Asoka - Model Ruler Without a Name?

A1oka—Model Ruler Without a Name?*

Max Deeg

Stanley Tambiah in his well-known book World Conqueror and World Renouncer (1976) dedicated a complete chapter to A1oka—chapter five entitled ‘Asoka Maurya: The Paradigm’—and to his impact on the conception of rulership in the history of Buddhist countries and cultures. Tambiah’s assumption is that the Mauryan king, or rather the legends about and around him, had been elevated to a model status such that it became virtually impossible to speak of rulership and not think of A1oka. In his own words:

… the manner in which the early Buddhist conception of kingship and polity was realized (or rather was seen by later times as being realized) in the epochal reign of Emperor Asoka, whose edifice, though scattered soon after his death, was to constitute the great precedent and model for some of the emergent polities of South and Southeast Asia (Tambiah, 1976: 5).

While Tambiah’s specific objective was to investigate the relation between rulers and Buddhism in Thailand, one could look—and this, of course, has already been done—to other Buddhist traditions and find a similar situation: Of both the presence and the strong influence of the Mauryan king on ideas of rulership. Where the present study will depart from the work of Tambiah is that it will address the issue of the textual

17

*It is my pleasure to thank my colleague James Hegarty for acting, once again, as my kalyanamitra, and thus preventing me from writing adharmic English.

Asoka—Model Ruler Without a Name? 357

transmission of cultural knowledge and memory in Buddhist societies in materials that do not necessarily directly refer to the historical A1oka.

A1oka’s influence in different Buddhist traditions is naturally and easily detected when his name is directly given in the respective texts and contexts. One could also argue that, whenever an Asian ruler assumed the status and role of a world-ruler, a ‘wheel-turning’ king (cakravartin), this is due to the more or less direct influence of the A1okan model. In this chapter I would like to draw attention to more specific cases in which the impact of the Mauryan king and his idealized narrative of Buddhist rulership is, in all likelihood, present but is evident as a more anonymous, though ‘shaping’, presence. I will not discuss the recent suggestions by James L. Fitzgerald (2001) and Nick Sutton (1997), who have argued for the influence of A1oka on the conception of kingship in the Mahabharata, but will restrict myself to discussing selected Buddhist examples with no claim, on my part, to completeness of coverage.

It seems to me that the paradigm of the biography, or rather the hagiography, of A1oka has some structural elements that led later sovereigns like Kaniska (see the discussion that follows)—in most cases rather the narrators of their lives—to imitate and emulate the great Mauryan king. These elements can be listed as follows in the narrative-chronological order in which they occur in the biographical scheme (I have indicated the point of origin of a given motif from the two narrative traditions by means of the following symbols: A = A1okavadana and V = Vamsa):

(a) A prophecy of the individual’s career as a Buddhist ideal king in a later existence (A).

(b) An ethically corrupted and violent king in the early period of reign (A/V).

(c) A conversion of the king by a miraculous encounter (A/V).(d) Teaching of the dharma to the king through one or more

Buddhist masters (A/V).(e) A pilgrimage to the most important commemorative places of

Buddhism (A/B).(f ) Getting hold of Buddhism’s most sacred relics (furta sacra1)

(A/V).(g) Erection of stupas/caityas to house the relics (A/V).(h) Summoning of a council (V).(i) The king becoming a righteous world-ruler (cakravartin),

protecting the symbols of the dharma, the sa3gha and the relics (1arira) (A/V).

358 Reimagining Asoka

(j) As a specific symbolic act of (i). The ruler instigates a pañcavarsika ceremony during which he gives himself to the sa3gha and is to be released by his entourage through donations to the sa3gha (A).

(k) Despite his merits the ruler finds a rather tragic end (A).It is natural that only some of these narrative elements I have

categorized here, and not the full set, are found in biographies of rulers modelled after A1oka. This is not only due to the fact that in some cases the ‘real’ biography of the respective king (or queen/ empress) did not lend itself to the use of a full-fledged biographical blueprint, but also because we have to discern at least two different threads of biographical traditions about the Mauryan ruler. The first of these is the one that would have been called the ‘northern’ tradition in earlier Buddhological terminology. This is reflected in the textual tradition of the A1okavadana as found in the Divyavadana, which includes, of course, its translations and similar narrative fragments preserved in Chinese and Tibetan. The second of these traditions is the ‘southern’ tradition of the Theravada sources, which are found in the Pali vamsas (and in the Vinaya-commentary) of 2ri La3ka. Consequently, the biographical elements taken over from the A1oka tradition depend on the particular Buddhist denominational mainstream that was dominant in a specific region: One would expect the latter tradition to be pre-eminent in the South Asian Buddhist countries, while the first one is mainly found in north India, Central Asia, and in East Asia.2

In this chapter I would like to highlight and discuss some cases of imitation of the A1okan narrative tradition in Buddhist cultural contexts in which his name is not explicitly given—where he seems to be, as it were, ‘a model ruler without a name’. I am aware that there are, and that there may be, more cases that I am not able to discuss in details or of which, out of sheer ignorance, I do not know.

Before I discuss three examples of rulers whose actions and biographies were moulded according to the A1oka tradition, I want to focus briefly on a kind of general marker for such an influence that I have discussed elsewhere at length. This is the so-called ‘five-year-festival’, the pañcavarsikamaha (see point j mentioned earlier), attested in Buddhist literature, and in Chinese travelogues (Deeg, 1995: 1997). This is a particular case insofar as we can trace back the formation of the tradition directly to the very wording of the A1okan edicts, where it is said that A1oka established the office of the mahamatras who were supposed to do a control-tour of the realm every five years. This custom was obviously interpreted as a quinquennial Buddhist festival during


which the ruler, after excessive donations, would finally donate himself to the sa3gha and had to be redeemed by his officials and nobles. The ritualized practice of this festival in Central Asia and in India is attested for different places and different periods between the early fifth and the middle of the seventh century by the Chinese pilgrims Faxian 法顯, Xuanzang 玄奘, and others, and it also became a kind of marker for Chinese emperors who took A1oka as their models.

