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I do not hesitate to maintain, though few Christian writers will agree with me, that the world owes to India that higher system of ethics and nobler code of morality which distinguish the modern religion from the religions of the ancient world. In the present volume I have treated of the Buddhist and the Pauranik Age. The edicts of Asoka have thrown a flood of light on his administration and his times ; and numerous other inscriptions which have been read, elucidate many facts relating to the regal dynasties of the different provinces of India. But for an account of the people, their customs, laws and manners, we must turn to the code of Manu and to the account of the Chinese travellers. When we have compared these two records, we know how the Hindus saw themselves, and how they were seen by others. The Pauranik Age opens with the sixth century A. D., when there was a renaissance in literature, science and religion. This opinion which is now held by most scholars is not however acceded to by all. My kind critic Dr. Biihler has pointed out that the Kdvya litera- ture flourished during the early centuries of the Chris- Digitized by Google r PREFACE. vii tian Era ; that Chandragupta II and his father Samudra- gupta of the Gupta dynasty were celebrated patrons of poetry and learning in the 5th and 4th centuries A. D. ; and that it cannot therefore be asserted that there was a renaissance in Sanscrit literature in the 6th century A. D. I have in the present volume admitted all the facts kindly pointed out by my learned critic, but I demur to his conclusion. K£vya literature no doubt had its commencement in the 4th and 5th centuries of the Christian Era, just as modern English poetry had its commencement with Chaucer and Gower. But never- theless the 6th century A. D., which I take to be the era of Vikram£ditya and K£lidasa, marked a real revival and renaissance of Sanscrit literature, as the age of Elizabeth and Shakespeare marked a real revival of English literature. It was the commencement of a new epoch, marked by an upheaval of the national mind. In order properly to comprehend the subsequent history of the national mind in the Pauranik Age, we must compare the Dharma S&stras and the Pauranik literature with the account of the Hindus from the discriminating and friendly pen of Alberuni. This I have attempted to do specially in the two closing chapters of the work, and the impression which is left on the mind is one of sadness. An unhealthy supersti- tion and social system warped the national mind and Digitized by Google • • • vm PREFACE. paralyzed the national vigour. Worshippers were di- vorced from religious learning, warriors were divided from the people, professions and sects were disunited for ever and enfeebled. Men were subjected to unmean- ing restrictions and hurtful rules, women were encourag- ed to perish on the pyre. A monopoly of knowledge was established, social and religious freedom was extin- guished, and the lamp of national life was quenched with the light of freedom and of knowledge. The Hindu who can deservedly boast of the religion of the Upanishads and the ethics of Gautama Buddha owes it to Truth and to History to confess to the degeneracy of later times. I have not sought to suppress this sadder portion of our national story ; rather have I tried to tell it fully and impressively, so that we may now learn to turn to a brighter page of our national existence. If the present work contributes in any degree towards this result, if it helps us to sink our social disunion, to cast asunder hurtful restrictions, and to turn towards that unpolluted stream of life- giving religion, morality and knowledge which are our birthright, my labours, humble and unworthy as they are, have not been altogether in vain. Mymensing District, Bengal, > R. C. DUTT. 14/A March 1890. Digitized by Google BOOK IV. BUDDHIST PERIOD-B. C. 242 TO A. D. 500. CHAPTER I. ASOKA THE GREAT AND HIS EDICTS. THE Buddhist Period begins with the brilliant reign of Asoka the Great No greater prince had ever reigned in India since the Aryans first colonized this country, and no succeeding monarch equalled his glory, if we only except Vikramdditya of the sixth century and the great Akbar of the sixteenth century. But the claims of Asoka to greatness rest less on the extent of his empire and of his prowess than on the liberal and catholic spirit which inspired his internal administration and his foreign policy, and the fervent love of truth, and the desire to spread the truth, which have made his name a household word from Siberia to Ceylon. No monarch of India, not even Vikramaditya or Akbar, has such a world-wide reputation, and none has exerted such influence on the history of the world by his zeal for righteousness and virtue. R. C D. , a. I.