Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/200

154 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY his earlier years, in the long-repented conquest of Kalinga, or Orissa, this blossoming time of true nationality, when all races and classes of Indian folk were drawn together by one loving and beloved sovereign, would not have been possible. Asoka owed as much to the political unity of India as to the wondrous vision which he had received from Buddha of all that it means to be a man, a human being, high born or low born, Aryan or non-Aryan.

But the question, Of what spiritual confraternity did Asoka hold himself a member?—becomes here of considerable importance. To belong to a new sect does not often have the effect of opening a man's heart to all about him in this fashion. Sects as a rule unite us to the few but separate us from the many. And here lies the meaning of the fact that Buddhism in India was no sect. It was a worship of a great personality. It was a monastic order. But it was not a sect. Asoka felt himself to be a monk, and the child of the monkhood, though seated on a throne, with his People as his church.

Similarly to this day there may at any time rise within Hinduism a great Sannyasin, whose fully-enrolled disciples are monks and nuns, while yet he is honoured and recognised as the teacher or guru by numberless householders. The position of the memory of Buddéha as a Hindu teacher, in the third century before Christ, was not in these respects different from that of Sri Ramakrishna today, or that of Ramdas of Maharashtra in the seven-