A LITTLE KKOWN PROVINCE OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE. 123 



543 B.C., and consists of the legends of tlie sacred tooth, 

 gathered from records found in temples in Ceylon ; and the 

 third opens with the publication of Asoka's edict, about 250 B.C. 

 and ends with the accession of the Lion dynasty, a.d. 474. The 

 Ceylon story relates that, immediately after the death of 

 Buddha in 543 B.C., one of his disciples was commanded to 

 carry the sacred tooth to Kalinga, where it was received with 

 great honour by a king with a Sanskrit name, indicating that 

 Brahminism was, or had been, the prevalent religion there. 

 The disputes between Brahmans and Buddhists which convulsed 

 Northern India, reached even to these remote shores, and the 

 story is that after sending one of his tributary princes to 

 subdue the Orissa Buddhists, the Sanskrit emperor of the north, 

 to whom they had appealed, was himself converted by miracles, 

 worked by the tooth, and that he and his whole people received 

 it as a precious relic of the god. 



From the year 250 B.C. there is evidence of a different 

 character, cut in a rock on the bank of the Daya 

 Itiver. It consists of eleven edicts, promulgated by the 

 Buddhist emperor of Northern India, Asoka, and two other 

 edicts apparently added by the ruler of Orissa. The first 

 eleven edicts are similar to those which are found throughout 

 the length and breadth of India, and are word for word the same 

 as eleven of the fourteen edicts found at Giruar in Gujrat. They 

 enumerate the cardinal virtues of the Buddhist creed. 

 Obedience to parents ; charity to all men, especially to priests; 

 dutiful service to the spiritual guide ; the propagation of the 

 true faith ; and above all, abstention from killing or sacrificing 

 animals. In other tablets intended for the guidance of the 

 Sovereign, temporal affairs are dealt with, but the same 

 admonitions characteristic of Buddhism are repeated. " Much 

 longing after the things of this world is a disobedience, not less 

 so is laborious ambition of dominion in a prince. Confess and 

 believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience. Strive 

 to obtain this inestimable treasure." Missionaries were 

 appointed to deliver those bound in the fetters of sin by 

 declaring the final emancipation which is beyond understanding. 

 The theme is always fresh. Kipling in our own day has 

 related the story of the Thibet Lama, who, through long 

 pilgrimages and much contemplation, strove to lind the river of 

 grace that takes away sin. 



Besides these annals, cut in the rocks, there are the 

 Brahminical temple records, written on palm leaves, which 

 profess to furnish a history of the Kings of Orissa who lived 



