Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/108

106 unwearied application, and high aims, who spared no labour in the pursuit of his ideals, possessed the mental grasp capable of forming the vast conception of missionary enterprise in three continents, and was at the same time able to control the intricate affairs of Church and State in an empire which the most powerful sovereign might envy. His plan of committing to the faithful keeping of the rocks his code of moral duty was equally original and bold, and his intense desire that his measures should result in the 'long endurance' of the Good Law as taught in his ordinances has been fulfilled in no small measure by the preservation of some thirty-ﬁve separate documents to this day.

His government—a theoeracy without a God—concerned itself, like that of Charlemagne, equally with Church and State, and, so far as We can judge, attained no small success. The number, costliness, and magnitude of his buildings and monuments are enough in themselves to prove that the empire in which the erection of such works was possible must have been rich and tranquil.

We need not be surprised that the fabric collapsed after his death; the wonder rather is that it held together so long.