Report on the Excavations at P Taliputra (Patna); The Palibothra of the Greeks (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...of the so-called 'hell' of Asoka with its fiery cauldrons, which the later monkish legend credited Asoka with having deliberately made to torture poor people, Nero-like, in the days before his conversion to Buddhism.1 What we know, however, of Asoka as a brave soldier and kind-hearted man goes quite against the credibility of this story, and the reference in his edict-inscription (No. VIII) that 'in past days the Kings went on pleasure excursions, stag-hunting, &c., ' the simple tone of such passages, as Dr. Kern well says, is "calculated to awaken in us the conviction that the atrocities attributed by the later Buddhists to their benefactor rests upon a misunderstanding. The stories of both the Northern and Southern Buddhists to which it is usual to give the specious name of 'traditions' differ among themselves to such an extent as to be suspicious on that ground alone. The ninety-nine-fold fratricide committed, as is stated by Asoka, is related with such circumstantiality that its untruth is palpable. The story of the Northern Buddhists is different, but if possible still more inept. According to them, Asoka at the beginning of his reign caused a place of torture to be built in order to torment poor creatures and so forth. Now the King himself stated in the first tablet that at the beginning of his reign2 he permitted the death of innocent creatures, i.e., their slaughter for food. Is it not in the highest degree probable that the hell for the torture of poor animals is a misrepresentation, intentional or otherwise, of the slaughter-house? The contrast between the hell built by the prince before his conversion and. the monasteries built by him after that event was too striking for so splendid an opportunity for a display of bigotry to be allowed t...