Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/57

Rh Inasmuch as the Sârnâth Edict and its variants deal with the disciplinary punishment to be inflicted on schismatic persons and emphatically declare the imperial resolve that no rending in twain of the Church should be permitted, it is reasonable to connect those orders with the Buddhist Council which tradition affirms to have been convened by Asoka at his capital for the purpose of suppressing heresy. The Ceylonese books date the Council either sixteen or eighteen years after the consecration of Asoka, but those dates must be erroneous, because, if the Council had been convened before the twenty-eighth 'regnal year,' it would surely have been mentioned in the seventh Pillar Edict, which reviews all the internal measures taken up to that date by the sovereign for the promotion of the Law of Piety. The Council, however, may well have taken place in any one of the ten or eleven years intervening between the last dated edict and the close of the reign. It is said in various traditions to have been concerned with the overthrow of heresy, and if there be any truth in that story, the Sârnâth Edict and its variants may be regarded as embodying the resolution of the Council, and may be dated in one or other of the years near the end of the reign.