Part 1: Asoka in Ancient India
Author: Nayanjot Lahiri
Publisher: (Sri Lankan Edition) published by Sailfish 2015
Ashokavadana (AV) is a Sanskrit book written in the 2nd century CE.
The Shramana Bhawath Gauthama Buddha (ශ්රමණ භවත් ගෞතම බුද්ධ) was the first sage to predict the arrival of the Ashoka. “Here Buddha is shown as having encountered an earlier avatara of Ashoka in the city of Rajagriha. Ashoka was, when thus encountered, a young boy, Jaya by name, who lived in the city of Rajagriha, which the sage had entered seeking alms. Walking along Rajagriha’s main thoroughfare, the Buddha saw two young boys playing in dirt. One of them Jaya, on seeing the Buddha, decided to place a handful of dirt in his begging bowl and said “I would become king and, after placing the earth under a single umbrella of sovereignty, I would pay homage to the blessed Buddha”. Soon thereafter the Buddha predicted to his disciple Ananda that a hundred years after his death “that boy will become a king named Ashoka in the city of Pataliputra. He will be a righteous dharmaraja, a chakravartin who rules over one of the four continents, and he will distribute my relics far and wide and build the eighty-four thousand dharmarajikas.” (AV)
During the reign of the emperor Bindusara, fortune tellers predicted a daughter of a Brahmin from Champa would marry a king and bear two jewel-like sons:one would become a chakrawartin ruling over one of the four continents, the other would wander forth and fulfill his religious vows.” (AV)
The concubines in Bindusara’s court prevented the beautiful daughter of the Brahmana from getting closer to the emperor. They forced her to become a barber. She did it with such a skill that the emperor began to relax completely and fall asleep. Since her grooming gave him so much pleasure, Bindusara granted her a wish. She revealed to him that she is not a barber but a daughter of a Brahmana and the king subsequently made her his chief queen. (AV)
Later, when Ashoka was a young prince an Ajivaka named Pingalavatsajiva who examined Bindusara’s sons realized that Ashoka would succeed Bindusara and revealed this prediction to his mother. (AV)
Apparently, there were three major doctrines in India at the time, namely, Sharamana, Brahamana, and Ajivaka. (ශ්රමණ, බ්රාහ්මණ, හා ආජීවක.)
[A ‘vanished Indian religion’ is how the doctrine of the Ajivakas was described by A. L. Basham, the pre-eminent authority on this sect, and he says ‘vanished’ because the religion, unlike other faiths with ancient roots, has no modern adherents. This extinct sect’s founder was a religious leader called Makkhali Goshala (මක්කලී ඝෝසාල) who lived in the sixth century BCE.]
Bindusara sent young Ashoka as a viceroy to Taxila for few years and then as a viceroy to Malva in central India. Ashoka met a beautiful daughter of a prominent city merchant (Vayshya) in Vidisha on the way to Ujjayini in Malwa. The Deepavansa puts it blandly: the daughter of a Setthi, known by the name of Devi, having cohabited with him, gave birth to a most noble son. A later account (Lines 6, 8, and 12 of the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela) is positively loquacious by comparison: Ashoka, it says, made her his wife; and she was (afterwards) with child by him and born in Ujjeni a beautiful boy, Mahinda, and when two years has passed (she bore) a daughter, Samghamita.
Some ten years after Ashoka became the governor of Ujjayini, the emperor Bindusara became critically ill. The decision to ensure the Bindusara’s eldest son Susima would not succeed him is traced back to a slight that the King’s prime minister suffered at the hands of Susema, the hair apparent. It seems the prince slapped the bold head of the minister in jest. The minister, however, was not amused and formed a coalition hostile to the ‘jester’. The turn of events is described: “Today he slaps me with his hand”, the minister reflected, “when he becomes king he’ll let fall his sward! I had better take action now to ensure that he does not inherit the throne.”. He therefore sought to alienate five hundred ministers from Susima, and saying to them “It has been predicted that Ashoka will become chakravartin ruler over one of the four continents. When the time comes, let us place him on the throne.” (AV)
The clique from Bindusara’s time which has helped Ashoka become king had begun to treating him with contempt. Asoka passed an absurd order for his minsters to comply to test their loyalty. Despite being repeated three times the order was not carried out. Consequently, Ashoka is said to have personally cut off the heads of ‘five hundred’ ministers. (AV)
Ashoka was greatly affected by the carnage at Kalinga. Unlike any other victorious rulers, remorseful Ashoka started to “speak” about the horrors at Kalinga and transformed himself into a completely different ruler. His own voice still survives in rock inscriptions, inscriptions in pillars, and inscriptions in slabs all over India. This emperor’s voice is the subject of the book from the 6th chapter onwards.