What is important here is that we can see how historical information evidently stemming from, or at least being confirmed by, the edicts was moulded into a legendary narrative as represented in the narrative about A1oka (A1okavadana)3 which itself then served as a model for Buddhist royal ritual practice. The most detailed description of a pañcavarsika is given by Faxian 法顯 for the kingdom of Jiecha 竭叉 in the Karakorum range (Deeg, 2001b). Xuanzang 玄奘 reports several ceremonies of which I only want to highlight the ones reported for king Harsa(vardhana) 2iladitya. 4

In the narrative tradition of South Asia—and almost exclusively preserved in translated texts in Chinese and Tibetan—the king who was narratively moulded into an ideal Buddhist ruler according to the blueprint of A1oka’s legendary biography, as a second A1oka as it were,5 is the Kusana king Kaniska. The fact that some of the episodes of Kaniska’s biography owe their content and structure to the A1okavadana was already noticed, for example by Rosenfield in his monumental work on the dynastic arts of the Kusana (Rosenfield, 1993: 31f [council of Ka1mir]), who states that ‘King … Kanishka left a deep impression upon the memory of the Buddhist world’ (Rosenfield, 1993: 28). But the parallels have never, as far as I know, been made the subject of a detailed and comprehensive historical study.6 Such a study I cannot provide here, but I want to point out at least some aspects of these parallels.

Unfortunately, no full biography of Kaniska has been preserved in the Buddhist literature, as we have A1oka in form of the A1okavadana. We thus have to rely mainly on bits and pieces from different sources, which were already collected and discussed by Sylvain Lévi (1936), the only direct source in an Indian language being the Mulasarvastivada-Vinaya with its short reference to the prophecy of Kaniska by the Buddha. The evidence of the narrative fragments preserved in the different texts permits us to conclude with some certainty that there really existed what Lévi has called the ‘cycle of Kaniska’.7

The elements that the Kaniska legend, as far as we can grasp it, reflects, in my opinion, the structural patterns of the A1oka legend are:


The Buddha’s prophecy of the king’s later birth as a ruler supporting the dharma, his ruthless military campaigns against the neighbouring kingdoms, his close connection with a Buddhist monk as his teacher, his attempt at getting hold—actually stealing—a very sacred relic and the building of stupas or of a stupa after his miraculous conversion, and his rather miserable death. There are, however, considerable changes of motive and context that may be explained by a new religious climate, the origin of which can be traced in the new political and religious environment at the time of Kaniska and the assumed later periods in which the fabrication of his legend took place.

Let us go through some of the biographical parallels between the two paradigmatic Buddhist rulers, starting with the Buddha’s prophecy. In the A1okavadana, this is worked out in a detailed former-life story in which the future king A1oka, as the boy Jaya, gives the famous donation of mud to the Buddha, whereupon the Buddha predicts that he will become a world-ruling king in the future. In the Kaniska story, this appears in a ‘mutilated’ form as an introductory story to the legend of the stupa of Kaniska:8 the Buddha and Ananda, while travelling in the northwest, see a group of boys forming stupas of mud and selling them, and the Buddha predicts the advent of the future king. As I have argued elsewhere (Deeg, 2004), the connecting motif between the two legends are the stupas made of mud. I would assume that for a Buddhist, with a knowledge of the A1oka story, the parallel would have been obvious.

John Strong has dealt in detail with A1oka’s gurus 2anakavasin and Upagupta; so I will not discuss that subject here (Strong, 1983: 71ff.; 1992: 145ff.). I only want to point out that the close connection between Kaniska and Par1va, A1vaghosa, and Sa3gharaksa (see the discussion that follows)—and one may add Matrceta, from the literary evidence of his famous letter Maharajakaniskalekha addressed to the king9—seems to mirror the relationship between A1oka and his teachers. There seems to be, however, a strong Mahayana element introduced, which is chiefly, but not only, suggested by the fact that the teachers in some cases are called bodhisattva (see Sadakata, 1983). Kaniska, in general, is described in a contrastive way as someone who does not learn his lesson as easily as the Mauryan king10 and who gambles with his merit by continuing military campaigns even after having committed himself to the religious tasks of supporting the sa3gha, keeping the precepts, and vowing to reach enlightenment. As a consequence of this, he has to suffer in his afterlife,11 while we hear nothing about the post-mortem fate of A1oka.


