Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/72

70 Nothing of importance is known about the successors of Asoka. His grandson, Dasaratha, mentioned in the Purânas, is shown to have been a real personage by his inscriptions in the Nâgâjuni Hills near Gaya, where he dedicated caves to the use of the Âjîvikas, as his grandfather had done in the neighbouring Barâbar Hills. The Jain literary tradition of Western India has much to tell about a grandson named Samprati, who is represented as having been an eminent patron of Jainism—in fact, a Jain Asoka, but these traditions are not supported by inscriptions or other independent evidence. The hypothesis that the great emperor left two grandsons, of whom one succeeded him in his eastern and the other in his western dominions, is little more than a guess; but it appears to be nearly certain that in the cast he was followed directly by Dasaratha. The pathetic story of the blinded son, Kunâila, briefly related in Chapter VII of this book, is mere folk-lore, and the account in the Kashmîr chronicle of Jalauka, another son, is little more, although fortified by some prosaic details. He is represented as an ardent worshipper of Siva, while his queen was devoted to the service of the Mother-goddesses, or Saktis. The edicts, which indicate that Asoka had many sons and grandsons, give the name of only one son, Tivara, whose mother was the second queen, the Kâruvâki, and nothing is known about his fate.