GANDHÂRA. LEGENDS OF BUDDHA.
The travellers, going downwards from this towards the east, in
five days came to the country of Gandhâra,[1] the place where
Dharma-vivardhana,[2] the son of Aśoka,[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 hînayâna.
NOTES
[1] Eitel says ‘an ancient kingdom, corresponding to the region about
Dheri and Banjour.’ But see chap. xi, note 1.
[2] Dharma-vivardhana is the name in Sanskrit, represented by the Fâ
Yî (法益) of the text.
[3] Aśoka 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 ‘Aśoka’s
coronation can be fixed with absolute certainty within a year or two
either way of 267 B.C.’
[4] This also is a Jâtaka story; but Eitel thinks it may be a myth,
constructed from the story of the blinding of Dharma-vivardhana.