— III. 1 Digitized 2 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. More than two centuries before the time of Asoka, Bimbisara and Ajatasatru had extended the limits of the Magadha empire, east and west, when Gau- tama Buddha was still living and preaching his reli- gion. Asoka's grandfather, the powerful Chandra Gupta, had, after the retreat of Alexander the Great, extended the limits of the Magadha empire over the whole of Northern India. Asoka's father Bindusara upheld the glory of Chandra Gupta, and young Asoka was sent during his father's lifetime to be Viceroy of Ujiayini. If we may rely on the writer of the Asoka Avad&na? Asoka was born of a Brahmani queen, named Subhadrangi. The same authority tells us that Asoka was turbulent in his younger days, and had to be sent to the western frontier to quell a mutiny which had broken out in Takshasila, which he did with emin- ent success. After the death of Bindusara, Asoka ascended the throne, and the date of his coronation is generally believed to be 259 or 260 B. C. The works both of the Northern and the Southern Buddhists contain little that is authentic about Asoka's reign. The Ccylonese accounts have it that Asoka put to death 99 of his brothers (only 6 according to Tara- natha) before ascending the throne ; while the Asoka Avad&na states that the emperor killed his officers and their wives, and subjected crowds of innocent people to * Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra's Napaleu Buddhist Literature^ p. 38. Digitized by Google CHAr. I.] ASOKA AND HIS EDICTS. 3 the most refined cruelties before his conversion to Buddhism. These stories are absolutely unfounded, and were invented to heighten the merit of the Bud- dhist religion by blackening the character of Asoka before his conversion to that creed. Fortunately for us, the great emperor has left us his edicts, — not in the garbled stories of later poets and chroniclers, — but in inscriptions cut on ROCKS, caves and PILLARS, by his own order, in his own time, and in the language and the alphabet of the time. The historical information conveyed in these inscrip- tions has been recently pieced together with great learn- ing and ingenuity by the illustrious French scholar Senart, and we will glean some facts from his learned work Les Inscription de Piyadasi in two volumes. The 14 Edicts on Rocks appear to have been in- scribed in the 13th and :4th years from Asoka's corona- tion, while the 8 Edicts on Pillars were inscribed in the 27th and 28th years. The last of the Pillar Edicts is the last expression of the great emperor's ideas and wishes that is available to us. The Edicts in Caves were intermediate in point of time between those on Rocks and those on Pillars. The Dipavansa and the Mah&vansa maintain that Asoka was converted to Buddhism in the fourth year after his anointment But M. Senart proves from the inscriptions themselves that the conversion really took place in the ninth year after the anointment, and Digitized by Google 4 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. immediately after the emperor had conquered Kalinga. It was the spectacle of the war of Kalinga, and of the cruel and sanguinary acts which accompanied it, that created a lasting impression on the mind of the bene- volent emperor, and made him disposed to embrace the gentle and merciful creed of Gautama. Two years after, i e., in the nth year after his coronation, Asoka was converted a second time, i. e. y he was led to spread and proclaim the faith more zealously than he had done before; and from the 13th year he be- gan to cause his Edicts to be inscribed in all parts of his great empire. We will see further on that in his 13th Rock Edict, Asoka names five Greek kings as his contemporaries. All these kings reigned between 268 and 258 B. C. Asoka was already a zealous Buddhist when he made treaties with these kings, and if the date of the treaties be supposed to be 258 B. C, Asoka's coronation, M. Senart argues, must have taken place about 270 B. C, not about 260 B. C, as is generally supposed. The difference of ten years is, however, of little importance in Ancient Indian History. We learn from the inscriptions that Asoka had brothers and sisters living at the time of the inscrip- tions ; and the story that Asoka killed his brothers in order to ascend the throne must therefore be rejected as false. The emperor had more than one queen, and one inscription describes the liberality of his second queen (Dutiya Devi). Pataliputra was the capi- Digitized by Google CHAP. I.] ASOKA AND HIS EDICTS. 5 tal of the empire, but Ujjayini, Takshasill, Tasall and Samapi are spoken of as subject towns, and the con- quest of Kalinga has already been spoken of before. The whole of Northern India owned the emperor's sway. Fourteen nations {Apar&ntas) living beyond the limits of Northern India also owned his suzerainty.