Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/208

 170 ASOKA MAURYA AND HIS SUCCESSORS of Buddhist doctrine on the heretical Gnostic sects appears to be undoubted, and many writers have sus- pected that the more orthodox forms of Christian teach- ing owe some debt to the lessons of Gautama; but the subject is too obscure for discussion in these pages. It is, however, certain that Asoka, by his compre- hensive and well-planned measures of evangelization, succeeded in transforming the doctrine of a local Indian sect into one of the great religions of the world. The personal ministry of Gautama Buddha was confined to a comparatively small area, comprising about four de- grees of latitude and as many of longitude, between Gaya, Allahabad, and the Himalaya. Within these lim- its he was born, lived, and died. When he died, about 487 B.C., Buddhism was merely a sect of Hinduism, unknown beyond very restricted limits, and with no better apparent chance of survival than that enjoyed by many other contemporary sects now long forgotten. The effective organization of the monastic system by the Buddhists was probably the means of keeping their system alive and in possession of considerable influence in the Ganges valley for the two centuries and a quarter which elapsed between the death of Gau- tama and the conversion of Asoka. His imperial pat- ronage, gradually increasing as his faith grew in in- tensity, made the fortune of Buddhism, and raised it to the position which enables it still to dispute with Christianity the first place among the religions of the world, so far as the number of believers is concerned. Asoka did not attempt to destroy either Brahman-