Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

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

Page 81

THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
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ness for living creatures is good, liberality to Brahmans and Sramanas is good. These and other such acts constitute verily the festival of duty... With these means let a man seek Swarga."
Tablet 10 contrasts the emptiness of earthly fame as compared with the observance of moral duty," and section 11 equally discourses on “virtue," which is defined as “the cherishing of slaves and dependents, pious devotion to mother and father, generous gifts to friends and kinsmen, Brahmanas and Sramanas, and the non-injury of living beings.”
Tablet 12 commences : “The beloved of the gods, King A Priyadasi, honours all forms of religious faith,"? . .. and enjoins "reverence for one's own faith, and no reviling nor injury of that of others. Let the reverence be shown in such and such a manner, as is suited to the difference of belief,"3 . . "for he, who in some way honours his own religion and reviles that of others, saying, having extended to all our own belief, let us make it famous, he, who does this, throws difficulties in the way of his own religion : this, his conduct cannot be right." .... The Edict goes on to say, " And as this is the object of all religions, with a view to its dissemination, superintendents of moral duty, as well as over women, and officers of compassion, as well as other officers” (are appointed).4
The 13th Tablet, which Professor Wilson declined to translate, as the Kapur di Giri text afforded no trustworthy corrective, seems, from Mr. Prinsep's version, to recapitulate much that has been said before, with a reiterated “injunction for the non-injury of animals and content of living creatures,” sentiments in which he appears to seek the sympathy of the “Greek King Antiochus,” together (as we now know 5) with that of the “four kings Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and
1 Dr. Kern's conclusion of Tablet 9 runs as follows, “ By doing all this, a man can merit heaven; therefore let him who wishes to gain heaven for himself fulfil, above all things, these his duties.”—I. A., p. 271.
» Dr. Kern's rendering says "honour all sects and orders of monks." 3 " so that no man may praise his own sect or contemn another sect."
4 “For this end, sheriffs over legal proceedings, magistrates entrusted with the superintendence of the women, hospice-masters and other bodies have been appointed."--I. A., p. 268.
** Gen. Cunningham, Arch. Report, vol. i. p. 247, and vol, v. p. 20. See also my “Dynasty of the Guptas in India," p. 34. I append the tentative trans