Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/218

216 should this order be made known, both in the congregation of the monks and in the congregation of the nuns.'

(II) Thus saith His Sacred Majesty:—

'One copy of this order (sâsane) accessible to you has been posted in the saḿsaraṇa. See. that you have another copy posted so as to be accessible to the lay—disciples. Those lay-disciples, too, on every fast-day must make themselves acquainted with this ordinance (sâane). On every fast-day throughout the year the High Ofﬁcers must attend the fast-day service in order to make themselves acquainted and familiar with the.order. And so far as your jurisdiction extends you must, in accordance with this text, everywhere carry out the expulsion. Similarly, in all fortified towns and Districts you must see that the expulsion is effected according to the text.’

Comment

This edict, discovered in the cold season of 1904-5, unfortunately is mutilated in the ﬁrst three lines. It is to be read with the help of the still more damaged Sânchi and Kauśâmbî Edicts dealing with the same subject, and its meaning is partially elucidated by the discussion of Minor R. E. i.

The Kauśâmbî Edict shows that the persons primarily addressed must have been the High Officers, presumably the Dhaṁma-Mahâmâtâ, or Censors, who were to make it their business to suppress schism in the Buddhist Church or Saṁgha. Schism was one of the deadly sins of Buddhism, a kappathikam kibbisam, 'a sin enduring for a kalpa or aeon,' coupled with matricide, parricide, murder of a saint, and the wounding of a Buddha. It may be compared with the, the 'eternal sin' of Mark iii. 29, in Revised Version (Edmunds, Buddhist and Christian Gospels, 4th ed., vol. ii, pp. 228, 229). In the civil guilds and corporations which ﬂourished extensively in ancient India, ‘the mischief-maker who stirred up discord (bheda-kârî) was similarly punished by expulsion. Brihaspati lays down the rule that ‘an acrimonious or malicious man, and