5. Buddhist Legends of Asoka and his Times. 



ikUed from the Pali of the Rasavahint by Laksmana fifi 

 mo Lai Scholar and Head Pandit, Queen's Collegia 



bcfiool, Benares, ivith a Prefatory Note 



by H. C. Norman. 



. Asoka is admittedly one of the most interesting figures in 

 Indian history, and the story of his conversion presents many 

 problems which have engaged the attention of most Indianists. 

 Any old document which gives some account of this monarch, 

 even though it be in a legendary form, is therefore of interest, 

 and especially a Pali work by a Buddhist, as representing the 

 orthodox opinion on this matter. Various stories of Asoka are 

 to be met within the Sinhalese chronicles and in Buddhaghosa, 

 but as they are to be found conveniently arranged in a prose form 

 m the RasavahinI, and as Pandit Laksmana Sastrl is at present 

 preparing an edition of that work 1 for the Pali Text Society, I 

 urged him to make a translation of this tale of Asoka— one of 

 the longest in the book. The authorities on which the author 

 of this interesting old work has drawn are the Mahavamsa and 

 Buddhaghosa' s commentaries, and he has followed his authori- 

 ties with a minute exactitude which is characteristic of Bud- 

 dhist works, following them almost word for word in the essen- 

 tial passages. 



In addition to other matters, the legend gives the story of 

 how Asoka found the Buddha's relics and distributed them over 

 India. This story occurs in Buddhaghosa's Sumaiigalavilasinl, 

 and forms part of a long account of the fate of the relics after 

 their first dispersal. By way of explanation, and in order to 

 make the account more connected, I have ventured to give a 

 translation from that part of Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the 

 Mahaparinibbana Sutta which deals with Ajatasattu's treat- 

 ment of the relics. For this the Burmese edition of Rangoon, 

 1903, has 



1906 



has given the story of the relics from the Pali, and presumably 

 from the same edition. My version agrees in all essentials with 

 Dr. Fleet's, but, at the risk of being wearisome, I have literal- 

 ly translated every detail of the text, with some notes on 

 slight points of difference between us. For a complete discus 

 sion of the fate of the relics, Dr. Fleet's articles in the J.R.A.S. 

 must be referred to, for they are of prime importance, giving 

 as they do the best results of modern criticism. 



J According to Goonaratne in the J.P.T.S. for 1884, p. 51, the 

 Kasavahini is probably a work of the fourteenth century A.D. 



