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students to keep alive, and hand down to their successors, and to us, that invaluable literature which has taught us much of the history of religion, not only in Ceylon, but also in India itself.
In the seventh Pillar Edict, dated in the twentyeighth year (that is, in the thirty-second year after Bindusāra's death, say about 248 B.C.), Asoka sums up all the other measures he had taken for the propagation of what he calls his Dhamia. They are as follows:
1. The appointment of functionaries in charge of districts and provinces to instruct the people.
2. The putting up of pillars of the Dhamma (that is, pillars with the Edicts inscribed on them), and the appointment of special ministers at the court to superintend the propagation of the Dhamma.
3. The planting of trees for shade, and the digging of wells, at short intervals, along the roads.
4. The appointment of special ministers to superintend charities to both householders and Wanderers, and to regulate the affairs of the Order,' and of other sects having jurisdiction apart from the ordinary magistrates.
5. The appointment of these and other officers to superintend the distribution of the charities of the Queen and their children.
He claims by these means to have had great success in promoting the Dhamma (as set out above, pp. 294–297), and adds that such positive regulations as he has made are of sinall account compared with
It is noteworthy that he does not say which. The Order would be taken, in his opinion, by everybody, to mean the Buddhist Order.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
