Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/38

36 the monastery when he issued the orders, which are on record there only. A copy of the Minor Rock Edict I in which he gives a summary of his early religious history is engraved on a rock at the foot of another hill close by. The inscriptions give no support to the late legends which represent the great emperor as a dotard in his old age, and suggest that he abdicated his sovereign functions. His authentic records show him to have been the same man throughout his career from 257 to the end, a zealous Buddhist, and at the same time a watchful, vigorous, autocratic ruler of Church and State.

How did he manage to reconcile the vows and practices of a Buddhist monk with the duties and responsibilities of the sovereign of an enormous empire? It is not possible to give a complete answer, but fairly satisfactory explanations can be presented. The pilgrim I-tsing in the seventh century notes that the statue of Asoka represented him as wearing a monk's robe of a particular pattern. He does not seem to have been offended by any incongruity in the situation, and his attitude may be explained by the fact that he knew a Chinese Emperor to have done the same thing. It is recorded that Kao-tsu Wu-ti (alias Hsiao-Yen), the first emperor of the Liang dynasty, who reigned from A. D. 502 to 549, was 'a devout Buddhist, living upon priestly fare and taking only one meal a day; and on two occasions, in