Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/37

Rh The fact is undoubted that Asoka was both monk and monarch at the same time. The belief held by some learned writers that he had abdicated before he assumed the monastic robe is untenable, being opposed to the plain testimony of the edicts. We have seen that the earliest of them, unquestionably issued by Asoka as sovereign, expressly states that at the time of issue (B. C. 257) he had been for more than a year exerting himself strenuously as a member of the Buddhist Saṁgha, or Order of Monks, the organized monastic Church, of which the sovereign had assumed the headship. Throughout his reign he retained the position of Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith. His latest proclamations, the Minor Pillar Edicts, issued at some time during the last ten years of the reign, exhibit him as actively engaged in protecting the Church against the dangers of schism and issuing his orders for the disciplinary punishment of schismatics. In the Bhâbrû Edict, seemingly of early date, we find him describing himself as 'King of Magadha,' and using his royal authority in order to recommend to his subjects seven favourite passages selected by himself from the sacred books. That edict was recorded on a boulder within the precincts of a monastery on the top of a hill in Râjputâna, and the presumption is that the sovereign was residing in