About 50 inscriptions of Ashoka have been found so far. The substance of the Girnar rock edicts in Gujarat is given below.
Fourteen edicts which concern diverse subjects: protection of animals from mindless sacrifice; reduction in royal meat consumption, centrality of dhamma; inauguration of dhamma yathras; Kalinga war and its atonement; denunciation of social rituals regarded as superficial; proper courtesy to all kinds of people ranging from slaves to Brahmans; cessation in killings of living beings; public culture in which every sect honours every other; king’s power to punish forest dwellers; spread of dhammic message to borders and states beyond borders; a foreign policy based on welfare measures; creation of senior officials called dharma-mahamathras.
Nayanjot takes the reader from Ashoka’s earlier edicts to his last edict in chronological order pointing out that Ashoka’s message too, evolved through the years. The edicts in Taxila were written both in Brahmi characters and in Greek. There was a large population of Greeks living in Taxila at the time.
Ashoka’s voice fell silent after his last pillar edict at Lumbini. Ashoka died about 10 years after his last edict. (It is possible that newer inscriptions are yet to be found.)
Ashoka’s wives became more prominent during the later years of his life. A queen named Kuruvaki is mentioned in one of the late epigraphs. The image of Kuruvaki is of a self-possessed and strong-willed consort wanting an act of philanthropy recorded as specifically as hers. (page 283) Ashokavadana mentions another wife Tishya-raksha. Apparently, because Ashoka offered his most precious jewels to Bodhi, she thought Bodhi was a woman. She was incensed because ‘although the king pursues his pleasure with me, he sends all the best jewels to Bodhi’s place. She paid money to a sorceress to destroy Bodhi. The sorceress chanted some mantras and tied a thread around the Bodhi. The tree began to wither and Ashoka fainted when the news reached him. Upon regaining consciousness the heartbroken monarch said he would die if the Bodhi perished. When Thishyarakshshitha consoled the sorrowful king by saying that if Bodhi died she would pleasure him, he realized how ignorant she was: “Bodhi is not a woman”, said the king, “but a tree; it is where the Blessed One attained unsurpassed enlightenment. Realizing her mistake, the queen summoned the sorceress to revive the tree and the dying tree was restored to life.
The book is a historical analysis of Ashoka’s voice found among the inscriptions. It is a very good book in that sense. It would have been nice if she had provided maps of the locations mentioned in the book. As a non-Indian reader I had to spend a considerable amount of time googling to find information and locations of these places.
This is how Najanjot ends her story. "For all we know, if knowledge of Ashoka’s words had survived in all their nuances—as did the memory of Ashoka’s Buddhist avatara—he may have been remembered as the founder of a unique political model of humane governance, one which would have been closer to the historical emperor. But in this respect the afterlife of Ashoka, like his real life, remains poised between legend and the truth."
Nayanjot is an historian at the Ashoka University, which is a private research university located in Sonipat, Haryana, India. She has won John F. Richards Price (2016) and the Infosys Price (2013) for this book. Her Infosys Science Foundation Lecture given at the Madras Institute of Development Studies can be found in the following link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA6bDI0xgCs&feature=youtu.be
For your information.
(1) The founder of the lost religion (Ajivaka) was Makkhali Ghosala.
(2) Barbar caves are located near the Patna-Gaya road. There are four caves and at least one of them is donated to Ajivakas by Ashoka. (The Barbar mountain was known as Khalatika mountain during Ashoka's time.)
(3) Megasthenes identified the Sona river as “Erraonboas”. Archeologists have discovered that Sona river joined Ganga near Patna in Ashoka’s time. Sona is a shorten name for “Swarna”. The river was known as “Swarna Bhoo” river in the past. Erraonboas must be a mispronounciation of “Swarna Bhoo”. (Megasthenes stayed at Pataliputhra for about six months during the Chandraguptha’s reign. He identified the Emperor Chandraguptha as Sandrakottos.) Is there any reference to Swarna Bhoo river in the Buddhist literature?
P.s. I think I know the answer to my question 3. One of the trivia that I memorized (perhaps, my mother made me memorize) was “පංච මහා ගංගා”. They are ගංගා, යමුනා, අචිරවතී, සරභූ, මහී. I think Swarna Bhoo is සරභූ. If that’s the case, then what are අචිරවතී and මහී? My guesses are අචිරවතී is the Ghandara river and මහී is the Gandak river by looking at the North-East India map.