The episode of the theft of the relics deserves special attention. It is closely tied to Kaniska’s relationship with the famous monk-poet A1vaghosa and his attempt to abduct the latter. While in A1oka’s case, it was the eight primary relics of the Buddha that were finally stored in 48,000 stupas, the story of Kaniska’s unsuccessful attempt of a furta sacra of the alms bowl relic of Purusapura, clearly a secondary relic, which is reported, for instance, by Faxian, seems to be quite different.12 Let us remember that there is, in the A1oka tradition, also an unsuccessful furta sacra: the attempt to get hold of the naga king’s13 share of the relics, which might have been the starting point of the formation of the Kaniska episode. One could argue that it is, in Kaniska’s case, the unsuccessfulness of the theft that naturally disconnects the erection of the stupa from the relics, which shapes it into a separate episode. I still think, however, that the narrative reflects the pattern of the A1oka story quite well, and that this difference was created with a specific intention as explained earlier: To depict Kaniska as a more stubborn student than his model, the Mauryan ruler.14

Beside this unrighteous behaviour on the part of the king towards sacred Buddhist ‘objects’, such as famous monks and relics, the Chinese sources clearly refer to a parallel between the early and rather violent periods of both rulers. A1oka is, of course, known as Canda1oka, the ‘cruel A1oka’, and his cruelty is reflected in the episode describing his prison ‘Hell’ (niraya), in which people are tortured by a wicked prison guard, and his eventual conversion to the dharma (see Deeg, 2005: 396ff.; Strong, 1989: 211ff.). In a similar way Kaniska is held responsible for brutal wars and the killing of thousands of people before he was converted to Buddhism, and retribution is forthcoming for these acts of cruelty. But I would argue that even the prison motif is, in a narratively and functionally transformed way, found in the Kaniska ‘cycle’: After he killed many people in one of his wars, an arhat shows Kaniska the sufferings of those in hell, and it is only through the mediation of A1vaghosa that the king is reassured that he will not be condemned to an eternal existence in hell.15

The most elaborated but at the same time confused16 narrative of Kaniska’s violent conquests and their consequences is found in the Fu-fazang-yinyuan-zhuan 付法藏因緣傳 (T.2058.313b.9ff.), translated by the Central Asian Kimkarya together with Tanyao in the second half of the fifth century during the Northern Wei dynasty 北魏 (386–534).17 According to this narrative, Kaniska first attacks Central


India (Huashi-cheng 華氏城/Pataliputra) and receives as ransom from the king of the region the bodhisattva A1vaghosa (Maming pusa 馬鳴菩薩), the Buddha’s alms bowl (fobo 佛鉢), and a auspicious cock (cixin-ji 慈心雞).18 This act of aggression—which, in the text, is described in a rather neutral way—is then ‘topped’ by his attack on the kingdom of Parthia (Anxi 安西) and his fear of the karmic consequences of the killing of 900,000 people,19 and another campaign during which Kaniska is finally murdered by his own entourage.20 This reads like a reminiscence of the remorse of A1oka over the cruelties of the Kali3ga campaign, which we find so famously expressed in his edicts—which is again faintly reflected in the story of Canda1oka and his cruel prison. Indeed, one wonders if this historical memory, while not directly graspable in the A1oka legend, is mirrored here in the fragments of the Kaniska ‘cycle’.

In this context I would like to revisit, for a moment, Kaniska’s epithet Chinese zhentuo 甄陀 *tɕin-da,21 already discussed by Sylvain Lévi (Lévi, 1936: 85f ). While it has been argued that this is the transliteration of a royal title Sanskritized canda(na) or candra I would, in the light of the construed parallelism to the A1oka biography, suggest that this might well be a transliteration of canda, ‘cruel, fierce’—note that the most frequent transliteration for candala in the Chinese sources uses the same two syllables: zhentuoluo 甄陀羅 *tɕin-da-la.22 The king, in some traditions, may thus have been named Candakaniska, the ‘cruel Kaniska’, in the same way as this was done with A1oka (Canda1oka) before he turned into a righteous king (Dharma1oka).

Another important parallel is the council motif which is clearly graspable in some sources. Here A1oka’s ‘third’ council of Pataliputra is paralleled with Kaniska’s ‘fourth’ in Ka1mir. However, the only direct reference to Kaniska’s connection with Ka1mir, without mentioning the council, in an Indian text is the relatively late Ka1miran chronicle, the Rajatara3gini (Rajatara3gini 1.168–171; see Stein, 1900: Vol.II, 30–31). Direct references are found in later historiographical Tibetan sources such as Bu-ston’s Chos-‘byu3 (Obermiller, 1932: 97), the History of the Dharma, Taranatha’s history (Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, 1990: 91 ff.) and the, even later, Blue Annals (Roerich, 1976: 25). So we are left, again, with the Chinese texts as the earliest sources (Willemen et al., 1998: 116 ff.), the most ancient one being Paramartha’s Life of Vasubandhu (Posupandou-fashi-zhuan 婆藪槃豆法師傳, T.2049) (Takakusu, 1904), followed by Xuanzang’s report in the Xiyu-ji.23


What is interesting here is that the ‘A1oka blueprint’ cannot stem from A1okavadana that does not mention the third council of A1oka but has to come from a source similar to the Theravada V.

I would argue, following up Charles Hallisey’s concept of the ‘council as an idea’ (Hallisey, 1991), that most of the discussion about the historicity of this council, at least the one in Ka1mir, is futile24 in the context of the narrative blueprint of the A1oka legend: What has been attributed to A1oka as one of his major pro-Buddhist actions had to be applied to his successor in virtute (and in vitio) as well. The late origin seems to indicate that it is a relatively late element in the circle of the Kaniska legends, this again suggests that it was taken over from another source, the only possible one being the A1oka tradition. The different versions, however, show a clear tendency towards a closer parallelism with the narratives that recount the council under A1oka.25

I will not deal here with the issue of Kaniska’s date and historicity,26 but will rather take up the origin of the legends surrounding this Kusana king. As usual the first clearly datable reference in a literary text comes from a Chinese text, the preface to the translation of the Sengjialuocha-xinji-jing 僧伽羅剎新集經, ‘Newly compilated sutra of (the life of ) Sa3gharaksa’ (T.194), in which we find information obviously coming from the Ka1miran monk Sengjiabadeng 僧伽跋登/*Sa3ghabhadra (?). He mentions that Sa3gharaksa went from Surastra to Gandhara and became the Buddhist teacher of king Zhentuo-jini 甄陀罽膩/*Candakani(ska).27 A different version of this preface is quoted in the earliest preserved Chinese sutra catalogue, Sengyou’s 僧祐 Chu-sanzang-jiji 出三藏記集,28 showing that it was quite well known in China around the beginning of the sixth century.

