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which was taught by the Most Excellent." It was by means of the merit he had attained in a previous age that his attention was now attracted to the sámanéra. The king commanded him to be called; but, when approaching the royal presence, his manner was not changed, neither did his eyes wander. The king said that, if there was any seat proper for him to occupy, he was requested to sit down. Nigródha looked round, and when he saw that no superior priest was present, he gave his alms-bowl into the hands of the king, and seated himself upon the throne. On seeing this, the king thought, "He will this very day become the chief of the palace;" and he then gave him the food that had been prepared for himself, of which he took as much as he required. Asóka, greatly delighted, asked him if he were acquainted with the doctrines of Budha; and when the sámanéra replied, that as he had only lately been admitted to the priesthood, he was not able to declare them to any great extent,* the king requested him to make known to them a little of what he knew. The priest reflected :-" This is a cruel king; he takes life; he delays to acquire merit; it will be right to say something that will be applicable to his circumstances." He therefore began to deliver the discourse called appamáda-waggo (the word appamáda meaning non-dilatoriness; haste, diligence); but when he had spoken two lines of the first stanza, the king said that he would not trouble him to repeat further, as his doubts were now solved, and he received the true faith. The next day Nigródha visited the palace in company with thirty-two other priests, and after they had said bana, the king repeated the threefold protective formulary, received the five precepts, and had the faith of a novice. On the following day he was invited to bring double the number of priests; and the day after a similar invitation was given. Thus, the number invited was doubled every successive day, until those who attended were 60,000, all of whom received as much food as they required. The king erected the Asókáráma monastery, and presented it to the priesthood. Nigródha, when twenty years of age, received the upasampadá ordination, and afterwards became president of the sangha.

From this period the king was called Dharmmásóka. Every day he gave in alms five lacs of treasure, for the support of the faith. Not reckoning what was received from the eighty-four thousand This declaration is inconsistent with the wisdom usually ascribed to the

rahat.

cities of the kingdom, the fifty-six treasure cities, the ninety-nine maritime cities, and the ninety-six kelas and one lac of towns, and saying nothing of the smaller places, he received daily from the tolls taken in the metropolis five lacs; viz., one lac at each of the principal gates, and one lac at the hall in the centre of the city. The lac received at the central hall was expended in providing requisites for the priests of the Asókáráma monastery alone, after four pools had been made into baths for the priests at a vast expense. Of the four lacs received at the gates, one was expended in providing flowers, oil, rice, and similar offerings, to be presented in the name of Budha; another in providing requisites for the priests who said bana; and a third for the rest of the priesthood. The remaining lac was presented to Nigródha, who received every day, at three several times, morning, noon, and night, upon festive elephants, in grand procession, robes, perfumes, food, and 500 vases of flowers. By this means vast numbers of the priests throughout Jambudwípa were clothed, and received sustenance.

In the fourth year of the reign of Asóka, the sub-king Tissa, and Aggibrahmana, the king's son-in-law, with a lac of other persons, embraced the priesthood and became rahats. In the same year, as he was one day presenting gifts to the 60,000 priests in the wihára of Asókáráma, he enquired of them how many discourses Gótama had delivered; and when he was told by Moggaliputta-tissa that the number was 84,000, he resolved upon building a monastery in 84,000 of the cities of Jambudwípa.* For this purpose he gave in one day ninety-six kelas of treasure. The king then asked who had made the greatest offering that had ever yet been presented to Budha, and Moggaliputta-tissa replied that the monarch himself was the principal donor, as no one had offered gifts so rich as he, even in the lifetime of the sage. The king, on hearing this, enquired if he might consider himself as a partaker in the faith, or as admitted into the grand privileges of Budhism; but he was informed that he was not. Then said he, "if one who has presented so many gifts, and exercised so much faith, is not a partaker in these privileges, who is?" The priests made known to him, as they saw the advantages the faith would thereby receive, that if

In 1823, an inscription in Pali referring to one of the 84,000 shrines, that had been erected upon the same spot, was found at Budha Gaya; and in several other parts of India, monuments bearing this monarch's name are still in existence.

any one were to cause his son or daughter to enter the priesthood, he would be considered as a true religionist. The king looked in the face of the prince Mahindo, at that time about twenty years of age, and asked him if he were willing to enter the priesthood. The prince, who had earnestly desired it from the time that his uncle Tissa had embraced the sacred possession, replied, "Sire, I am willing." The princess Sanghamittá was also near, about eighteen years of age, and the king looking towards her said, "Mother, can you also take the vows?" and as she had wished to do so from the time Aggibrahmana, her husband, had separated from her for the same purpose, she replied, "It is good, sire; I will become a priestess." When this was concluded, the king, with much satisfaction, enquired if he were now regarded as one of the faithful, and the answer he received was in the affirmative. Moggaliputta-tissa became the president (upajjháyo) and Maha Déwa the reader, on the admission of the prince to the priesthood, as a sámanéra; and when he received the upasampadá ordination, at which time he became a rahat, Majjhanti was the president. On the admission of the princess to the sacred profession, the rahat Ayupáli was the president, and Dharmmapálini the reader; and she also became a rahat on the day that she received the upasampadá ordination. It was in the sixth year of the king's reign that these two illustrious personages embraced the priesthood. The prince acquired the understanding of the three Pitakas, with the various ordinances, in three years, and became the principal disciple of his preceptor.

