GANDHARA. LEGENDS OF BUDDHA.
The travellers, going downwards from this towards the east, in five
days came to the country of Gandhara,(1) the place where
Dharma-vivardhana,(2) the son of Asoka,(3) ruled. When Buddha was a
Bodhisattva, he gave his eyes also for another man here;(4) and at the
spot they have also reared a large tope, adorned with layers of gold
and silver plates. The people of the country were mostly students of
the hinayana.
NOTES
(1) Eitel says “an ancient kingdom, corresponding to the region about
Dheri and Banjour.” But see note 5.
(2) Dharma-vivardhana is the name in Sanskrit, represented by the Fa Yi
{.} {.} of the text.
(3) Asoka is here mentioned for the first time;—the Constantine of the
Buddhist society, and famous for the number of vihâras and topes which
he erected. He was the grandson of Chandragupta (i.q. Sandracottus), a
rude adventurer, who at one time was a refugee in the camp of Alexander
the Great; and within about twenty years afterwards drove the Greeks
out of India, having defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler of the Indus
provinces. He had by that time made himself king of Magadha. His
grandson was converted to Buddhism by the bold and patient demeanour of
an Arhat whom he had ordered to be buried alive, and became a most
zealous supporter of the new faith. Dr. Rhys Davids (Sacred Books of
the East, vol. xi, p. xlvi) says that “Asoka’s coronation can be fixed
with absolute certainty within a year or two either way of 267 B.C.”
(4) This also is a Jataka story; but Eitel thinks it may be a myth,
constructed from the story of the blinding of Dharma-vivardhana.