In an article written in 1907 titled "The Five Rivers of Buddhists", W. Hoey claimed මහී flows into the Gandak river. However, he identifies සරභූ as a different river and I do not think that claim is correct.
"[...] Finally, the river which is now known as the Mahi flows actually into the Gandak, the Great Gandak, about half a mile above its junction with the Ganges, but practically into the Ganges, near Sonpur (Sonepore), in the same district."
--Journal of Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland--
(4) According to Megasthenes all personal bodyguards of the emperor were women.
(5) There was a Mauryan reservoir constructed during the reign of Chandraguptha by building a brick dam across the Swarna Rekha river (Sonarekka river) in Junagadh. Could it be possible that the reservoir building technology was brought to Sri Lanka by the engineers that may have come with Mahinda thero?
(6) Swarna Rekha reservoir was the only tank built by the Mauryas in India. They built more “vavas” than reservoirs. Vava means a well and the Adi-Chanda vava in Uparkot has depth of 41 meters from top to bottom.
(7) Lakha Medi sthupa was excavated by J. M. Campbell in 1889. He made a massive cut through the stupa and found some relics. These relics are in Jungadh State Museum now.
(8) There is a pillared hall at the Kamrahar locality in Patna. This could be the place where the 3rd Buddhist Council was held. (Saranath pillar edict has a reference to “Samgabheda” (සංග බේද) among the monks and the nuns.)
(9) The Sanchi vihara in Ujjayini could be the “Chathiyagiri”, where Devi took their son Mahinda before he set out on a Buddhist mission to Sri Lanka.
(10) King Rupa Malla of the Naga Dynasty made a pilgrimage to Lumbini in 1312 CE and inscribed “Om Mani Padme Hum” on the Ashoka Pillar.
(11) Gotihawa located between Kapilawasthu and Lumbini was one of the places where 1/8th of Buddha’s relics were taken after the cremation of the body of the Buddha. Excavations reveled a 3rd century BCE brick sthupa at this location. A broken Ashoka Pillar has also been found at this location. Why was Gotihawa so important in early Buddhist history?
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Part 2: The Buddha and the Sahibs
Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: John Murray Paperbacks 2003
This is the story of the “Orientalists” who have discovered the India’s lost history, lost Emperor Ashoka, and the Buddha dhamma that thrived in India during his time. Their methods of discovery were crude, sometimes outright criminal in today’s standards. There were honest sahibs who spent their whole life for science and discovery, and there were opportunistic and greedy sahibs whose only objective was to look for fortunes. Charles Allen has woven a tale of discoveries in a way that takes the reader along the path of the discoveries while (mostly)letting the reader judge the worthiness of actions of the sahibs.
The heroes are William “Oriental” Jones who established the Asiatic Society of Bengal, James Princsep who deciphered the Ashoka edits, George Turnour who translated Mahawansa from Pali to English, Alexander Cunningham who discovered many of the Buddhist pilgrimage sites, and John Marshall who finally introduced proper methods of archeological excavations.
Prinsep tried to decipher the pseudo-Greek lettering first identified on the pillar known as the “Feroz Shah’s lat, later referred to as Delhi No 1. He was unsuccessful for 4 years. The breakthrough came when he examined the two dozen brief inscriptions of the same lettering at the Great Tope at Sanchi. Prinsep decided that these short inscriptions could only be records of donations.
Prinsep was struck by the fact that almost all short transcripts ended with same two characters: a snake-like squiggle and an inverted T followed by a single dot. He also noticed that a single letter (looks like a mirror image of the letter y) appeared frequently before or near the terminal word — and, as luck would have it, he observed the same letter on some coins from Saurashtra which he determined to mean “of” the equivalent of Pali “ssa”. If his hunch were correct then the general structure of each sentence was something like “So-and-so of, the gift”. On 23 May, 1837 Prinsep wrote an excited note to Alexander Cunningham:
My dear Cunningham: Hons de department de mes etudes! … No, but I can read Delhi No 1 which is of more importance; the Sanchi inscriptions have enlightened me. Each line engraved on a separate pillar or railing. Then I thought, they must be gifts of private individuals where names will be recorded. All end in “two letters”—that must mean “gift” or “given”. A translation of a such sentence is: “Isa-palitasa-cha Samanasa-cha danam” (The gift of Isa-Palita and of Samana.)
