Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/206

 168 ASOKA MAUBYA AND HIS SUCCESSORS astery in Southern India and then crossed over to Ceylon with his four colleagues. The teaching of the preachers, backed as it was by the influence of a mon- arch so powerful as Asoka, was speedily accepted by King Tissa of Ceylon and the members of his court, and the new religion soon gained a hold on the affec- tions of the people at large. Mahendra spent the rest of his life in Ceylon, and devoted himself to the estab- lishment and organization of the Buddhist Church in the island, where he is revered as a saint. His ashes rest under a great cupola or stupa at Mihintale, one of the most remarkable among the many notable Buddhist monuments which are the glory of Ceylon. The Mahavamsa chronicle, which gives a list of Asoka 's missionaries and the countries to which they were deputed, makes no mention of the missions to the Tamil kingdoms of Southern India. This reticence is probably to be explained by the fierce hostility be- tween the Sinhalese and the Tamils of the mainland, which lasted for centuries. If I am right in believing that Mahendra migrated from his monastery near Tan- jore to the island, this fact would. have been most dis- tasteful to the monks of the Great Vihara, who could not bear to think that they were indebted to a resident among the hated Tamils for instruction in the rudiments of the faith, and much preferred that people should believe their religion to have come direct from the Holy Land of Buddhism. Some motive of this kind seems to have originated the Sinhalese legend of Mahendra, who is represented as an illegitimate son of Asoka, and