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Updated: May 14, 2025
Kanishka appeared, and began to reign, early in our first century, about A.D. 10. He was the last of three brothers, whose original seat was in Yueh-she, immediately mentioned, or Tukhara. Converted by the sudden appearance of a saint, he became a zealous Buddhist, and patronised the system as liberally as Asoka had done.
In the time of Asoka the dialect of Magadha must have been understood over the greater part of India, like Hindustani in modern times, but in some details of grammar and phonetics Pali differs from Mâgadhî Prakrit and seems to have been influenced by Sanskrit and by western dialects.
Pierced with those arrows equipped with heads like the calf's tooth, Adhiratha's son of broad chest looked resplendent like an Asoka or Palasa or Salmali decked with its flowery load or a mountain overgrown with a forest of sandal trees.
In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding Gotama , namely Vipassî, Sikhî, Vessabhû, Kakusandha, Konâgamana and Kassapa. The last three at least may have some historical character. Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konâgamana in Nepal with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved.
The kingdom of Magadha next assumes a commanding position though its rulers long before Chandragupta were of low caste. Of these kings the greatest is Asoka, three generations after Chandragupta. There was certainly no lord paramount of India at the time of Alexander's invasion.
We also find allusions in Buddhist and Jain works as well as in the inscriptions of Asoka to popular festivals or fairs called Samajjas which were held on the tops of hills and seem to have included music, recitations, dancing and perhaps dramatic performances.
Thus we hear that righteousness is the best of lucky ceremonies and that whereas former kings went on tours of pleasure and hunting, Asoka prefers tours of piety and has set out on the road leading to true knowledge. In this series he does not mention the Buddha and in the twelfth edict he declares that he reverences all sects. But what he wished to preach and enforce was the Dhamma.
And inflamed by desire, that conqueror in battle of the gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Yakshas, and the Kimpurushas, attired in celestial robes and possessing handsome features, decked with jewelled earrings and wearing a beautiful garland and crown, entered the Asoka woods, like an embodiment of the vernal season.
And it was a defined religio- political body, highly antagonistic to the old state religion of Rome, that he linked his fortunes with. But no sovereign so mighty in compassion is recorded in history as having reigned, as this Asoka. He was the most unsectarian of men. Buddhism as it came to him, and as he left it, was not a sect, but a living spiritual movement. For what is a sect?
Which religion was the borrower from the other Buddhism or Christianity? Two centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon the rocks these words: I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with me in creed, that they, following after my example, may with me attain unto eternal salvation.
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