The opening sentence of Delhi No 1 had been observed to repeat itself over and over again at the start of great many sections or paragraphs of text in the pillar inscriptions and on the Girnar and Dauli rocks. This Prinsep could now read as “Devanampiya piyadasi laja hevam aha”.
Here he observed that the language is not Sanskrit but a vernacular modification of it, which has been so fortunately preserved in Pali scriptures of Ceylon and Ava. (Ava was a kingdom in Burma.) After conferring with Ratna Paula, his Pali-speaker from Ceylon, Prinsep had concluded that this opening phrase was best represented in English as “Thus spake King Piyadasi, Beloved of the Gods”.
But who was the author of these extraordinary edicts? Who is Piyadasi? Prisep couldn’t find a Piyadasi in all Hindu genealogical tables that he consulted. Only one possible candidate presented himself, one who had emerged from George Turnour’s translations of the Pali Chronicles of Ceylon: King Devanampeatissa succeeded his father on the throne of Ceylon in the year of Buddha 236. He induced Dharmasoka, a sovereign of the many kingdoms into which Dambadiva was divided, and who’s capital was Pataliputta, to depute his son Mahinda ad his daughter Sangamitta, with several other principal priests to Anuradhapura for the purpose of introducing the religion of Buddha.
On June 6th Turnour sent a letter to Prinsep. “Since coming to Colombo, I have made a most important discovery”, wrote Turnour. While sorting through a collection of Pali works brought to Ceylon from Siam by a Sinhalese official in 1812 he had found following lines in reference to Dharma Ashoka. “Here then we find Ashoka was surnamed Piyadassi; and and if you will turn to the fifth chapter of the Mahawanso, especially pages 28 and 29, you will find the circumstances under which the Buddhistical edifices were simultaneously erected all over India”.
Let me finish this note by pointing out that not all Sahibs were good.
James Campbell, the Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Akbari in Bombay Presidency in the 1890s, excavated several sites in Gujarat. Among his early triumphs was finding a new Ashokan rock edict—it was taken to bits, mislaid, and lost—and a relic subsequently identified by the accompanying inscription as a segment of Buddha’s alms bowl—it was thrown away. He then moved on to tear apart the “Girnar Mound”, a large stupa a few miles south of the famous Girnar rock inscription discovered by James Tod in 1812. (page 256)
අන්ද්රා ප්රදේශයෙහි පිහිටි ක්රි.ව. 200 දී පමණ ඉදිකර ඇති අමරාවතී නම් වූ විහාරස්ථානයේ නටබුන් ක්රි.ව. 1800 පමණ වනතෙක් ආරක්ෂා වී තිබින. (ලංකාවට දන්ත ධාතුව වැඩම කිරීමට පෙර, එය අමරාවතියෙහි තැන්පත් කර තිබිනැයි කියවේ.)
1797 දී කර්නල් කොලින් මැකෙන්සි අමරාවතිය පරීක්ෂා කිරීමට පැමිණි අවස්ථාව ගැන මෙසේ සඳහන් වේ.
While surveying in Madras and Hyderabad, Mackenzie received reports that slabs of finely-carved stone were being used as construction materials by a local princeling, the Raja of Chintapalli, in the process of building a new town beside a temple of Shiva. He arrived at the village of Amaravathi to find the Raja’s workmen digging into the vast circular hill well over five hundred feet in circumference with a solid core composed of bricks. A section of the lower rim of the hill had been exposed, and revealed a wall of finely-carved stones unlike anything he has seen before.
The Raja noted that Mackenzie eagerly inspect the place, thought it might conceal something of value. Raja commanded the mussulmen who were living there to move elsewhere, as he designed to form a garden there and a reservoir at the center.
ජාවා රටේ පැවැති යුද්ධයකට සහභාගී වූ මැකෙන්සි ඔහුගේ කණ්ඩායමක් සමග 1816 දී අමරාවතියට නැවත පැමිණ ඇත. ඔහු දැක ඇත්තේ සිත් කම්පා වන දර්ශනයකි.
The hill he had watched being excavated for its bricks by the Raja of Chintapalli was now little more than a shell, with a large tank or square reservoir dug into the centre. It was obvious that this was indeed the remains of what Mackenzie termed a “tope”. It was also clear that the tope had once been entirely surrounded by a paved walkway some twelve feet broad, enclosed inside and out by by a monumental stone colonnade. Most of the stone from this colonnade has gone; large number of pillars and beams had been used to form a flight steps leading down to a nearby bathing tank, while hundreds of slabs had ended in the walls of a nearby Saivite temple and other buildings.