The traveller Faxian 法顯 reports a part of the Kaniska legend as well, the legend around the construction of the Kaniska stupa in Gandhara, archaeologically identified with the Shah Ji Ki Dheri stupa, and this is an interesting case, since we can observe the development of the narrative over a period of more than 200 years through the subsequent reports by Song Yun 宋雲 in Luoyang-jialan-ji 洛陽伽藍記 and in Xuanzang’s 玄奘 Xiyu-ji 西域記 as indicated earlier. As I have dealt with this legend in detail elsewhere (Deeg, 2004, esp. 13ff.), it suffices to point out that the most evident parallels with the A1okan legend are the common name dharmarajika for the A1oka stupas and the Kaniska stupa and the motif of the stupa of mud or dung which, in both cases, plays an important role in the narrative.


The second and the third example of rulers modelling themselves after A1oka come from the Chinese context. The first emperor who obviously took some of the aspects from the A1oka legend as model for his own religious and political agenda is the emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, Liang Wudi 梁武帝 (464–549, r. from 502). Although the name is not directly mentioned in the sources, Wudi had a pronounced interest in A1oka (Jansen, 2001: 90ff.).29 Here we clearly have a ruler who wanted to act in an ideal Buddhist way by constructing himself as another A1oka, albeit in a Chinese context:30 Emperor Wu erected numerous relic stupas, took part in proto-archaeological searches for A1okan stupas and relics,31 forbade the consummation of alcohol and meat32—even though the latter’s origin from the A1oka tradition may be questioned in the light of the facts that this could only have been known from the A1okan edicts themselves, and that it also rather has its origin in Mahayana vegetarian regulations. A clear indication of an imitation of A1oka on Wu’s part are the pañcavarsika festivals ordered by the emperor that show all the features of the A1oka-legend (see Deeg, 1997; De Rauw, 2008: 108ff.) a translation of which, the Ayu-wang-jing 阿育王經 translated by Sengjiapoluo 僧伽婆羅/Sa3ghabhara (460–524, worked from 506–520 in the Zhengguan-si 正觀寺 in Nanjing) in 512, was made under the emperor’s rule.

In the case of Liang Wudi who had his ministers to address him as ‘emperor-bodhisattva’ (huangdi-pusa 黃帝菩薩) or ‘bodhisattva-son of heaven’ (pusa-tianzi 菩薩天子) we see, in my opinion, both an amalgamation of, and a tension between, the new competing idea of Buddhist rulership, that of a Mahayana-oriented bodhisattva-king (pusa 菩薩), and the older idea of the cakravartin, Chinese sheng-zhuanlun-wang 聖轉輪王. I would generally argue that this new concept of a bodhisattva-ruler is partly responsible for the fact that A1oka is not often directly named as a model king in the East Asian context, and not at all, for instance, in the Japanese context. That A1oka nevertheless was the ‘model ruler without name’ even when some of the elements from his tradition of rulership are adopted in Mahayana contexts, becomes clear from the features mentioned earlier. Here the A1oka motifs tend to become elements in a more complex pattern of self-legitimation.

This is again particularly reflected in the eclectic way of adopting A1okan elements for self-representation and self-definition by the only ruling empress in Chinese history, Wu Zetian 武則天 or Wu Zhao 武曌 (623/625–705). Wu built up her political career from being


the consort of the aged Tang-emperor Taizong 太宗 (r. 626–49) and subsequently his son Gaozong 高宗 (r. 649–83), becoming first consort of the latter with considerable influence and finally ascended the throne under a new dynastic name, the fifteen-year-lasting Zhou 周 dynasty (690–705). During this time, she launched a complex programme of self-legitimation that was marked by strong Buddhist overtones—and I will not speak here about other examples of Chinese emperors like the two rulers of the earlier Sui 隋 dynasty who were, as Chen Jinhua has shown, models for the empress possibly drawn from her direct family links with the Sui emperors.33

It may well be that the idea of copying A1oka might go back to the early days of Wu Zetian’s marriage with Gaozong 高宗.34 It might have been her who, already in the year 659 and one year before she clearly took over control after the emperor’s first stroke, prompted her husband to install a statue of A1oka with his own features in the notorious Famen-si 法門寺,35 the monastery in which the famous finger-relic of the Buddha was stored that was so venerated by empress Wu.36

Although empress Wu did not exclusively and continuously use motifs derived from the A1oka tradition and later went beyond them by indirectly proclaiming herself a bodhisattva-ruler, she certainly had a period in which she attempted to project herself as a cakravartin with clear references to the A1oka tradition (see Barrett, 2001: 14ff., 33ff.; Deeg, 2001a; Forte, 2005). After having started her programme of politico-religious legitimation of her rule, she very soon leaves the ideal of an ordinary cakravartin like A1oka behind and moves to more ambitious and self-agrandizing concepts: One year after she proclaims herself a ‘Golden Wheel-Turning Sacred Emperor’ (jinlun-shengshen-huangdi 金輪聖神皇帝)—a title that already exceeds the status of the A1oka in the legend, who is ‘only’ an ‘Iron Wheel-Turning King’,—in the year 694, she calls herself Maitreya (Cishi 慈氏), an incarnation of the Buddha of the future. Her interest in relics and her activities of building monasteries and stupas belongs to this period as well, which again might come from an influence of the A1oka legend.

