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BUDDHIST INFLUENCE IN EAST AND WEST 615
missionary propaganda in the realms of Yona princes as mere "royal rhodomontade". "It is quite likely," says he, "that the Greek kings are only thrown in by way of make-weight, as it were; and that no emissaries had been actually sent there at all." Sir Flinders Petrie is, however, of opinion that in the Ptolemaic Period Buddhism and Buddhist festivals had already reached the shores of Egypt. He infers this from Indian figures found at Memphis. An epigraph from the Thebaid mentions as the dedicator "Sophon the Indian". "
Alberuni, writing in the eleventh century A.D. says, "In former times Khurasan, Persis, Irak, Mosul, the country up to the frontier of Syria, was Buddhistic, but then Zarathustra went forth from Adharbaijan and preached Magism in Balkh (Baktra). His doctrine came into favour with king Gushtasp, and his son Isfendiyad spread the new faith both in East and West, both by. force and by treaties. He founded fire-temples through his whole Empire, from the frontiers of China to those of the Greek Empire. The succeeding kings made their religion (i.e., Zoroastrianism) the obligatory state-religion for Persis and Irak. In consequence the Buddhists were banished from those countries, and had to emigrate to the countries east of Balkh......Then came Islam." The above account may not be correct in all its particulars. The statement that Buddhism flourished in the countries of Western Asia before Zoroaster is clearly wrong. But the prevalence of the religion of Sakyamuni in parts of Western Asia in a period considerably anterior to Alberuni and its suppression by Zoroastrianism and Islam may well be based upon fact. The antagonism of Buddhism to the firecult is hinted at in the Bhuridatta Jātaka. * It has even been suggested that Zoroastrian scriptures allude to disputes with the Buddhists.5
Four centuries before Alberuni, Hiuen Tsang bore witness to the fact that Lang kie(ka)-lo, a country subject to Persia, contained above 100 monasteries and more than 6,000 Brethren
1 Buddhist India, p. 298.
2 Mahaffy, A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, 155 f.
3 Sachau, Alberuni's India, Vol. I. p.-21.
4 No. 543.
5 Sir Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, III, 450.