A cursory dig by Mackenzie uncovered one last section of the railing still in place, made up about a hundred and thirty pillars and slabs in all, every one a work of art “very neatly executed.” (ඉහත ඇති පින්තූර බලන්න.)
ඊට පසු අමරාවතියට ගිය ඉංග්රීසි ජතිකයා වෝල්ටර් එලියට ය. ඒ 1845 දීය. ඔහු දුටු දේ හද කකිය වන සුළු ය.
“Every fragment of former excavations” had been “carried away and burnt into lime”.
දැන් අමරාවතිය තිබූ තැන දෑවැන්ත බුදු පිළිමයක් අඹා ඇත. මෙය ප්රාන්ත රජය පෙර කරන ලද පව් සෝදා ගැනීමේ තැතක් විය හැක.
For your information:
(0) This is an excellent book, and in my opinion, that must be in any Sri Lankan’s private library.
(1) Most of this note, (i.e., Part 2) appeared as an article on the Daily Mirror newspaper, October 14, 2018.
(2) The person who helped Prinsep with Pali was a Sinhalese named “Ratna Paula”. I believe this is a corruption of “රතනපාල”. Who is this රතනපාල?
Thennekoon Wimalanada included the following observation in the preface of his book "Buddhism in Ceylon Under the Christian Powers".
Christian missionaries were looking for someone to translate the Bible to Sinhala. They could not find a suitable person among the new converts. It was therefore, not a little ironical that they should, in the end, have been forced to have recourse a Buddhist monk to give them the needed help. The Buddhist monk Rathanapala thero was not only versed in the Christian scriptures but also a profound scholar in the Sinhalese, Pali, Sanskrit, English, and Burmese languages.
Apparently, Cunningham acknowledged Ranathanapala’s contributions in his books “The Stupa of Bharhut” and “The Bhilsa Topes: Buddhist Monuments of Central India”.
Cunningham's books are available for free on archive.org.
(3) "පොත් කියවන අය" සංසදය තුලින් හඳුනා ගත් මා මිත්ර ශාණක ඉරෝශන පීරිස් මහතා පහත සඳහන් සොයා ගැනීම් මා වෙත එවීය. එම කරුණු මෙහි ඇතුලත් කිරීමට ඒ මහතා මා හට අවසර දුනි. එම මහතාට මගේ හ්රදයාංගම ස්තූතිය පිරි නමමි.
ඇසෑමයේ රජ(?) බවට පත් වූ ලංකාවේ හාමුදුරුවෝ සහ ඉන්දියාවේ ධන කුවේරයෙකු වූ රතනපාල
Readers Corner සමූහයට Charles Allen රචනා කළ "Ashoka - The Search for India's lost emperor" කෘතිය පිළිබඳව සුනිල් කොස්වත්ත මහතා සටහනක් එකතු කර තිබුණි. එම සටහනේදී අසෝක ශිලා ලිපි කියවීමේදී ජේම්ස් ප්රින්සෙප් මහතාට ඇති වු පාලි භාෂාව පිළිබඳ ගැටලුවලට සහය වූ "Rathna Paula" නමැත්තා ගැන වැඩි විස්තරයක් දැන ගැනීමට එම මහතාට අවශ්ය වී තිබුණි.
මීට කලකට පෙර දේශය පුවත්පතට සැපයු ලිපි පෙළකදීත් ආචාර්ය සරත් අමුණගම මේ "Rathna Paula" කවුදැයි යන්න සෙවිය යුතු බවට සඳහනක් කොට තිබුණි. ඊට අදාළ තොරතුරු අමාත්යවරයාට ලබාදීමට ෆේස්බුක් පණිවිඩයක් මගින් ලබාදීමට උත්සාහ ගත්තද එය සඵල නොවීය. මෙම සටහන ඔහු හා ඔහුගේ ආචාර්යවරයා පිළිබඳවයි.