Up to this point, I have only mentioned examples from the A1okavadana tradition but processes of emulation of the great Indian ruler are also found in the Theravada tradition, although it is—due to the nature of the sources—not as obvious as in the northern tradition.

I will have to leave a more detailed investigation into this matter to scholars who are more knowledgeable than I, but I just want to


mention instances where I see an influence of the A1oka narrative. It may, however, be worthwhile to indicate that the motive of remorse that, although it goes back to the narrative complex around Ajata1atru’s inner conflict over his patricide, certainly had its fullest impact on the concept of Buddhist rulership through the example of A1oka.

In the Pali sources, the direct connection between the island of 2ri La3ka and its conversion to Buddhism and A1oka is well-known and well-documented in the literature. The direct influence of A1oka’s ideal of rulership can already been observed in the oldest inscriptional corpus of the island, a situation described by the editor of these oldest Brahmi inscriptions, Paranavitana, as follows:

We may therefore conclude that the rulers of Ceylon in the period to which these inscriptions [that is, the island’s earliest inscriptions] belong, had come under the influence of Asoka’s religious propaganda. The cultural, and even the political, influence of Mauryan India is also vouched for by the title Devanapiya borne by a number of rulers in our epigraphs (Paranavitana, 1970: li).

The legends state that it is during the reign of the Mauryan king that the great missionary and saint Mahinda (Sanskrit Mahendra)—according to the Pali tradition a son of A1oka, but the king’s brother according to Xuanzang—brings the dhamma to the island, and he does so symbolically by bringing a sapling of the bodhi tree that plays such a central role in the later portion of the A1okavadana as well. The inscription of the stupa of Mahinda from Rajagala37 is indeed one of the earliest epigraphs on the island that, together with the stupa and the relic, can also be interpreted as an attempt to copy A1oka. One could read the representation of the Simhalese king Devanam Piyatissa in the Vamsa narrative(s) as an emulation of his great subcontinental counterpart (Trainor, 1997). In general, I would argue, Simhalese kings were often depicted as natural successors of A1oka in their function of protectors of the dhamma and its symbolic representations in form of the sa3gha and the relics, especially the bodhi tree and, to a lesser degree, the tooth relic (datadhatu).

The examples discussed here should be enough to demonstrate that the cultural memory of A1oka was strong enough to establish him, in his legendary form, as an ideal Buddhist king. Rulers in Asia in different contexts and to different degrees could successfully apply and adopt elements from his life in their own process of self-definition and self-legitimation without even mentioning the name of the Mauryan ruler and it is this very aspect that might well be his hidden but most powerful legacy in Asian history in and beyond South Asia.


Notes1. On the theft of sacred objects and relics see Geary (1978).2. For a discussion of the different source layers see Deeg (2009a).3. For a translation of the respective passage see Strong (1983: 265ff.).4. On Xuanzang’s description his meeting with Harsa, see Deeg (2009b). The Xiyu-ji only mentions Harsa’s ceremonies twice (T.2087.894c.4ff., and 897c.2ff.), while Xuanzang’s biography emphasizes the king’s activities in this respect several times (T.2053.233b.19ff., 234b.18ff., 243b.2, 248c). Furthermore, in the Xiyu-ji there are descriptions of other ceremonies in Quzhi 屈支/Kuča (T.2087.870b.15ff.), Fanyanna 梵衍那/Bamiyan (T.2087.873b.19ff.), Jiabishi 迦畢試/Kapi1i (each year [sic!], T.2087.873c.17f.), and a certain king 2iladitya of Molapo 摩臘婆/Malava is described as having performed the ceremony each year [sic!] sixty years before Xuanzang’s stay (T.2087.935c.19ff.).5. Willemen, Dessein, Cox (1998: 115): ‘Buddhist tradition eulogizes his [that is, Kaniska’s] role in the history of Buddhism, which is next only to A1oka’.6. E. Zürcher’s paper on the Chinese sources (Zürcher, 1968) still is a valuable collection and translation of the respective sources, but, due to its rather positivist-historical aim, it does not discuss the ‘trans-historical’ value of the text.7. ‘cycle de Kaniska’, Lévi (1912 : 307). See also Demiéville (1951 : 366, n. 1): ‘Kaniska avait au Cachemire son cycle de légendes bouddhiques, calqué en partie sur celui d’A1oka ...’8. I would add the episode of Kaniska’s vow to reach full enlightenment in the future, during which he puts a lump of mud (nituan 泥團) on top of a stupa which then transforms miraclously into a Buddha statue as a confirmation of the future fulfillment of his vow (T.2058.315b.14ff.).9. For a discussion and translation see Hahn (1999: 6ff.). One may add the encounter of the arhat Zhiyetuo 祇夜多 by which Kaniska is turned into a king who is in favour of the dharma and the sa3gha, as related in the Za-baozang-jing 雜寶藏經 (T.203.484a.12ff.; on this text see below); see also Kaniska’s meeting with the venerable Damomiduo 達摩蜜多 *dat-ma-mjit-ta (reconstructions given are the ones by Pulleyblank 1991)/ Dharmamitra, as told in the Fu-fazang-yinyuan-zhuan 付法藏因緣傳 (T.2058.316a.10ff.), and other Buddhist monks.10. This is reflected in the story of Kaniska’s tour of conquest in the mountainous regions of the Congling 蔥嶺, which he undertakes after discarding the advice of A1vaghosa (and the physician Caraka) but rather listening to his minister, as told in the Za-baozang-jing 雜寶藏經 (T.203.484b.16ff.) and in the Fu-fazang-yinyuan-zhuan (T.2058.317a.4ff., Zürcher [1968: 386]), both translated by Jijiaye 吉迦夜/Kimkarya and Tanyao 曇曜; see the translations/paraphrases of Zürcher (1968, 384f ).11. T.2058.317a.18ff. 由聽馬鳴說法緣故，生大海中作千頭魚，劍輪迴注，斬截其首。續復尋生，次第更斬；如是展轉，乃至無量，須臾之間頭滿大海。