When the tirttakas saw the prosperity attendant upon the religion of Budha, they sought admission into the priesthood; but they continued the practice of many things that were contrary to the Winaya. When these abuses came to the knowledge of Dharmmásoka, he commanded Moggaliputta-tissa to expel from the priesthood 60,000 tirttakas who had transgressed the ordinances, and from 60,000 faithful priests to choose a thousand for the holding of a convocation of which he was to be the president. These commands were obeyed, and the convocation assembled in the monastery of Asókáráma. The recitation of the sacred code occupied nine months; after which the priests were dismissed to their respective residences. This was the third great convocation. It was held in the 17th year of the reign of Dharmmásoka, and in the 235th year after the dissolution of Budha.

This account is taken by the Singhalese translator from the Com

mentary on the Pitakas, written by Budhagósha, and must have been compiled upwards of 700 years after the third convocation. The narrative has received many additions that we must reject as inconsistent with the truth; and though many of these fictions are too absurd to deserve serious contradiction, it is of some importance to notice, that the accuracy of the dates given to these assemblies has been called in question by the late Mr. Turnour, in his "Examination of the Pali Budhistical Annals," inserted in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, Sept. 1837. Mr. Turnour, though he saw no reason to doubt "the correctness of the Budhistical era, founded on the death of Sákya, or B. c. 543," distrusts the date given to the second and third convocations. It is said in the original authorities that no fewer than eight of the leading members who officiated at the second convocation had seen Budha. As the earliest age at which they could be admitted as novices was seven years, they must have been at least 107 years old. Moreover, it is said that Sabbakámi, who presided in the same convocation, had lived in the possession of the upasampadá ordination 120 years; and he must therefore have been at this period 140 years old, as this rite cannot be received under the age of twenty. Yet, the third convocation, only 135 years later, was presided over by Moggaliputta-tissa, at that time seventy-two years of age, who is represented as being the sixth remove in regular succession from the death of Gótama. It may be said that these are not absolute impossibilities; but there is another argument against their correctness, founded on data of an entirely different description. The third convocation is said to have been held in the seventeenth year of the reign of Asóka, or B. c. 308. But it was in the year B. c. 326 that Alexander invaded India, at which time Sandracottus reigned at Pátaliputra; and if Sandracottus is the same as Chandagutta, there must be a discrepancy between the European and Budhistical chronologies of about sixty-five years. It would therefore seem, that the date of the last convocation has been falsified, in order that the introduction of Budhism into Ceylon* might be invested with the greater lustre, from being effected by the son of so illustrious a monarch as the supreme ruler of India, and one who had rendered so much assistance to the religion of Gótama upon the continent. The adjustments of these dates is, however, of minor importance, compared with the question of the credit due to the history of the See the chapter entitled, The Modern Priesthood.

convocations as a statement of facts. It is possible that the convocations took place, and for the purposes specified; but it is not credible that the entire text of the Pitakas could be retained in the memory for the space of six generations, allowing that the statement relative to the number of the hierarchs is correct. Yet it would be unfair not to notice, that from our own personal experience we can form no idea of the retentiveness of the memory under other circumstances. Herodotus was astonished at the powers of memory exhibited by the Egyptian priests. The Druids are said by Caesar to have been able to repeat a great number of verses by heart, no fewer than twenty years being sometimes expended on the acquirement, as it was accounted unlawful to commit their statutes to writing. It is supposed that the poems of Homer and Hesiod were preserved in the memories of the rhapsodists, by whom they were recited, for the space of 500 years; and in the middle ages the poems recited by the minstrels were of considerable length. The rythm of the verse would aid the memory; and as a great part of the Pitakas is in metrical stanza, the priests would have a similar assistance. They would have another advantage in the great number of repetitions, not only of epithets and comparisons, but also of historical details and doctrinal formulas, that are constantly presented. But with every artificial aid it was possible to possess, it is utterly incredible that the whole text of the Pitakas could be retained in the memory of any one man, however extraordinary might be his power of mental retentiveness.

The idea of the preservation of revealed truth by tradition was already familiar to the Budhists, from the manner in which it was supposed that the Vedas were originally transmitted. The original Veda is believed by the Hindus to have been revealed by Brahma,* and to have been preserved by tradition, until it was arranged in its present order by a sage, who thence obtained the surname of Vyása, or Vádavyása, that is, compiler of the Vedas. The sacred books were divided into four parts, which are severally entitled Rich (from the verb rich, to laud, as properly signifying any prayer or hymn, in which a deity is praised); Yajush (from the verb yaj, to worship or adore); Sáman (from the root shó, convertible into só and sá, and signifying to destroy, as denoting something which

The Budhists say that the three Vedas were propounded originally by Maha Brahma, at which time they were perfect truth; but they have since been corrupted by the Brahmans, and now contain many errors.

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