेषा ततोन्या भोगभूमय : Vimmu, II. 3. 23.
Bhisma, XII. 41. Matsya, 123. 9, and various other passages. Both have cited mostly identical
verses.
5 In one place the MBh. employs the term in lieu of Bharatavarea (Bhisma, vi. 13), but this was, as the commentator has rightly pointed out, due to the leading position of Bharatavarea in Jambudvipa; throughout its treatment the MBh. takes Bharatavarea as one of the varsas of Jambukhanda or Jambudvipa, like the Purâņas, citing the very texts mostly. The MBh. at places condenses the Puranic text. The real source of the Ganges, according to the Purâņas, lay in a lake in Tibet.