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XXVI. The Date of Aśōka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The fixing of the exact time of the earliest Indian king whose inscriptions havesurvived to our days depends very much on the dates of two contemporaries whom he mentions: Magā or Makā, and Alikasudara or Alikyashudala. The former has been identified long ago with Magas of Cyrene, and the second was either Alexander of Epirus, or, as Professor Beloch thinks, Alexander of Corinth. The fresh dates to which these three rulers are assigned in Beloch's Griechische Geschichte induce me to reconsider the much-discussed question of the period of Aśōka's reign.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1914

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References

page 943 note 1 See Dr. Fleet in this Journal for 1908, p. 482f.

page 943 note 2 JASB., 6 (1837). 472 f., 566 f.Google Scholar

page 944 note 1 JASB., 7 (1838). 156 ff.Google Scholar

page 944 note 2 In reality Girnār and Kālsī read Aṁtekina, and Shāhbāzgaṛhī Aṁtikini. Bühler (ZDMG., 40. 137)Google Scholar justly remarked that these two forms would rather correspond to Antigenes than to Antigonus. But no king named Antigenes is known to us, though it was the name of one of the officers of Alexander the Great, who was executed, together with Eumenes, in B.C. 316, being then satrap of Susiana.

page 944 note 3 JRAS., first series, 8 (1846). 305.Google Scholar

page 944 note 4 Zwei Abhandlungen, translated from the Danish into German by Stenzler, (Breslau, 1862), p. 120 f.Google Scholar

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page 945 note 1 The figures of these reigns are taken from Beloch, 's Griech. Gesch., vol. iii.Google Scholar

page 945 note 2 See the pillar-edict vi, and of. the rock-edict iv.

page 945 note 3 See MrPargiter, 's Dynasties of the Kali Age (Oxford, 1913), p. 28.Google Scholar

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page 946 note 1 Vinayapiṭaka, ed. Oldenberg, 3. 321.Google Scholar

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page 946 note 4 Dīpavaṁsa, 6. 20 f.Google Scholar

page 946 note 5 Dīpavaṁsa, 6. 1, 21 f.Google Scholar; Mahāvaṁsa, 5. 21 fGoogle Scholar.; Samantapāsādikā, p. 299.Google Scholar

page 946 note 6 Bigandet, 's Life of Gaudama, 2. 128 f.Google Scholar

page 946 note 7 According to Bigandet, 's Life of Gaudama, 2. 128Google Scholar, Chandragupta reigned A.B. 163–187, and Bindusara 187–214. If, as the Purāṇas assert, Bindusāra reigned only twenty-five years, he would have succeeded Chandragupta in A.B. 189.

page 947 note 1 In his Anniversary Discourse, delivered 28 February, 1793, and published in 1795 in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 4Google Scholar. The passage is reprinted in the Centenary Review of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pt. ii, p. 85f.Google Scholar

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page 947 note 3 Chullavagga, beginning of last chapter (12); Dīpavaṁsa, 4. 47Google Scholar, and 5. 15 f.; Mahāvaṁsa, 4. 8Google Scholar; Samantapāsādikā, p. 293.Google Scholar

page 947 note 4 Cf. Geiger, 's translation of the Mahāvaṁsa, p. lx f.Google Scholar, where the figures of the Northern Buddhists are specified.

page 947 note 5 Ruehl, 's edition (Leipzig, 1886), p. 119f.Google Scholar

page 948 note 1 Ind. Ant., 6. 114Google Scholar. I have made a few changes and additions.

page 948 note 2 Nobody seems to have noticed the obvious fact that this “Nandrus” must be the last king of the Nanda dynasty which, according to Indian tradition, preceded Chandragupta. Instead of the accusative “Nandrum” the older editions read “Alexandrum”; see Lassen, 's Ind. Alt., 2. 207, n. 3.Google Scholar

page 949 note 1 Mendelssohn, 's edition (Leipzig, 1879), 1. 426.Google Scholar

page 949 note 2 McCrindle, 's translation, Ind. Ant., 6. 114.Google Scholar

page 949 note 3 Smith, V. A., Early History of India, 3rd ed., p. 150 f.Google Scholar; Krom, , Hermes, 44. 154 ff.Google Scholar

page 949 note 4 Beloch, 's Griech. Gesch., 3. 1, 146, n. 3.Google Scholar

page 949 note 5 Schwanbeck, , Megasthenis Indica (Bonn, 1876), p. 19Google Scholar; Müller, C., Fragmenta Historicorum Grœcorum, vol. ii (Paris, 1848), p. 398Google Scholar; MoCrindle, , Ind. Ant., 6. 115.Google Scholar

page 950 note 1 JRAS., 1906. 985Google Scholar. The date adopted by MrSmith, V. A. in his Asoka, 2nd ed., p. 72Google Scholar, viz. B.C. 322 (against B.C.321 in his original edition), is, of course, also possible, but not so probable.

page 951 note 1 See MrBhandarkar, D. R., Ind. Ant., 42 (1913). 160.Google Scholar