අමරපුර නිකායේ ආදිකර්තෘවර බෝධිසත්පගුණෝපේත අඹගහපිටියේ ඤාණවිමලතිස්ස හිමියෝ දහඅටවැනි සියවස ආරම්භයේදි උපසම්පදාව ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා බුරුමයට වැඩම කළහ. එහිදි උන්වහන්සේ සමග බුරුමයට වැඩම කළ සාමණේර හිමිවරු අතරින් එක් නමක් වන්නේ වතුරේගම ධම්මාධාරතිස්ස හිමියන්ය. උපසම්පදාව ලබා ලංකාවට පැමිණ වර්ෂයකින් පමණ වතුරේගම හිමියන් ඤාණවිමලතිස්ස තිස්ස හිමියන් සමග නැවතත් මෙරට නොතිබුණු පොත්පත් ලබා ගැනීම සඳහා මෙන්ම අධ්යාපන කටයුතු සඳහා බුරුමයට ගොස් ඇත. එවර ධම්මාධරතිස්ස හිමියෝ බුරුමයෙහිම නැවතීමට තීරණය කළහ. ( ඇතැම් සටහනකට අනුව පළමු වරම ධම්මධාරතිස්ස හිමියන් බුරුමයෙහි නැවතී ඇත.) පොල්වත්තේ බුද්ධදත්ත හිමියෝ සමීපාතීතයෙහි බෞද්ධාචර්යයෝ කෘතියේ දී වතුරේගම හිමියන් බුරුමයේ ගත කළ කාලය පිළිබඳව ඥානාදර්ශ සඟරාවෙන් ලිපියක් උපුටා දක්වා ඇත. ඊට අනුව වතුරේගම හිමියන් බුරුම රජුගේ ප්රසාදය දිනාගෙන රාජගුරු අභිධානයද හිමි කරගෙන ඇත. පසුව රජු විසින් එවකට බුරුමයේ යටතේ පැවති ඇසෑමයේ ආණ්ඩුකාරධූරයට පත් කොට ඇත. පසුව පළමු බ්රිතාන්ය බුරුම යුද්ධයේදී ඇසෑමයේ අගනුවර බ්රිතාන්යයන් වට කළ විට උන්වහන්සේ ඔවුන් හා සාකච්ඡා කොට ඇසෑමය යටත් වීම ප්රකාශ කොට ඇත. ඉන්පසුව බ්රිතාන්ය ආරක්ෂාව සහ අනුග්රහය යටතේ කල්කටාව පැමිණ අනතුරුව නැවතත් ශ්රී ලංකාවට වැඩම කොට අඹගහපිටිය පුෂ්පාරාමයේ වැඩ වාසය කොට ඇත. වර්ෂ 78ක් පමණ ආයු වළඳ උන්වහන්සේ 1855 දී අපවත් වී ඇත.
ජනප්රවාදයේ එන පරිදි "රූණ හාමිනේ" නම් කිවිඳියට උන්වහන්සේ යැවු කවියක් මෙසේය.
"නෙක රටවල ඇවිද මම දැකපු විසිතුරු
එක මුවකින් වනා නිමවනු බැරි අයුරු
මෙකතට සරිලියක් මම නුදුටිමි මිතුරු
ලක රජ මහිමි නම් අද දෙමි නෙක ඉසුරු"
එහෙත් බුද්ධදත්ත හිමියෝම තවත් තැනක ඇසෑමයේ රජු වතුරේගම හිමියන්ට රාජ්යය භාරදී යුද්ධයට ගොස් මළ බවත් ඉන් පසුව අමාත්ය මණ්ඩලය සහ රටවැසියා විසින් වතුරේගම හිමියන් රජ බවට පත් කළ බවත් ඉන් පසුව ඇසෑමයේ යටත්වීම ප්රකාශ කළ බවත් කියති. වතුරේගම හිමියන්ද තමන්වහන්සේ රජ වූ බවට ප්රකාශකළ බවට සාක්ෂ්ය ඇත.
එහෙත් ඇසෑමයේ ඉතිහාසය පිළිබඳව අන්තර්ජාල මූලාශ්ර පරීක්ෂා කිරීමේදී මඳක් වෙනස් තොරතුරු මුණ ගැසෙයි. ඊට අනුව පළමු බ්රිතාන්ය බුරුම යුද්ධ සමය වනවිට ඇසෑමයේ පාලකයා වී ඇත්තේ බුරුමයෙන් පත් කළ රූකඩ රජෙකි. (ඔහු හා රජු ලෙස පෙනී සිටි තිදෙනෙක් පසුව බ්රිතාන්යයන් විසුන් පිටුවහල් කොට ඇත.) ඇසෑමයේ අවසාන බුරුම බලකොටුව වන රංග්පූර් බ්රිතාන්යයන් විසින් වට කළ විට බූරුම සේනාධිපතිවරයා සාකච්ඡා සඳහා "Dhammadr Bramchari" නම් ලංකාවේ උපන් බුරුමයේ හැදිවැඩුණු භික්ෂුවක් එවා ඇත. එම සාකච්ඡාවල ප්රතිඵලයක් ලෙස රංග්පුර් බ්රිතාන්යයන් යටතට පත් කිරීමටත් බුරුම සේනාවට සිය මව්රටට ප්රතිප්රහරයකට ලක් නොවී පසුබැසීමටත් අවස්ථාව ලැබී ඇත. මින් පැහැදිලි වන්නේ වතුරේගම හිමියන් ක්රියා කොට ඇත්තේ මැදිහත්කරුවෙකු ලෙස බවය. එහෙත් ලංකාවට පැමිණෙන විට උන්වහන්සේ ඇසෑමයේ රජ බවට පත් වී ඇත. ඇසෑමයේ ඉරණම තීරණය කළ තමන්වහන්සේ එරට රජු බවට තාවකාලික පත් වූ බවක් උන්වහන්සේට දැනෙන්නට ඇත. ඇතැම්විටක මුසාවාදය දරුණු ගණයේ ඇවැතක් යැයි උන්වහන්සේට අමතක වූවාදැයි සැක සිතෙයි.
