528 Buddhist Chronology. [Sept. 



in the year 218, after the death of Sa'kya, or B. C. 325 ; that he 

 became a convert to Buddhism four years after his accession, and that 

 the mission for the conversion of Cashmir was deputed by him, in the 

 18th year of his reign, after the termination of the third convocation, 

 in A. B. 236 or B. C. 307. The particulars given of the rule of this 

 prince in Cashmir, concise and imperfect as they are, entirely accord, 

 as far as they go, with the foregoing sketch. According to that 

 sketch, Aso'ka is not the direct descendant of his predecessors who 

 reigned in Cashmir ; " he was originally a pious worshipper of Siva, 

 but subsequently invented or originated the Jina Sdsana" (religion of 

 Jina or SdkyaJ ; and, according to the Ayin Acberi, " abolished the 

 Brahminical rites and substituted those of Jina." With these marked 

 features of resemblance, of peculiar and prominent importance in the 

 tableau of Indian History, which are not recognizable in, or applicae 

 ble to, any other Asiatic monarch, it appears to be impossible to 

 withhold the admission that the Aso'ka of Cashmir, and the Aso'ka of 

 Magadha, subsequently called Dhammas6ka, the emperor of India, are 

 identically one and the same individual. 



If on this hypothetical reasoning, the point of identity may be 

 considered to be established, (and I observe by your Genealogical 

 Tables that it is there admitted,) we have to add 20 years for the 

 residue of the reign of Aso'ka, from the date of the Buddhist mission 

 to Cashmir in A. B. 235, or B. C. 307, to complete his reign of 37 

 years in Magadha, which brings us to B. C. 287, leaving a term of 

 282 years between that date and B. C. 5, to which the reign of 

 Gonerda III. was brought, according to the foregoing adjustment 

 (made on Brahminical chronological data) to be divided amongst the 

 six princes who intervened between Aso'ka and Gonerda III. 

 These numbers will give an average of 47 years for each reign, which 

 is certainly inadmissible. This discrepancy, however, only serves 

 to give me greater confidence in the views I entertain ; and, indeed, 

 if such a result was not produced, in this particular portion of Bud- 

 dhistical chronology, the whole of the reasoning entered into in the 

 introduction to my pamphlet, on which I have attempted to prove 

 "that an intentional perversion to the extent of about 60 years has 

 been adopted, to answer some national or religious object, which is 

 not readily discoverable, between the date of Sa kya Sinha's death 

 and that of the accession of Chandragupta," would be nullified. By 

 deducting these 60 years, about 222 years will be left to be divided 

 among those six princes, which gives an average of 37 years, which 

 also is far from being a satisfactory result. But a single protracted 

 reign, in so limited a number as six monarchs, would be sufficient 



