Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/241

Rh The mission to Ceylon consisted of Prince Mahendra and five colleagues, of whom one was Sumana, his sister's son.

Mahendra resolved, with the king's permission, to visit his mother and her relations on his way to Ceylon, and devoted six months to this purpose.

He found his mother at her home in Vedisagiri, and, having been received with great joy, was accommodated in the splendid monastery at that place which she had erected. The preaching of Mahendra converted Bhandu, a grandnephew of his mother. After this event Mahendra lingered for another month, and then with his companions, to whom Bhandu attached himself, rose aloft into the air, and ﬂying, 'as flies the king of swans,' arrived in Ceylon, and alighted upon the Missa mountain.

The first discourse pronounced by the leader of the mission converted the king, with forty thousand of his followers. The princess Anula, with five hundred of her attendants, desired to enter the Order, but was told that the male missionaries had no power to ordain females, Who, however,_might be ordained by the princess Sanghamitrâ.

The king of Ceylon, after due deliberation, again dispatched his nephew to King Asoka, with instructions to bring back Sanghamitrâ and a branch of the sacred bo-tree. King Asoka, although grieving sorely at the separation from his beloved daughter, gave his