Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/66

64 by the good man. No doubt the emperor believed in karma, although he does not plainly say so, and very probably he may have looked forward to nirvâṇa, although he does not express the hope. His precepts, as already observed, are purely practical and intended to lead men into the right way of living, not into correct philosophical positions. Many passages in the edicts indicate that he believed firmly in the 'other world' or 'future life.' He tells us, for instance (Rock Edict VIII), that all his exertions were directed to the end that he might discharge his debt to animate beings, make some of them happy in this world, and also enable them in the other world to gain heaven. Again (Rock Edict IX), making the same contrast, he warns his people that ordinary ritual may be of only temporal effect, good for this world alone, while the ritual of the Law of Piety produces endless merit (puṇyam) in the other world. The next following edict offers the same promise to those who practise the true kind of almsgiving. Still more emphatic is the declaration near the close of Rock Edict XIII that only the things concerning the other world are regarded by His Majesty as bearing much fruit, and he concludes by adjuring his descendants to place all their joy in efforts which avail for both this world and the next. The warning given in the Provincials' Edict to negligent officials in Kalinga is couched in the following remarkable terms:—