Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/49

 INTRODUCTION. 19 whom Megasthenes was sent as ambassador by Seleukos, the successor of Alexander in the western parts of his Asiatic empire. It is from his narrative now unfortunately lost that the Greeks acquired almost all the knowledge they possessed of India at that period. 1 The country was then divided into 120 smaller principalities, but the Maurya residing in Palibothra (Pataliputra) the modern Patna seems to have exercised a paramount sway over the whole. It was not, however, this king, but his grandson, the great A^oka (B.C. 262 to 225), who raised this dynasty to its highest pitch of prosperity and power. Though utterly unknown to the Greeks, we have from native sources a more complete picture of the incidents of his reign than of any ancient sovereign of India. The great event that made him famous in Buddhist history was his conversion to that faith, and the zeal he showed in propagating the doctrines of his new religion. He did, in fact, for Buddhism, what Constantine did for Christianity, and at about the same distance of time from the death of the founder of the faith. From a struggling sect he made it the religion of the State, and established it on the basis on which it lasted supreme for nearly 1000 years. In order to render his subjects familiar with the doctrines of his new faith, he caused a series of edicts embody- ing them to be engraved on rocks near Peshawar, in Gujarat, in the valley of the Dun under the Himalayas, in Hazara, in Katak and Ganjam, in Mysore, and other places. He held a great convocation or council of the faithful in his capital at Pataliputra, and, on its dissolution, missionaries were sent to spread the religion in the Yavana country, whose capital was Alexandria, near the present city of Kabul. Others were despatched to Kashmir and Gandhara ; one was sent to the Himawanta the valleys of the Himalaya, and possibly part of Tibet ; others were despatched to the Maharatta country, and to Mysore, to Vanavasi in Kanara, and to Aparantaka or the north Konkan. Two missionaries were sent to Suvarnabhumi, now known as Thatun on the Sitang river, in Pegu, and, tradition says, his own son and daughter were deputed to Ceylon. 2 All those countries, in fact, which might be called foreign, were then sought to be converted to the faith. He also formed alliances with Antiokhos the Great, Antigonos, and with Ptolemy Philadelphos, Alexander of Epeiros, and Magas of Cyrene, 1 For this period, see M'Crindle's | -' All these particulars, it need hardly ' Ancient India as described by Megas thenes and Arrian ' (1877) ; the 'Inva- sion of India by Alexander the Great ' (1896); and ' Ancient India as described in Classical Literature ' (1901). be said, are taken from the 1 2th and 1 5th chapters of the 'Mahawansa,' which relates the traditions of a time six centuries and more before its composition.