Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 80

44
THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
I rule I confer happiness in this world, -in the next they may obtain Swarga (heaven)."1
Tablet 7 does not seem to call for any remark. Tablet 8 refers to some change that came over the royal mind in the tenth year of his reign. “Piyadasi, the beloved of the gods, having been ten years inaugurated, by him easily awakened, that moral festival. is adopted (which consists) in seeing and bestowing gifts on Brahmanas and Sramanas, : . . overseeing the country and the people; the institution of moral laws," etc.
Burnouf's amended translation differs from this materially. He writes :
"[Mais] Piyadasi, le roi chéri des Dêvas, parvenu à la dixième année depuis son sacre, obtient la science parfaite que donne la Buddha. C'est pourquoi la promenade de la roi est cette qu'il faut faire, ce sont la visite et l'aumône faites aux Brâhmanes et anx Samanas." ...
I see that Dr. Kern now proposes to interpret this contested passage as,
"But King Devánámpriya Priyadarşin, ten years after his inauguration, came to the true insight. Therefore he began a walk of righteousness, which consists in this, that he sees at his house and bestows gifts upon Bráhmans and monks. ... Since then this is the greatest pleasure of King Devánámpriya Priyadarşin in the period after his conversion " (to what?).-I. A. p. 263.
In his remarks upon the tenor of this brief tablet Dr. Kern continues,
"It is distinguished by a certain simplicity and sentiment of tone, which makes it touch a chord in the human breast. There is a tenderness in it, so vividly different from the insensibility of the later monkish literature of Buddhism, of which Th. Parie observes, with so much justice, "Tout reste donc glacé dans ce monde bouddhique.""
Tablet 9, speaking of festivities in general, declares:
"Such festivities are fruitless and vain, but the festivity that bears great fruit is the festival of duty, such as the respect of the servant to his master; reverence for holy teachers is good, tender
1 Lagen renders this, "my whole endeavour is to be blameless towards all creatures, to make them happy here below and enable them hereafter to obtain Svarga."-Indian Antiquary, p. 270.