(‘Because [Kaniska] had heard A1vaghosa preaching on the interdependency of the the dharmas, he was born in a great ocean as a fish with one thousand heads, and a wheel of swords came spinning around and cutting his heads off. [The heads] continued to grow and were cut off subsequently; in that way it went on immeasurably, and in a short period of time the heads filled the ocean’.) Kaniska’s miserable death on his campaign to the north and his fate in the afterlife can be read as a dramatic transformation of the motif of A1oka’s end of life as a beggar.12. On the alm bowl and its ‘up-grading’ in symbolism and significance in connection with the Buddhist theory of the decline of the dharma, see Wang-Toutain (1994) and Deeg (2005, 246ff. and 494ff.).13. This episode is found in the different versions of the A1okavadana. It is also reported by Faxian and Xuanzang, and is found, in a different version with a successful outcome, in the Samyuktagama, Za-ahan-jing 雜阿含經, translation made by Qiunabatuoluo 求那跋陀羅/Gunabhadra in the mid-fifth century (T.99.165a.16ff.): see Deeg (2005: 349f ). One could suggest that the episode reported by Xuanzang on Kaniska’s victory over a vicious naga king, living in a lake in the mountains of the Pamir range, took this A1okan episode as a starting point as well: For a translation of this legend see Deeg (2008: 98ff.). This is supported by the fact that the final motif of Kaniska conquering the naga is clearly a later addition to an originally older story of a novice (1ramanera) who transforms into a naga, as found in the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya (Nagakumara: see Schlingloff [2000: 433f.] and Panglung [1981: 10]).14. This can also be seen by the episode of Kaniska’s worship of a Jain stupa, which he mistakes for a Buddhist one: Da-zhuangyan-lunjing 大莊嚴論經 (T.201)—the Kalpanamanitika of Kumaralata, in the Chinese version ascribed to A1vaghosa and translated by Kumarajiva, see Zürcher (1968: 385f.) and Fu-fazang-yinyuan-zhuan (T.2058.315b.18ff.).

15. T.2058.316b.29ff. 爾時有一羅漢比丘見罽昵吒造斯惡業，欲令彼王恐怖，悔過，即

以神力示其地獄，所謂斫刺劍輪解形，悲叫哀號，苦痛難忍。王見是

已，極大惶怖，心自念曰:“我甚愚癡造此罪業，未來必受若斯之苦。

若吾先知如是惡報，正使我身支節分解，終不起心加害怨賊。況於善

人生一念惡！”爾時馬鳴即語王言:“王能至心聽我說法，隨順吾教，

頂戴受持，令王此罪不入地獄。”罽昵吒言:“善哉，受教！”於是馬鳴

廣為彼王說清淨法，令其重罪漸得微薄。 (‘At that time there was an arhat, a monk who, [when] he saw these evil committed by Kaniska [Jinizha 罽昵吒 *kiajh-nri-tr7], wanted to frighten this king [and] let him repent, [and he] therefore, with his magical power, showed him the hell where allegedly the body is chopped up by a wheel of swords, [and where people] cry in pain and wail [in] unbearable pain and suffering. When the king saw this he was utterly scared, and said to himself: “I am really stupid to have done these crimes [for


which I] certainly will receive this kind of suffering. Had I known this kind of retribution in the first place, by which my body and my limbs really will be scattered, I would finally not have thought of doing harm and robbing. Let alone that a good man [can] create evil from one thought.” At that time A1vaghosa said to the king: “[If ] the king can sincerely listen to me preaching the dharma, follow my instructions, respect and accept [them] then this will cause the king not to go to hell for these crimes”. Kaniska said: “Well then—I will accept your instructions!” Thereupon A1vaghosa explained to the king the pure law [which] causes the [most] serious crimes to fade away gradually’.) The punishment which the king finally receives in this source, being reborn as a fish with thousand heads that are chopped off by a wheel of swords, is linked with this hell. Furthermore, the suffering which one has to undergo in one of the hells described in the A1okavadana as the model for the tortures in A1oka’s prison which the henchman Candagirika picks up while passing by a Buddhist monastery is quite similar to the one described here (see Strong, 1989: 213).16. The Kaniska ‘cycle’ in this text seems to be informed from different sources, one of them being the Za-baozang-jing. It is garbled in terms of narrative logic and stringency: Kaniska’s conquest of the mountain region, to name just one example, being duplicated by inserting the conquest of Parthia—which is a war of defense but still causes the king’s remorse—before the next campaign to conquer the non-specified fourth quarter of the realm. It would be interesting to do a detailed analysis of the text, especially in relation to other sources, but this would go beyond the scope of this chapter.17. On this text and its context in Chinese Buddhist literary ‘production’, see Young (2008: 109ff.).18. T2058.315b.5ff. This looks like a ‘tamed’ version of the theft as it is reported in the Chinese travellers’ reports; furthermore it is geographically inverted: In other sources, Kaniska tries to steal the bowl from Purusapura in Gandhara.19. T.2058.316b.16ff., Zürcher (1968: 386ff.). In the parallel story in the Za-baozang-jing, the king first is clearly frightened by the karmic consequences of having killed 300,000 people in his campaign in the Congling Mountains and then engages in acts of piety and benevolence (T.203.484c.5ff.; Zürcher, 1968: 385). The story was quite well known: Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667) in his Sifenlü-shanfan-buque-xingshi-chao 四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔 (T.1804.6c.20ff.) quotes the Fufazang-zhuan 付法藏傳 (of Kimkarya, see next) where the king’s name is, however, given as Zhantan Jinizha 栴檀罽膩吒 *tɕian-dan kiajh-nrih-tr_; interestingly enough in Yuanzhao’s 元照 (1048–1116) Sifenlü-xingshi-chao-zichi-ji 四分律行事鈔資持記 (T.1805.186c.12), which quotes the same passage without naming it, we find the original form of the king’s name, Jinizha 罽膩吒, without the epithet zhantan or zhantuo.20. T.2058.317a.13ff.