වතුරේගම හිමියන්ගේ "මට මගේම නොවන රාජ්යයක් තිබුණා" ද නැද්ද යන්න පසෙක තබා උන්වහන්සේගේ ගෝලයෙකු වූ කල්කටාවේ ධනකුවේරයෙකු බවට පත් වූ රතනපාල පිළිබඳව දැන් විමසා බලමු. එම තොරතුරු මම කියවු එකම මූලාශ්රය වන්නේ බළපිටියේ තරුණ බෞද්ධ සමිතියේ රජත ජයන්තිය නිමිත්තෙන් පළ කළ වැලිතොට නම් ග්රන්ථයේ එන "කල්කටාවේ නම තැබූ වැලිතොට පුත්රයා" යන ලිපියයි. එහි ලේඛකයා ගල්වෙහෙර සී ද ඉසැඩ් ගුණරත්න නම් මහතෙකි. ලිපිය ඇරඹෙන්නේ ප්රින්සෙප් හට රතනපාල නම් සිංහල මහතෙකු උදව් කළ බවට පැවසෙන ශ්රීමත් අනගාරික ධර්මපාල චරිතයේ එන සටහනකිනි. අනතුරුව රතනපාල මහතාගේ චරිතය කෙටියෙන් දක්වා ඇත. ඒ අනුව රතනපාල මහතා 1788 දී පමණ උපත ලබා ඇති අතර ඔහුගේ මව වතුරේගම හිමියන්ගේ මවගේ වැඩිමල් සහෝදරිය වෙයි. මුරණ්ඩු දරුවෙකු වූ රතනපාලව තමා භාරයට ගත් වතුරේගම හිමියන් ඤාණවිමලතිස්ස හිමියන් ලවා පැවිද්ද ලබා දී ඇත. ඤාණවිමලතිස්ස හිමියන්ගේ දෙවැනි බුරුම ගමනට එක වූ රතනපාල සාමණේයන් වතුරේගම හිමියන් සමග එහිම නැවතී පසුව උපැවිදි ව "රත්නපෝල්"නමින් ප්රකට වී ඇත.
ධම්මාධාර හිමියන් නැවතත් ලංකාවට පැමිණෙද්දි තමන් දැන සිටි තීන්ත වට්ටෝරුවක් රතනපාල හට ලබා දී ඇත. එම වට්ටෝරුව භාවිතාකොට "පාල් තීන්ත" නම් තීන්ත වර්ගයක් ඉන්දීය වෙළඳපොළට හඳුන්වා දී රතනපාල ධන කුවේරයෙකු බවට පත් ඇත. පැවිද්දේකු ලෙස ලද භාෂාතමක දැනුමද ඔහුට බ්රිතාන්ය උගතුන් සමගද සබඳතා පැවැත්වීම පහසු කරන්නට ඇත. නැවත ලංකාවට නොපැමිණි ඔහු සිය ධනය මෙරට විහාරස්ථානවල අභිවෘද්ධියට යොදවා ඇත. 1856 දී කල්කටාවේදී රතනපාල මියගිය අතර උරුමකරුවෙකු නොවු බැවින් එම බුදලයට ඉදිරිපත්වන ලෙස ලංකාවේ ඔහුගේ ඥාතීන්ට දැනුම්දීමක් කොටඇත.
