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BUDDHIST INDIA
with the Asoka of the literature, or the fact of his relationship to Chandragupta, or of his capital having been at Pāțaliputta, or any other of the numerous side-lights to be drawn from the Chroni. cles. As M. Senart says:
“I believe that the Chronicles have, in certain details, under the name of Asoka, preserved of our Piyadasi recollections sufficiently exact, not only to allow a substantial agreement (une concordance sensible) to appear, but even to contribute usefully to the intelligence of obscure passages in our monuments." I
Besides numerous passages scattered through other books (which have not yet been collected) we have four connected narratives dealing with Asoka. These are :
(1). The Asoka Avadāna, in Buddhist Sanskrit, preserved in Nepal.
(2). The Dīpavamsa, in Pāli, preserved in Burma.
(3). Buddaghosa's account in his commentary on the Vinaya.
(4). The Mahāvamsa, in Pali, preserved in Ceylon.
Of these the first was composed in the Ganges valley. The author and date are unknown; but it is probably as late as the third century of our era. It forms one of a collection of legends called the Divyāvadāna. The exact force of this title is somewhat ambiguous. Avadāna means a story, but as it is used exclusively of the life-story of a person distinguished in the religion, the collection corresponds to the l'itæ Sanctorum of the Christian Church. We
' Inscriptions de Piyadasi, 2. 231.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