爾時群臣聞王此語，咸共議曰:“罽昵吒王貪虐無道，數出征伐，勞役人民；不知厭足，欲王四海；戍備邊遠，親戚分離。若斯之苦何時寧息？宜可同心共屏除之，然後我等乃當快樂！”因王病瘧以被鎮之，人坐其上，須臾氣絕。 (‘At that time when the ministers heard the king speaking thus they debated together: “King Kaniska is corrupt, cruel and a tyrant. He frequently attacked [other kingdoms] and forced people into labour; he knows no limits and wants to rule the four oceans [that is, the whole world]; [he lets us] defend the remote borders and separates [us] from our kin. When will this suffering end? We should all together get rid of him, and then become happy!” As the king was lying down from a feverish disease, people sat on top of him and he was suffocated quickly’.)21. Preface to the Sengjialuocha-suoji-jing 僧伽羅剎新集經 (T.194.115b.19f.); for this text see below. In the late Pusa-bensheng-man-lun 菩薩本生鬘論 (T.160.336a.6f.), a ‘pseudo-translation’ (John Brough) of Arya1ura’s / Shengyong 聖勇 Jatakamala (?), translated in the twelfth century, there is probably a reference to Kaniska as well who there is called Dayuezhiguo-chunzhentuo-wang 大月支國純真陀王. There is one occurrence of the term in the Ayu-wang-taizi-fayi-huaimu-yinyuan-jing 阿育王太子法益壞目因緣經 (T.2045.182a.20), translated by Tanmonanti 曇摩難提/Dharmanandi(n) (fl. 384–91).22. See, for example, Ekottaragama (T.125.550c.27, 552b.29, 657a.8, 806c.19) and in Huilin’s 慧琳 (737–820) Yiqiejing-yinyi 一切經音譯 (T.2128.357c.20), etc. In one case this is even falsely given as zhentuo only: Mohepanruo-chaojing 摩訶般若鈔經 (Astasahasrikaprajñaparamitasutra), translated by Tanmopi 曇摩蜱/Dharmapriya and Zhu Fonian 竺佛念 (both fl. second half of the fourth century) (T.226.516c.28).23. See Zürcher (1968: 378; 379 ff.). For a comprising discussion of the sources see Frauwallner (1952).24. On the general question of historicity of the Buddhist councils see Frauwallner (1952: 240f.), who, however, takes one narrative about the council, the one reflected in Paramartha, as a historical event.25. This has already been noticed by Frauwallner (1952: 256).26. I assume that scholarship has moved beyond the interpretative scheme of devaluating narrative sources against others, as Rosenfield does, calling the legends ‘pious, pseudo-historical’ (1993: 30) or ‘pious fabrications’ (1993: 32). A note of precaution to the ‘objective historians’, those who want to retrieve the ‘real’ history from different strands of sources, may be at place here. My impression is that the so-called ‘hardcore’ sources such as epigraphic, archaeological, numismatic material—‘hardcore’ in comparison with ‘soft’ narrative bio-hagiographical texts—is very often and finally interpreted as ‘real history’ in a rather subjective way. See on Kaniska’s religious commitment, for example, Willemen, Dessein, and Cox (1998: 116): ‘Except for the legends, however, there is little evidence that Kaniska’s conversion to Buddhism had been a profound experience, as may have been true with A1oka’. The problems


