Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/43

Rh The preceptor Upagupta, who probably converted Asoka, as Hemachandra converted Kumârapâla in a later age, seems to have been a real historical personage. The famous monastery at Mathurâ which bore his name appears to have been situated at the Kankâlî Tila, a Buddhist as Well as a Jain site, and his memory was also associated with various localities in Sind. He is said to have been the son of Gupta the perfumer. In the traditions of Ceylon his place is taken by Tissa, the son of Mogali, who should be regarded as a fictitious person made up from the names of Buddha's two principal disciples, as ingeniously argued by Colonel Waddell.

The eleventh 'regnal year' (B. C. 259), memorable