Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/238

236 and there bore to him a son named Mahendra, two hundred and four years after the death of Buddha. Two years later a daughter named Sanghamitrâ was born. Devî continued to reside at Vedisagiri after Asoka seized the throne; but the children accompanied their father to the capital, where Sanghalnitrâ was given in marriage to Agni Brahma, nephew of the king, to whom she bore a son named Sulnana.

In the fourth year after King Asoka's coronation, his brother Tishya, the vicegerent, his nephew Agni Brahmâ, and his grandson Sumana were all ordained. The king, who had received the news of the completion of the eighty—four thousand sacred ediices, held a solemn assembly of millions of monks and nuns, and, coming in full state in person, took up his station in the midst of the priesthood. The kings piety had by this time washed away the stain of fratricide, and he who had been known as Asoka the Wicked, was henceforth celebrated as Asoka the Pious.

After his brother Tishya had devoted himself to religion, Asoka proposed to replace him in the office of vicegerent by Prince Mahendra, but at the urgent entreaty of his spiritual direetor, Tishya son of Moggali (Mudgâlya), the king was persuaded to permit of the ordination both of Muhendra and his sister Sanghamitrâ. The young prince had then attained the canonical age of twenty, and was therefore at once ordained. The princess assumed the yellow robe, but was obliged to defer her admission to the Order