එම ලිපිය සම්පාදනය කිරීමට ගුණරත්න මහතා රතනපාල බූදල් වර්තාව සහ වැලිතර අඹගහපිටිය විහාර පුස්තාකලයෙන් හමුවුණු වතුරේගම හිමියන් විසින් රතනපාල හට යැවූ ලියුමක පිටපතක් භාවිතා කොට ඇත. අවසානයට එකී ලියුමද ලිපියට ඇතුළත් කොට ඇත.
ඊට අනුව රතනපාලගේ මුරණ්ඩු ක්රියා නිසා වතුරේගම හිමියන්ගේ දැඩි අපහසුතාවලට ලක් වූ බව පැහැදිලි වේ. එසේම ඇසෑමයේ රජ රාජ්යය තමන්වහන්සේට රජකම භාර දී යුද්ධයට ගිය බවක්ද උන්වහන්සේ පවසති. ලියුම අවසානයේ උන්වහන්සේ සිය නම ලෙස සඳහන් කරන්නේ "වතුරේගම ධර්මාධාර බ්රහ්මචාරි රාජගුරු තෙරුන් වහන්සේ" ලෙසය. ඇසෑම් ඉතිහාස සටහන්වල උන්වහන්සේව " Dhammadar Bramchari ලෙස හැඳින්වීම නිවැරැදි බව මින් වැටහෙයි.
මූලාශ්ර:
සමීපාතීතයෙහි බෞද්ධාචර්යයෝ - අග්ගමහාපණ්ඩිත පොල්වත්තෙ බුද්ධදත්ත හිමි
වැලිතොට - සංස්කාරකවරු - වෛද්යකලානිධි ඩී.ඩී.ඇම් සෙනෙවිරත්න
විදුහල්පති පී.ඩී.පී පියතිලක
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Part 3: Ashoka—The Search for India’s Lost Emperor
Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: The Overlook Press 2012
This is an expanded version of the “Buddha and the Sahibs” book. (There are more details in this book and if you are planning to buy “Buddha and the Sahibs” book, then I suggest buying this book instead.) I have been skip-reading this book for the same reason.
Here is how Prinsep deciphered the “Delhi 1” edicts using the Sanchi edicts.
Both in Sanskrit and Pali the verb “to give” was දාන and the noun “gift” or “donation” දානං, sharing the same Indo-European root as the Latin “donare” (to give) and “donus” (gift). This led Prinsep to “the speedy recognition of the word දානං, teaching me the very two letters (of the Ashoka-Brahmi or Brahmi No 1) d and n. The snake-like squiggle represented the sound “දා”, the inverted T the sound “න”, and the inverted T with the single dot the sound “නං”. My acquaintance with ancient alphabets had become so familiar that most of the remaining letters in the present example could be named at once on re-inspection. In the course of few minutes I thus became possessed of the whole alphabet, which I tested by applying it to the inscription on the Delhi column.
The word “laja” initially threw both Prinsep and රතනපාල, until they realized that this was “the license of a loose vernacular orthography” and the intended word was “raja”. (See the attached image as a comment.)
Here’s the Turnour’s contribution in detail. (This was sent to Prinsep.)
I have made a most important discovery. You will find in the introduction to my Epitome that a valuable collection of Pali works was brought back to Ceylon from Siam, by George Nodaris, modliar (chief of the cinnamon department, and then a Buddhist priest) in 1812. This collection of Pali texts included a copy of the Island Chronicle, the original chronicle from which the later Great Dynastic Chronicle took its earliest historical material, but in a less corrupted version than that upon which Turnour had based his translation—and with a crucial differences. While casually turning the leaves of the manuscript I had hit upon an entirely new passage relating to the identity of Piyadasi … who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and own son of Bindusara, was at the time Viceroy of Ujjayani.
King Devanmpriya Piyadasi of the Feroz Shar Lat inscription (Delhi 1) was not King Devanampiathissa of Lanka, as Prinsep had assumed. He was his Indian contemporary Ashka Maurya.
For your information:
Charles Allen had conversations with පූජ්ය වස්කඩුවේ මහින්දවංස මහ නායක හිමි, elder and abbot of Buddhist monastery of රාජගුරු ශ්රී සුභූති මහා විහාර situated beside the sea and the road between Colombo and Galle in Sri Lanka. There he was shown some of the extensive correspondence that had taken place between Venerable Waskaduwe’s predecessor the distinguished Pali scholar Venerable Subhuthi and three generations of British Orienalists, beginning with letters written by Sir Alexander Cunningham from the Bharhut excavation site in 1861, continuing with letters from Robert Childers from 1870s into 1890s, and ending with letters from Vincent Smith, sent from Bihar in 1898.
