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Among the latter the chronological epitome appended to Bede's Ecclesiastical History may be specially mentioned. But even this common stock exists in two different recensions, in A, B, C, on the one hand, and D, E on the other.
There were probably several recensions in which successive additions were made to the original nucleus. One interpolation is the lengthy and important section called Daśabhûmika, describing the career of a Bodhisattva. It is the only part of the Mahâvastu which can be called definitely Mahayanist.
We know that the Pali recension which we possess was not the only one, for fragments of a Sanskrit version have been discovered. There was probably a large floating literature of sutras, often presenting several recensions of the same document worked up in different ways.
Between thirty and forty of these inscriptions have been discovered, scattered over nearly the whole of India, and composed in vernacular dialects allied to Pali . Many of them are dated by the year of the King's reign and all announce themselves as the enactments of Piyadassi, the name Asoka being rarely used . They comprise, besides some fourteen single edicts , two series, namely: Fourteen Rock Edicts, dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth years of Asoka's reign and found inscribed in seven places but the recensions differ and some do not include all fourteen edicts.
There are, for instance, three independent Lives of St. Mochuda and one of these is in two recensions. The surviving Lives naturally divide themselves into two great classes the Latin Lives and the Irish, written in Latin and Irish respectively. We have a Latin Life only of some saints, and Irish Life only of others, and of others again we have a Latin Life and an Irish.
That other recensions were at one time in existence is probable from the variations in the Ancient Versions, the oldest of which, namely, the Greek or Septuagint, was made, at least in part, some two centuries before the Christian era.
Seven Pillar Edicts dating from the 27th and 28th years, and found in six recensions. The fourteen Rock Edicts are mostly sermons. Their style often recalls the Pitakas verbally, particularly in the application of secular words to religious matters.
The poem was probably composed by the famous Thomas the Rhymer of Ercyldoune or Earlstown in Berwickshire. A reliable edition by G. P. MacNeill has been published by the Scottish Text Society, with an introduction giving a full and interesting account of the legend in its various recensions.
With regard to the text subjoined to my translation, it was published in Japan in 1779. The editor had before him four recensions of the narrative; those of the Sung and Ming dynasties, with appendixes on the names of certain characters in them; that of Japan; and that of Corea.
We know nothing as to how literature may have been enriched; some think that the great epics may have come from this time. If so, it would only have been recensions of them, I imagine. But in art and architecture his reign was everything. He built splendid cities, and strewed the land with wonderful buildings and monoliths.
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