Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/30

28 considerable number of rock and pillar inscriptions now extant and known. Many more probably remain to be discovered, and at least two inscribed pillars are known to have been deliberately destroyed. The period consisting of more than a year, say fifteen or sixteen months of strenuous exertion, must have been spent in preparations for his propaganda work, both in his own territories and in foreign countries, but no details are on record.

Asoka's conversion to Buddhism, therefore, may be dated in 261-260. It is impossible to be more precise because we do not know the exact value of the expressions 'more than two years and a half' and 'more than a year.' The transition from the easygoing attitude of the lay disciple to the fervent zeal of the monk was effected when His Majesty, in his eleventh 'regnal year' ( 259) entered the Order, abolished the Royal Hunt, and substituted pious tours, enlivened only by sermons and religious discussions, for the tours of pleasure which he had enjoyed in his unregenerate daysThis argument was lucidly stated by M. Senart in 1886 (Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi, tome II, pp. 222-45). When the first edition of this book was published I was misled by interpretations of Minor Rock Edict I now proved to be erroneous. .