________________
284
BIDDII/S7 71014
—that is to say, he had set out, along the Aryan Eightfold Pathi, towards the attainment (if not in his present life then in some future birth as a man) of the state of mind called Arahatship.' So in the ninth year of his reign an Upāsaka, in the eleventh year a Bhikshu, in the thirteenth, still reaching upward, he enters the Path.
This is his own account of the matter, and he gives no one else any credit for his progress. It is not by any suggestion or instruction, received either from layınan or recluse, that he has adopted this course. It is his own doing throughout. The Chroniclers profess to know the name of the bhikshu who was instrumental in his conversion. I am not prepared to say, though their evidence is so inuch later, that there may not be some truth in their view. It is quite true that it is sound Buddhist doctrine that each man is “to be a lamp unto hiinself, to hold fast as a refuge to the truth (the Dhamma], to look not for refuge to any one besides himself."'But it is so very likely that one factor at least in the King's change of heart may have been the exhortation or conversation of one or other of the Aralats, that we inay suppose both accounts to liave been right. It is strange for a king, whether in India or in Europe, to devote himself strenuously to the higher life at all. It is doubly strange that, in doing so, he should select a system of belief where salvation, independent
"See, on this meaning of the word sambodhi, my Dialogues of the Buddha, i. 190-192.
Book of the Great Deccası', iii. 33, translated in my Buddhist Suttas, p. 35.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
