Book Title: Story of Nation Buddhist India
Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd

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Page 320
________________ A SOKA 299 there is little reason to believe that the Greek selfcomplacency would have been much disturbed. Asoka's estimate of the results obtained is better evidence of his own vanity than it is of Greek do. cility. We may imagine the Greek amusement at the absurd idea of a “barbarian " teaching them their duty ; but we can scarcely imagine them discarding their gods and their superstitions at the bidding of an alien king. Here, fortunately, the Chronicles come to our assistance. In a curt record they give us the names of missionaries sent out by Tissa, the son of Moggali (the author of the Kathā Vatthu, and the president of the 3rd Council held in Asoka's reign and under his patronage).' They were sent to Kashmir, to Gandhára, to the Himālaya (Nepal or Tibet), to the border lands on the Indus, to the coast of Burma, to South India and Ceylon. Each party consisted of a leader and four assistants. Of the five missionaries to the Himalaya region three are named as Majjhima, Kassapa-gotta, and Dundub. hissara. Now when Cunningham opened the Topes (brick burial mounds) at and near Sānchi he discovered under them several of the funeral urns containing ashes from the funeral pyres of the distinguished persons in whose honour the Topes had been built. One of the urns has inscribed round the outside of it, in letters of the 3rd Century, B.C., the simple legend: “Of the good man, Kassapa-gotta, the teacher of all the Himālaya region." Round the Dipavamsa, chap. viii. ; Mahāvamsa, chap. xii. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com

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