involved seem evident: How and what does the author of such a statement know about the ‘profound experience’ of A1oka versus Kaniska’s, and what concept—I am afraid a very Christo-centric one—does he apply when using the term ‘conversion’? For a similar statement see Rosenfield (1993: 29).27. T.194.115b.18ff. 僧伽羅剎者須賴國人也。佛去世後七百年生此國，出家，學道，遊教諸邦，至揵陀越土。甄陀罽膩王師焉。高明，絕世，多所述作。此土修行大道地經其所集也，又著此經憲章:“世尊自始成道迄于淪虛，行無巨細，必因事而演，遊化夏坐，莫不曲備。雖普曜、本行、度世諸經載佛起居至謂為密，今覽斯經所悟復多矣。傳其將終，我若立根得力，大士誠不虛者。”立斯樹下，手援其葉而棄此身，使那羅延力大象之勢。無能移余如毛髮也，正使就耶維者當不燋此葉；言:“然之後便即立終。”罽膩王自臨而不能動。遂以巨絙象挽未始能搖，即就耶維炎葉不傷。尋昇兜術，與彌勒大士，高談彼宮，將補佛處賢劫第八。 (‘Sa3gharaksa came from Surastra [Xulai 須賴]. Seven hundred years after the time of the Buddha he was born in that kingdom, left the household, studied the doctrine, travelled through the regions teaching [the dharma] and came to the country of Gandhavati [Jiantuoyue 揵陀越]. King Canda-Kaniska made him [his] teacher. He was brilliant, unmatched in his generation and wrote a lot. He also compiled the Yogacarabhumi-sutra [Dadaodi-jing] of that country, and also authored the charter of this sutra [saying]: “The World-Honoured One, since he first achieved enlightenment until he sank into the void, practiced without [distinguishing] between big and small, travelled around and converted, resided during the summer period and definitely achieved [his task] in perfection. Although the actions of the Buddha are recorded in sutras [like] the Lalitavistara [Puyao], the [Buddha-]avadanas [Benxing] and the Dushi-[pinjing] that can even been called secret, the understanding of these sutras is clearly seen as manifold now. [In order to] transmit it [that is, the Buddha’s teaching] to its full end then, if I sharpen my senses and achieve [supernatural] power, the Great Master’s [teaching] is proven not to be false”. He stood under this [Bodhi-] tree, reached out with his hands to its leaves, abandoned his body and transformed it into a great elephant with the power of Narayana [who] could not be moved [although being as light] as hair; he really had a funeral pyre appear [but it could] not burn [the tree’s] leaves. He said: “After having kindled them [I] will then end [my life]”. King Kaniska himself came, but he could [also] not move him; he thereupon rolled the elephant up with a huge rope, [but] still could not start to move him. When the funeral pyre appeared but did not harm the leaves, he rose to Tusita[-heaven] and had free discussion with the great master Maitreya in his palace and will be transferred to where the Buddha dwells in the eighth bhadrakalpa’.) For a French translation see Demiéville (1951: 363) also Zürcher (1968: 356). Zürcher thinks that Zhentuo-jini 甄陀罽膩 is the transliteration of Canda(na) Kani(ska) but for reasons given earlier, I would suggest the underlying form as Canda.


28. T.2145.71b.3ff. In this version in the name of Kaniska, Ji’er-wang 罽貳王, the reading er 貳 *ɲih of the Song, Yuan and Ming edition must be adopted against the inconsistent readings bin 賓 *pjin—certainly influenced by Jibin 罽賓, the Sino-Buddhist name for Ka1mir/Gandhara—and jie 戒 *k7jh, which again should be read ni 膩 *nrih as in T.194 (see earlier discussion). Most readings state that the author of the preface is unknown (weixiang zuozhe 未詳作者), while the Yuan and Ming editions of the canon give the scholar monk Shi Daoan 釋道安 (second half of the fourth century), which is accepted by Zürcher (1968: 356) probably on the basis of the colophon (houji 後記) quoted later in the text (71b. 25ff.).29. De Rauw (2008: 109ff.), questions a strong and direct influence of A1oka, but in my opinion his counter-arguments, especially against the points brought forward by the Chinese scholar Yan Shangwen (Yan, 1999)—the translation of the Ayu-wang-jing, quotations of the sutra in Buddhist texts composed under Wu’s reign, and the restoration of A1okan monasteries by Wudi—are not convincing.30. There is quite a long list of publications dealing with the Buddhist ideology of Wudi: see Jansen (2000; 2001), Janousch (1999), De Rauw (2008), and Chen (2006). I will not discuss here the implications of the Buddhist theory of the decline of the dharma on Wudi’s perception of rulership, but it is interesting in the light of the parallels between the biographies of A1oka and Kaniska discussed earlier to note that Wudi is said to have drawn the borderline between the first period of the true dharma (zhengfa 正法) and the second period of the resemblance of the dharma (xiangfa 像法) between the two Indian masters A1vaghosa and Nagarjuna: See De Rauw (2008: 50).31. For example, the Changgan-si 長干寺 in Jiankang (Nanjing): See Jansen (2001: 93). One should also mention the emperor’s extension of the Ayu-wang-si 阿育王寺 in the year 522 (Nanshi 南史 and Liangshi 梁史; see Jansen [2001: 91, n. 9]).32. On the emperor’s ‘Edict to interdict (the consummation) of alcohol and meat’ (Duan-jiurou-wen 斷酒肉文) see de Rauw (2008: 152ff.).33. See Barrett (2001: 21) and Chen (2002). On the Buddhist legitimist aspects of the Sui emperors as reflected in Fei Zhangfang 費長房 Lidao-sanbao-ji 歷代三寶記 (finished in 598) see Deeg (2010).34. Generally speaking, this period was one of a higher awareness of India and its history through and reflected in Buddhist sources. See Sen (2004).35. On this event see Barrett (2001: 15f.). I suppose that Weinstein’s (1987: 37), statement that the statue looked like Gaozong’s grandfather Gaozu 高祖 is a misprint, since the respective sources do not support this: See Daoxuan’s Ji-shenzhou-sanbao-gantong-lu 集神州三寶感通錄 (T.2106.407a.18ff.).36. On empress Wu’s relic veneration see Barrett (2001).37. Paranavitana (1970: ci.f.; 35, no.468 [47]): Ye ima dipa patamaya idiya agatana Idika-[tera-Ma]hida-teraha tube (‘This is the stupa of the elder Idika


and the elder Mahinda, who came to this island by its foremost good fortune’). I am not completely sure if Paranavitana’s interpretation of the words patamaya idiya is correct, and would suggest that the passage means ‘who first have come to the island by their magic power (idi = rddhi)’. Although the inscription does not mention any royal activity, I think that the fact that many other inscriptions at Rajagala contain the name of King Devanapiya Maharaj(h)a Gamini-Ti1a (nos.422–8) indicates that the royal family was involved in the foundation of the site and its most central monument, the relic-stupa.

Asoka - Model Ruler Without a Name?

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