Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/184

 150 ASOKA MAURYA after the death of Buddha, and thus fix that event as having occurred in or about the year 487 B. c., according to the belief current at the court of Pataliputra, only two centuries and a half after its occurrence. When thus interpreted, these brief documents gain intense interest as the valedictory address of the dying emperor- monk to the people whom he loved to regard as his children. The extremely curious Bhabra Edict, which forms a class by itself, should be referred apparently to the same period as the Minor Rock Edicts, that is to say, to the closing years of Asoka's life, when, although still retaining his imperial dignity, he had assumed the mon- astic robe and rule, and had abandoned the active direc- tion of worldly affairs to others. This document, re- corded, close to a recension of one of the Minor Rock Edicts, at a lonely monastery in the Rajputana hills, is an address by Asoka, as King of Magadha, to the Bud- dhist monastic order generally, directing the attention of monks and nuns, as well as of the laity, male and female, to seven passages of scripture deemed by the royal judgment to be specially edifying. But, while earnestly recommending devout meditation upon and profound study of these particular texts, the princely preacher is careful to add the explanation that " all that has been said by the Venerable Buddha has been well said," whereas the selection of texts is merely the work of v the king's individual judgment. The impor- tance of this edict in the history of Buddhism cannot be easily overrated.